Surah An-Nisa, Ayah 165

Revelation Came to Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, Just as it Came to the Prophets Before Him

Muhammad bin Ishaq narrated that Muhammad bin Abi Muhammad said that `Ikrimah, or Sa`id bin Jubayr, related to Ibn `Abbas that he said, "Sukayn and `Adi bin Zayd said, `O Muhammad! We do not know that Allah sent down anything to any human after Musa.' Allah sent down a rebuttal of their statement,

إِنَّآ أَوْحَيْنَآ إِلَيْكَ كَمَآ أَوْحَيْنَآ إِلَى نُوحٍ وَالنَّبِيِّينَ مِن بَعْدِهِ

(Verily, We have inspired you (O Muhammad) as We inspired Nuh and the Prophets after him.)" Allah states that He sent down revelation to His servant and Messenger Muhammad ﷺ just as He sent down revelation to previous Prophets. Allah said,

Then comes verse رُّ‌سُلًا مُّبَشِّرِ‌ينَ وَمُنذِرِ‌ينَ (-- Messengers giving good tidings and warning...) which succinctly tells that Almighty Allah consistently sent messengers to convey good tidings to all believers and to warn all disbelievers so that there remains no room for the excuse that they did not know the will of God and His Messengers --had they known about it, they would have certainly followed it! Now, that Almighty Allah has sent messengers with miracles and His messengers have shown the straight path of truth, the option of not accepting the true faith cannot be accepted from anyone, under any pretext or excuse. Such is the nature of Divine Revelation. Wahy is an absolute argument, final, conclusive and disarming. No argument stands operative against it. In fact, all arguments lie surrendered under its weight. And this is the wisdom of Allah and His modus operandi.

It has been narrated by Sayyidna Ibn ` Abbas ؓ عنہما that a group of Jews came to the Holy Prophet ﷺ . He said to them: Surely, you do know that I am a true messenger of Ajllah? They refused to accept that whereupon came the following verse (166): لَّـٰكِنِ اللَّـهُ يَشْهَدُ بِمَا أَنزَلَ إِلَيْكَ. 'But Allah bears witness (to your prophethood) through what He has revealed to you ...' The verse addressed to the Holy Prophet ﷺ declares that Allah is a witness to his prophet-hood through the miraculous Qur'an, a perfect message from out of His Knowledge. The Book has been revealed to him with full realization that he is deserving of it, and the angels too join in the testimony. After the very witnessing of the All-Knowing, All-Aware Allah, there is nothing left to argue about.

The text, after having confirmed the veracity of the glorious Qur'an and the noble Prophet ﷺ ، turns to those who still deny them, conceal his character traits and circumstantial indicators of his appearance present in the Torah .and, sordidly enough, try to keep others away from the true faith by bringing out before them things which are not there or things .which have .been jumbled together to distort the truth. For such people, there shall be no forgiveness and no guidance either. Thus, it becomes very clear that guidance or the ability to find the straight path depends on following the Holy Prophet ﷺ and straying away, whatever be its nature, is nothing but hostility towards him. This, then, comprehensively refutes all erroneous ideas of the Jews.

God created man, and then He created Paradise and Hell. Man was later settled on the earth. Here man has freedom to do as he wishes. But this freedom is not forever. It is temporary and meant for his trial. It is so that good and bad may be distinguished from one another. God is watching those who, despite being granted freedom, can adopt realistic attitudes, and surrender themselves to the will of God, and who are the people who misuse their freedom and prove themselves to be rebels. Both kinds of people have been mixed in this world. Both have equal opportunity to gain fully from the blessings of God. But, after the completion of the appointed time of trial, those groups will be separated from one another. The first group will be lodged in the Gardens of Paradise forever, while the second group will be consigned to Hell for all eternity. This plan devised by God for human existence put man in an extremely delicate situation, for the outcome of his brief stay in this world was going to appear in one of two extreme forms—either eternal comfort or eternal chastisement. That is why, besides other natural arrangements for divine guidance, God also arranged to send to mankind His messengers and His Scriptures, so that no one should remain unaware of the reality of life. No one may then attempt to excuse his misconduct on the plea that he was not informed of the divine plan of how human beings were expected to lead their lives. From start to finish, this divine plan necessitated all of the prophets bringing the same message and the same mission to mankind. For, when all human beings without exception are to be weighed in the divine scale, how could their ‘test papers’ be different from one another? The truth is that the message brought by all the prophets was one and the same and they communicated that same message to all human beings: that everyone is standing at a perilous watershed. On one side of it is Paradise and on the other is Hell. If one steps to one side, one will reach Paradise; if one steps to the other, one will fall into the gorge of Hell. All the prophets had this identical message.