Then sent His messengers and series of His prophets towards...

Then sent His messengers and series of His prophets towards them to let them fulfill the pledges of His creation, to recall to them his bounties....[^1] the last part of this quotation reveals some peculiarities of the community in the 'Age of Ignorance', in which Prophets were sent by God to people. These peculiarities are hereunder explained. It says that 'in course of time many people perverted God's' trust.

The Holy Qur’an speaks about 'ahd on several occasions, examples of which are given below, “Thy Lord has decreed you shall not serve any but Him ... “ (17:23) “Made I not covenant with you, children of Adam, that you should not serve Satan - surely he is a manifest foe to you ...?” (36:60) “... And God made them testify concerning themselves, 'Am I not your Lord? 'They said,' yes, we testify ...

“ (7:172) These verses imply that God's covenant ('ahd) is to abstain from servitude to Satan, that man's servitude should be exclusively for God and that human beings have primordially admitted that they are servants of God and should serve Him alone. This is the meaning of 'ahd (trust and covenant) to which the Commander of the Faithful refers in the Nahjul Balaghah.

In fact, he says that most of the people broke their allegiance with God and disobeyed His commands by worshipping idols, taking partners (holders of power and possessions) along with Him, imposing themselves on other people as worship-deserving idols and perverting the divine decree through ignoring or exclusive obedience to God. It was under these conditions, the Commander of the Faithful asserts, that God brought about prophethood and appointed His Prophets.

This is also emphasized in other statements of the first Sermon after describing the appearance of the Prophet of Islam and not the appearance of the prophets at large, although the social conditions and mental atmosphere in which all the Prophets, including Abraham, Moses, Jesus and others, have appeared have been the same, and thus what is said about the Prophet of Islam fits other Prophets as well.

“The statements run as under the people of the earth at this time were divided in different Parties, their aims were separate and their ways were diverse. They either likened God with His creation or twisted His Names or turned to other than Him. ..,”[^2] It says that the Prophet was appointed to prophethood at a time when people were divided in groups with different ways of thinking, i.e..