Fountain of Christianity — Page 60
60 says in the Holy Quran 37 i. e. , 'Follow all the teachings that were given to all the Prophets. ' The person who embodies all these teachings will, of course, be greater than all the Prophets, and anyone who follows such a Prophet will also acquire all these excellences by way of reflection ( zill ). Therefore, the purpose of teaching this prayer in S u rah Al-F a ti h ah is that the perfect believ- ers of the umma, who follow this perfect Prophet sa , may also acquire all these excellences. I feel sorry for those who think that this umma is dead. How can they prefer to remain dead when God has taught them to pray for all ex- cellences! It is a grievous sin in their eyes if someone claims, for instance, that he receives revelation like the Messiah, son of Mary as , 38 and they consider such a person 37 Al-An‘ a m, 6:91 [Publishers] 38 These so called maulawis virtually insult our lord and master Muhammad sa —the best of Prophets and most exalted of Messengers— when they say that no one resembling Jesus as , son of Mary, can ever appear in this umma, and that, because of this prohibition, God will have to break the seal of Khatm-e-Nubuwwat [Finality of Prophethood] and bring back the same Israelite Jesus into the world once more. Thus they stand guilty of, not one, but two sins. (1) First, they have to believe that while a servant of God named Jesus—or Yesu in Hebrew—attained closeness to God and became a Prophet by following the Mosaic law for thirty years, but in the case of the Holy Prophet sa , no one can attain the same spiritual station even if he follows him for fifty years, instead of thirty. In other words, they say that no honour can be attained by following the Holy Prophet sa. They do not realize that this belief implies that God is only deceiving people by teaching them the prayer * They also believe that, by virtue of his second coming, Jesus as is Kh a tam-ul-Anbiy a’ [the last Prophet] as well as the last Judge and Arbiter. They do not understand the true meaning of this prophecy, which is that, since there will be people in this umma who Contd…