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Alternative Qirā‘āt of the Qur’ān 29
these meanings are equally applicable to the Holy Prophet
Muhammad sa and are only different ways of saying the same
thing, that is, the Holy Prophet sa is the one who attests to the
truth of past and future prophets. In other words, 33:41 would
translate as follows (in the alternative qirā’āt):
ْ
ن
َ
خ
اaانa ح
دaاباaاح ‏ًدa نaرجا
ولaااللهِ‏ و نaر مa
‏َّبِ‎‏ّ‏
وa a ِ اتِمَ‏ a ا
ٰ
Muhammad is not the father of any of your men, but
[he is] the Messenger of Allāh and the one who seals
[or attests to the truth of] the prophets.
This means that the Holy Prophet Muhammad sa is the
one who placed the seal of authentication on the previous
prophets and attested to their truth. He did this by fulfilling
their prophecies and confirming the integrity of their claims to
prophethood. The Holy Prophet sa is also the khātim for future
prophets, that is, he attests to the truth of all future prophets by
having established a law or sharī’ah that no future prophet can
break. Any future prophet who fails to comply with the law of
the Qur’ān would be guilty of breaking the Holy Prophet’s seal
of authority, thereby admitting to falsehood.
This understanding also upholds the superiority of the
Hijāzī qirā’ah used by the Muslims worldwide. It is obvious that
we cannot use the inferior qirā’āt of the Qur’ān to impose a
biased translation on the Hijāzī qirā’ah which clearly states that
the Holy Prophet Muhammad sa is the Khātam (seal), with the
fatah on the letter tā’, of the prophets.
Nevertheless, this argument should not be taken to mean
that the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamā‘at rejects the fact that khātim
can mean last. As explained in the chapter entitled Meanings of
Khātam in Dictionaries, there are several meanings of this word
and “last” is definitely one of those meanings. However, when