Muhammad: Seal of the Prophets — Page 457
MUHAMMAD : SEAL OF THE PROPHETS 457 had, of His grace and wisdom, commanded the Holy Prophet to shoulder the responsibility of conveying His message to mankind and of leading them back to Him. His enemies did not believe in his mission, nor what he proclaimed as revelation was received by hi m from God, so God posed a challenge to them, which they never took up and to which they had no answer. He was commanded to proclaim, ‘If God had so willed, I would not have recited the Quran to you, nor would He have made it known to you. I have lived amo ng you a whole lifetime before this. Will you not then understand?’ (10:17) Thus God put forward the purity and righteousness of the Holy Prophet’s life, which those who opposed him so bitterly had observed at close quarters, as proof that he was not capab le of uttering a lie against God. Faced squarely with this challenge, not one of them attempted to assert that Muhammad had on any occasion been guilty of saying or doing that which was not utterly true, completely righteous. The exemplary life that he had led, before their very eyes, up to the moment that the Divine Call came to him, was a guarantee of the truth of his claim. Yet, all the time he had to stress that he was but a man like the rest, lest, observing the security that he enjoyed in the midst of constant danger, the success that he extracted even from persecution and defeat, and the ultimate triumph of his cause to w hich the whole of Arabia had progressively become witness; some might be tempted to ascribe to him supernatural capacities and powers of superhuman status. He was commanded to proclaim, ‘I am but a man like yourselves. I have received revelation that your God is