Continuity of Prophethood and Messianic Sainthood

DOI

10.2991/aicosh-19.2019.39How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Muḥammad; Jesus; Ibn ‘Arabī; Mirzā Ghulām Aḥmad; seal of prophethood; seal of sainthood.

Abstract

Finality of prophethood is one of the central doctrines of Islamic orthodoxy. Nevertheless, there occur plenty of prophetic traditions that foretell the advent of Jesus in the latter days. To reconcile the apparent contradiction, Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn ‘Arabī (d. 1240/638) developed a novel classification of prophets. He formulated that, seen from the nature of their apostleship, prophets are divided into two categories: khāṣṣ (specific) and ‘āmm (general). Prophets of the first type consist of those who bring new sharī‘a (law) and, by virtue of the arrival of Muḥammad, they no longer appear. On the contrary, prophets of the second type still exist and they turn out to be no other than the Muslim saints. It is so said because each of them possesses a personality that reflects the distinctive moral quality of an earlier prophet, from Adam to Muḥammad. Within this framework, the coming Jesus is perceived as the perfect seal of sainthood who combines in himself the personalities of all prophets. Thereupon, when he descends, he will be a saint-prophet and, at once, an adherent of Islam. This theory of Ibn ‘Arabī was ultimately put into action by the Founder of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, Mirzā Ghulām Aḥmad (d. 1908/1326). Having believed in the death of the Israelite Jesus, he proclaimed that he was the promised messiah whose rank is khātam al-awliyā’ as well as being a subordinate prophet. Dictated by his revelations, he also declared that he was jarī Allāh fī ḥulal al-anbiyā’ (champion of Allah in the mantles of the prophets). In him, therefore, the Islamic prophecies about parousia found their embodiment.

Copyright

© 2019, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Iffat Aulia Ahmad
PY  - 2019/08
DA  - 2019/08
TI  - Continuity of Prophethood and Messianic Sainthood
BT  - Proceedings of the 1st Annual Internatioal Conference on Social Sciences and Humanities (AICOSH 2019)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 185
EP  - 190
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/aicosh-19.2019.39
DO  - 10.2991/aicosh-19.2019.39
ID  - Ahmad2019/08
ER  -