Ahmadiyyat - The Renaissance of Islam — Page 56
56 AHMADIYY AT though he was a prophet along with Moses during his life- time, he did not survive Moses and was not a Prophet after his death. Be that as it may, a well-known tradition attributed to Hazrat A yesha makes it quite clear that the meaning of the saying of the Holy Prophet cannot be what the opponents of the Promised Messiah seek to establish. Hazrat Ayesha admonished some of the companions of the Holy Prophet in the terms: 'Say by all means that he is the Seal of the Prophets, but do not say that there will be no Prophet after him' (Tukmila Majma' ul-Bihar, p. 85). It is further contended that the Holy Prophet, peace be on him, has himself said that he is the last of the prophets; and on the basis of this it is urged that there can be no prophet of any kind after him. It is true that the Holy Prophet, peace be on him, has used the expression 'last of the prophets' with references to himself, but the complete hadees in which he employed this expression is: 'I am the last of the prophets and this mosque of mine is the last of the mosques. ' Now it is clear that by designating his mosque the last of mosques he obviously did not mean that no other mosque would be built anywhere in the future. The only II1;eaning of the expression can be that there shall be no mosque to replace his mosque and that all mosques to be built henceforth would be copies of his mosque and its reflections. Similarly, the expression 'last of the prophets' means that there would be no prophet after him who would abrogate his law or who would receive the bounty of prophethood independently of him. Another hadees relied upon by our opponents is: 'Had there been a prophet after me it would have been U mar. ' The short answer is that the Holy Prophet himself has furnished the key to the meaning of this hadees by saying: 'Had I not been raised among you, Umar would have been raised in. . . stead' (Ibne-Ade~ quoted in Kanazul Haqaiq, Vol. II, p. 151). It is well known that in Arabic idiom the expression ba'ad (after) also connotes 'instead of, as is said in the Holy Quran: 'There are the Signs of Allah that We rehearse unto thee with