Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge & Truth — Page 717
FUTURE OF REVELATION whatever title you may, a prophet he would always remain. . A denial of him, while he will be directly commissioned by. God, will be tantamount to a denial of God. As such, whoever refuses to believe in Al-Mahdi as a subordinate prophet will lose his right to be counted among the true believers. Belief in him will be incumbent upon every. Muslim, as admitted even by the orthodoxy. Thus he would enjoy a prerogative which is shared only by a prophet and by no one less than a prophet. The act of not granting AlMahdi the status he is entitled to enjoy can in no way deprive him of that right. The inconsistency in their beliefs will by no means become less glaring. . Fon-law-bearing Prophets and Revelation. In Islam, the status of a prophet is the highest a man ☐ is granted. A prophet is not just a person who prophesies, he is the one who is specifically commissioned as such by God. All reformers are not essentially prophets but all prophets are essentially reformers. Revelation by itself does make one a prophet. Even non-prophets can be granted revelation and be blessed by communion with Him. . Revelation has a much wider field of application with many connotations such as dreams, visions, inspirations and even verbal addresses. As such it has never been denied by most scholars even in the medieval ages. The controversy only arose in relation to the institution of prophethood and it is this particular aspect of revelation that is being presently examined. . One can easily understand the wisdom behind the discontinuity of law-bearing prophets in the light of the foregoing discussion. The question which must be examined at length is, why should non-law-bearing prophets also be discontinued and why should the 675