ভূমিকা

“Say: ‘O mankind!*** I am the messenger of Allah to you all, of Him to Whom belongs the Sovereignty of the heavens and the earth. There is no god but He. He gives life. And makes to die’.

Believe then in Allah and His Messenger, the unschooled prophet, who believes in Allah and His words, and follow him so that you may be guided.” Some of orientalists have said that the Prophet of Islam (S) was thinking only for the people of his own region, but when he succeeded he thought to preach other people of the world, too.

In answer to this statement, it should be said that there are some different verses of the Qur’ān containing such words as: ‘you all’, [^1] ‘the whole of mankind’ [^2] ‘whoever it reaches’ [^3] ‘unto the worlds’.[^4] These Qur’ānic evidences prove that his prophethood was worldly. He was commissioned to be a prophet over all people of the world when he was in Mecca and before gaining his success.

It was not so, as those orientalists say, that later he decided to invite all the people of the world. Imam Hassan Mujtabā (as), the second Imam, has said: “Once some of the Jewish people came to the Messenger of Allah and said: ‘Do you suppose that you are a prophet the same as Moses was?’ After a while of keeping silence, he answered: ‘Yes. I am the master of the (whole) children of Adam, but I do not boast of it.

I am the seal of prophets, the leader of the pious, and the Messenger of the Lord of the worlds.’ They asked: ‘Whom have you been sent to? To Arabs, or to non-Arabs, or to us?’ Then the above verse was revealed with the meaning that he was sent as a Messenger to the whole mankind.” ^5 The repetition of the Qur’ānic word /’Ummi/ in this holy verse and in the sixth verse before this, is an indication to its importance.

However, the prophethood of Mohammad (S) is surely worldly, and a worldly Divine religion needs a worldly leader. Like any project, his Messengership, of course, progressed stage by stage.