THE PROPHET AND HIS MISSION — From The Quran

What is the reason for these two starkly different pictures of one and the same personality? It is that in his lifetime, a prophet appears to his contemporaries as a common man. But over the centuries, he acquires the status of an established personality and thus attains historical grandeur. In the first picture, the Prophet has yet to receive acclaim, while in the second, the Prophet is at the zenith of historical grandeur. The Quran tells us that only that faith is acceptable to God which conforms to the example set by the Companions: If they believe as you have done, they shall be rightly guided; if they do not, they shall surely be in schism. Against them, God is your all- sufficient defender. He is the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing. (THE QURAN 2: 137) The Companions are those believers who were the Prophet's contemporaries. They saw the initial picture of the Prophet when he had not yet acquired an aura of historical grandeur, and yet they recognized the greatness in him. At that time the Prophet appeared to be a common man like any other, and not at all like the extraordinary person that he is described as in today's superfluous terms. The first picture of the Prophet is the real one. The rest has been added to by history. The credit for believing in the Prophet can be given, in the real sense of the word, only to a person who eliminates the additions of history and recognizes him as he actually was. The Knowledge of the Unseen We learn from the Quran that God alone has knowledge of the Unseen. As the Quran states: He alone has knowledge of what is hidden: His secrets He reveals to none. (THE QURAN 72: 26) The Quran has repeatedly made it clear that the Prophet of Islam was not given full knowledge of the unseen world. On certain occasions God revealed something of the unseen world in advance to the Prophet through the Angel Gabriel, for instance, the result of the Hudaybiya treaty in the form of a 'clear victory' (THE QURAN 48: 1). But the Prophet