The Finality of Prophethood

refers to the completion of the Quran as revealed to Prophet Muhammad over a period of 23 years. Thus, it is the completion of the revelation, which is mentioned here, and not the completion of Divine Religion. That is why the wording is not ‘Today I have completed religion,’ but, ‘This day I have completed your religion for you.’ The truth is that God has given His religion to man in a perfect form in every age. God has never given man an imperfect religion. The community of believers in the Quran has been made by God to stand on such a solid foundation that it has the potential, to remain safe from all external dangers. Now, if it is ever to be harmed, it will be by its own internal weakness and not by external attacks or other dangers. The only guarantee of remaining free from internal weakness is that its members always go in fear of God. In this verse ‘perfection of religion’ does not refer to the comprehensiveness of its rendition by the Prophet. That is to say that it does not mean that all the possible commands relative to all walks of life have been revealed to the final Prophet. In this verse ‘the perfection of religion for you’ means not the completion of the commands but the consolidation of religion. That is, now the religion of God is based on solid foundations. This consolidation is so perfect that it has risen above all enemy plots and will not be harmed by them. From now until Doomsday, no antagonistic moves will ever affect it. The commentator An Nasafi has explained this verse as follows: “I have completed your religion” means that God had made the believers secure from the fear of enemies. He had given them dominion over the disbelievers. It is just like the kings saying that today “Our power has been consolidated. That is, we are now secure from our enemies.” (Tafsir an Nasafi, Vol. 1, p. 426) This verse is an indirect declaration of the finality of prophethood. A new prophet comes when the religion brought by the previous prophet is not preserved in its original form, that is, when the world is deprived of true guidance from God. Now when the consolidation of religion has become a guarantee that no plot or antagonistic move can distort the original form of God’s religion, then in this situation there is no need for the arrival of a new prophet. In more recent times, some self-styled claimants to prophethood arose and produced new religions, for instance Bahaullah (d. 1892) and Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Qadiani of India (d.1908). The argument common to all these self-styled prophets was that since times had changed, humanity had passed from the traditional age to the scientific age, or from the handicraft age to the machine age, and therefore the need had arisen to give man fresh guidance in view of the changed circumstances. On the basis of this thesis, they claimed that God had made them prophets to fulfill that need and had revealed His words to them. This argument is wholly baseless and irrelevant. It is, of course, true that with the aid of the latest technology, many changes have been made in modem times, which have affected the course of civilization. But all these changes have nothing to do with revelation or prophethood. These words of the Prophet: “You know your worldly matters better.” (Sahih Muslim, Hadith