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74chapter twoFor the purpose of further exploring the difference betweenprophethood and messengerhood we must now define how weunderstand prophethood and the role of a prophet. In order to dothis we need to introduce the categories of naba" and khabar whichdesignate two different types of ‘news’:1. Naba" : refers to an event in the unseen or unknown world whichhas either already taken place in the near or distant past or willtake place in the near or distant future. MuÈammad’s (ß) role as aprophet (naby) was to disclose to his fellow men these events whichwere hidden to them but which, through his announcements,became discernable. These announcements form the book ofprophethood which does not contain any legal injunctions. Interms of style and rhetorical expression prophetic announcementsare short, crisp, and concise. A reference to them can be found inthe following verse:Those cities, We relate to you [i.e., MuÈammad] some of their[anb§"ih§]; 3 their messengers came to them with clear signs, butthey would not believe in what they had denied earlier. This Allahseals the hearts of the unbelievers. ( Al-A#r§f 7:101)2. Khabar: refers to an event in the past or immediate present (not thefuture) in the tangible or known world which can be empiricallyseen or reconstructed (if it happened in the distant past) by thepeople. However, such khabar events may turn into naba" eventswith the passing of time. For example, what happened to Noahand his people were khabar events for those who personally witprophethoodand verses of messengerhood. Chapter 3 provides a detailed explanationof this distinction.3YA translates anb§" as ‘tales’, similarly MF: ‘their tales’; AhA: ‘whose accounts’;AH: ‘the stories of those towns’, but MS wants to convey the meaning of ‘news’ or‘tidings’, as this was captured by other translators, e.g., AB: ‘we have given you newsof them’; MP: ‘We relate some tidings of them to you’; AA: ‘We relate to thee tidingsof’. In strictly legal terms, the fiqh scholars do not distinguish between al-khabar andal-naba", but Arab linguists, who oppose the existence of synonymity in the Arabiclanguage, usually define naba" as ‘extremely important information that the listener(i.e., the person who is informed) could not have known’, while khabar is defined as‘normal information which the listener may or may not already know’ (see Abå Hil§lal-#AskarÊ, al-Furuq al-lughawiyya (Beirut: D§r al-Kutub al-#Ilmiyya, 2000), vol. 1,528–30). It seems that MS keeps this distinction as his khabar news are, for the firsttime, discernable to human knowledge, while naba" news might be known or notknown, i.e., they have already become ‘yesterday’s news’, not ‘breaking news’ likethe khabar news.