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 Mus- lims. But if there were also to be no Khulafa' to demon- strate 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 in- volved in such misguided thinking. [Shahadat-ul-Qur'an, Rūķānī Khazā'in, vol. 6, pp. 352-356]