The Essence of Islam – Volume III — Page 167
Prophethood in Islam 167 that it is a dead religion whose blessings were confined only to its beginning. Can the Book that opens the door of perpetual good fortune inculcate so discouraging a doctrine that there is no blessing or Khilafat in the future and that everything has been confined to the past? True, there will be no independent Prophets among the Muslims. But if there were also to be no Khulafa' to demonstrate the proofs of spiritual life from time to time, that would spell the end of spirituality in Islām. . . . It causes one's heart to tremble to imagine that Islām has now died and that no such people would arise in it, whose spiritual manifestations would be a substitute for miracles and whose inspiration a substitute for revelation, let alone that a Muslim should believe in any such possibility as a doctrine. May God Almighty guide those who are involved in such misguided thinking. [Shahādat-ul-Qur'ān, Rūḥānī Khazā'in, vol. 6, pp. 352-356]