Documents of the Right Word

and Hadîqa, that saying the number of Prophets may mean to
make a non-Prophet a Prophet or to deny the prophethood of a
Prophet, which, in its turn, is disbelief. For it is written in all books
that denying one Prophet means denying all of them.
Furthermore, it is written in the commentary of the eulogy of
Emâlî and in the three hundred and nineteenth page of Berîqa,
“No Walî can attain the grade of prophethood. To belittle a
Prophet is disbelief and aberration.”
Mawdûdî of Pakistan, who died in 1399 [A.D. 1979], interprets
the twenty-fourth âyat of Fâtir sûra in his book, Islamic
Civilization, as follows:
“Among each and every Ummat, without any exception, has
there come a threatening Prophet.” Then he adds, “A Prophet has
come for every Ummat. The hadîth-i-sherîf, ‘One hundred and
twenty-four thousand Prophets have come,’ confirms this fact.
Some passed Prophets are known about partly. It is very well
possible to know the countries of some of them, such as hadrat
Ibrâhîm, hadrat Mûsâ, Confucius, Zoroaster (Zarathustra) and
Krishna. Each of them was sent to his own tribe. None of them
claimed that his prophethood was universal.”
It is written in Beydâwî and Mawâkib and in many books of
Tafsîr that the word ‘threatening’ used in the âyat-i-kerîma
signifies Prophets or scholars, not (only) Prophets. This person
strives to corroborate the wrong meaning he attaches to the âyati-kerîma
by means of a weak hadîth. No Islamic scholar has treated
this weak hadîth in documentary capacity. Also, inserting the
names of some disbelievers such as Confucius, Zoroaster and
Krishna, he attempts, as it were, a stratagem to impress young
people with the conviction that these people were Prophets. All
corrupt religions are the remnants that came about as a result of
interpolations and defilements of true religious systems which
Allâhu ta’âlâ had revealed to Prophets. Likewise, Confucius (d.
479 B.C.) made a fame for his commendations of such ideas as
worship and ethical values, which he had somehow appropriated
out of what had remained from the ancient true religions prevalent
in China. Consequently, his philosophy became a sect. Books
teaching his sect were translated into various languages. One of
them is the German book Wörte des Konfuzius (Statements of
Confucius). This book is not only devoid of the six tenets of îmân,
which are commonly taught by all celestial religions, but also
contains many statements indicating sheer disbelief. A person
whose disbelief is evident cannot be said to be a Muslim, none the
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