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The human nature of the Prophets

Friday Khutba by Dr Zahid Aziz, for Lahore Ahmadiyya UK, 22 November 2024

“Say: I am only a mortal like you — it is revealed to me that your God is one God. So whoever hopes to meet his Lord, he should do good deeds, and make no one a partner (with God) in the service of his Lord.” — ch. 18, Al-Kahf, v. 110	قُلۡ اِنَّمَاۤ اَنَا بَشَرٌ مِّثۡلُکُمۡ یُوۡحٰۤی اِلَیَّ اَنَّمَاۤ اِلٰـہُکُمۡ اِلٰہٌ وَّاحِدٌ ۚ فَمَنۡ کَانَ یَرۡجُوۡا لِقَآءَ رَبِّہٖ فَلۡیَعۡمَلۡ عَمَلًا صَالِحًا وَّ لَا یُشۡرِکۡ بِعِبَادَۃِ رَبِّہٖۤ اَحَدًا ﴿۱۱۰﴾٪
“Their messengers said to them: We are nothing but mortals like yourselves, but Allah bestows (His) favours on whom He pleases of His servants. And it is not for us to bring you an authority (or order), except by Allah’s permission. And on Allah let the believers rely.” — ch. 14, Ibrāhīm, v. 11	قَالَتۡ لَہُمۡ رُسُلُہُمۡ اِنۡ نَّحۡنُ اِلَّا بَشَرٌ مِّثۡلُکُمۡ وَ لٰکِنَّ اللّٰہَ یَمُنُّ عَلٰی مَنۡ یَّشَآءُ مِنۡ عِبَادِہٖ ؕ وَ مَا کَانَ لَنَاۤ اَنۡ نَّاۡتِیَکُمۡ بِسُلۡطٰنٍ اِلَّا بِاِذۡنِ اللّٰہِ ؕ وَ عَلَی اللّٰہِ فَلۡیَتَوَکَّلِ الۡمُؤۡمِنُوۡنَ ﴿۱۱﴾

In the first verse that I read, the Holy Prophet Muhammad is told to say to all the people around him, to whom he was preaching his religion: “I am only a mortal like you”. This statement occurs in another place in the Quran as well (41:6). And, of course, it is plainly stated in several places in the Quran in other ways that he is a only mortal. In the second verse that I read, it is related that some messengers before the Holy Prophet Muhammad also told their people:

“We are nothing but mortals like yourselves”.

In many other places, the Quran says that the rejectors of the prophets, including those who rejected the Holy Prophet Muhammad, raised this as an objection against them, that they were only mortals. It is, of course, a fundamental belief of Islam that all prophets were mortal human beings. People generally take this in a physical sense, that every prophet was bodily a human, like any other human, and he had all the bodily requirements, needs and limitations that every other human has. However, a study of the Quran shows that, not only in a bodily sense, but in an emotional and behavioural sense also, the prophets were like other humans.

When Muslims usually speak about the lives of the prophets, especially prophets before our Holy Prophet Muhammad, they largely present them in terms of their miracles. Abraham was put into the burning fire by his opponents but the fire cooled down for him. Moses could throw his rod and it would move like a living snake in front of a gathering of people, and he split the sea into two, with a dry path in the middle, for his followers to escape from the Pharaoh. In case of Jesus, all kinds of miracles are attributed to him by Muslims, who even try to outdo Christians in ascribing these miracles to him. But very few people look at the human nature and reactions of the prophets. I will refer to this aspect of the prophets in this Khutba by looking at some examples from the Quran.

Noah was one of the earliest prophets, before Abraham. I will first look at how he describes his mission and the manner in which he undertook it. In his story in the Quran, in ch. 71, Noah says to Allah that he invites people to God’s forgiveness and has tried every possible method of convincing them, without any success. He says:

“My Lord, I have called my people night and day, but my call has only made them flee the more. And whenever I call to them that You may forgive them, they thrust their fingers in their ears and cover themselves with their garments, and persist (in denial) and are big with pride. Then surely I have called to them aloud, then spoken to them in public and spoken to them in private, so I have said: ‘Ask forgiveness of your Lord; surely He is ever Forgiving, … What is the matter with you that you do not hope for greatness from Allah?’ ” (71:5–10, 13).

Noah tried his best, using every human effort, and offered his people the way of attaining God’s forgiveness and achieving greatness bestowed by God. But he came up against a blank wall. They said to him: You are just an ordinary mortal, there is nothing special about you, your followers are lower class people. They threatened to stone him to death for his insistent preaching, and challenged him to bring down God’s punishment upon them (see 11:25–34, 26:105–120). Then no way was left except for God to punish Noah’s people by means of the flood.

As we know, Noah and those with him in his Ark were saved. According to the Quran (11:42–47), Noah’s son refused his father’s plea to join him in the Ark. He was confident of surviving the flood by going up on a mountain, but he was drowned. The Quran says that Noah then cried to his Lord, saying: But You promised to save my family, and my son is a member of my family. This was a natural human reaction, of love of a father for his son. But God replied: He is not from your family, he is an example and personification of bad behaviour. And God added: Don’t question Me about matters that you don’t know about, because then you will be acting like an ignorant person. Noah responded by seeking the protection of God from acting like this, and asking for God’s forgiveness and mercy. This is an example of a prophet reacting like a mortal human being, out of natural emotions, but lacking the knowledge which God possesses.

Regarding the destruction of a people by punishment, such as of Noah’s people by the flood, the Quran has laid down a principle twice:

“your Lord would not destroy towns unjustly while their people are negligent” (6:131).

“Negligent”, or ghāfilūn, means those who are unaware of the consequences of their actions, who have not received warning and guidance from God. People cannot be destroyed by God’s punishment without being made fully aware beforehand of the reason for it and the ways in which they can avert it. In the other place the Quran says:

“And your Lord would not destroy towns unjustly, while their people acted well” (11:117).

This means that people are not destroyed by God for merely holding wrong religious beliefs, or for practising a false religion, or for worshipping objects and beings other than the one God. Punishment only comes if they stop acting well and carry out misdeeds.

Moving on to Abraham, he preached to his people very strongly against their idol-worship and worship of heavenly bodies, and in particular he addressed a family elder whose name was Āzar. Some say he was his father. (See 6:74, 19:41–49, 21:51–71.) Now Abraham was, as the Quran describes him, “tender-hearted and forbearing”, and “forbearing” means patient, tolerant and forgiving towards people, not minding their abuse. His elder said to him:

“Do you dislike my gods, Abraham? If you do not stop, I will certainly drive you away. And leave me for a time.”

Abraham replied:

“Peace be on you (salām-un ‘alai-ka)! I shall pray my Lord to forgive you. Surely He is ever Kind to me” (19:46–47).

That was Abraham’s nature. His prayer is recorded in the Quran as follows:

“and forgive my elder, surely he is in error” (26:86).

But his people threatened to kill him or burn him, and planned to do so. He was, of course, saved from their plans by Allah. When the opposition by his people and this elder reached an extreme, Abraham cut off relations with all of them, as the Quran says:

“And Abraham’s asking forgiveness for his sire (i.e., elder) was only owing to a promise which he had made to him; but when it became clear to him that he was an enemy of Allah, he dissociated himself from him” (9:114).

Reading this and other related verses of the Quran, it seems that Abraham had a deep desire to pray for the forgiveness of his elder and he only relented at the command of God Who informed him that this elder had reached the utmost stage in opposition, from which he would never withdraw.

Our Holy Prophet Muhammad also had the deep desire to ask forgiveness for those of his people who rejected him and he had the hope that they could be guided to accept the truth, especially if those people were also close to him. Allah informed him:

“Surely you cannot guide whom you love (i.e., just because you love him), but Allah guides whom He pleases; and He knows best those who walk aright” (28:56).

This is said to have been revealed in connection with the death of Abu Talib, paternal uncle of the Holy Prophet, who died in Makkah shortly before the emigration of the Holy Prophet to Madinah. Abu Talib had for years done all he could to protect the Holy Prophet from his enemies, who were led by other Quraish chiefs, and enabled him to continue his mission living in Makkah. But Abu Talib himself remained an idol-worshipper, following the religion of his ancestors. When he was on his death-bed, the Holy Prophet went to visit him and pleaded with him to say the words, Lā ilaha ill-Allāh (“There is no god but Allah”). Two Quraish leaders were already there, who were opponents of Islam. They said to Abu Talib:

“Are you going to give up the religion of your father, Abdul Muttalib?”

The Holy Prophet kept on repeating to Abu Talib to say Lā ilaha ill-Allāh, and these two kept on repeating to him what they had said. In the end, Abu Talib affirmed that he was a follower of the religion of his father and he refused to say Lā ilaha ill-Allāh. The human nature of the Holy Prophet impelled him to desire deeply that Abu Talib should declare belief in the oneness of God, but he had to accept God’s decree that it would not happen.

Another instance was at the death of Abdullah ibn Ubayy, who was outwardly a Muslim but he did everything he could to cause harm to Islam and the Holy Prophet out of jealousy. His son, who was a sincere Muslim, requested the Holy Prophet to say his funeral prayer. The Holy Prophet agreed to the request, but when he stood up to lead the funeral prayer, Hazrat Umar asked:

“How can you pray for him, when he used to say this and this against Muslims?”

And Hazrat Umar went through all the things Abdullah ibn Ubayy said over a period of years. But the Holy Prophet rejected Hazrat Umar’s demand and went ahead with saying the funeral prayer for the forgiveness of Abdullah ibn Ubayy. Allah later forbade the Holy Prophet from praying for the forgiveness of such deceased because, due to their possession of wealth and supporters, they had obstructed the Muslims in every way, and taunted and laughed at those Muslims who spent in the way of Allah and at those Muslims who had nothing monetary to spend so they gave their labour in the way of Allah.

The Holy Prophet himself always exercised forgiveness as much and as widely as he could, and indeed he insisted on doing so, until Allah informed him clearly and explicitly that he had reached a limit in case of certain persons beyond which he should not go. If a command from Allah could be interpreted in two different ways, i.e., one, that it allowed you to ask Allah to forgive someone, or, two, it advised against it, the Holy Prophet interpreted it in the way that allowed him to ask forgiveness.

May Allah enable us to learn from the examples of the prophets, as presented in the Quran — ameen.

Website: www.aaiil.uk