The stories of the Prophets, peace be upon them.
The prayers of Allah, followed by His peace,
Be upon the best of all creation.
Those of firm resolve, whose station is exalted,
And a light for the generations that follow.
In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds.
And may the prayers and peace of Allah be upon our Prophet Muhammad,
And upon all his family and companions.
To proceed:
My noble brother, the listener,
Look around you.
Turn your gaze to the right and to the left.
Cast your eyes across this vast universe.
You will see a magnificent creation.
This sky above us,
Like a canopy spread out,
Containing within its expanse thousands of millions
Of stars and planets.
And you see in it the sun and the moon,
Moving according to precise calculation.
“It is not for the sun to overtake the moon, nor doth the night outstrip the day. They float each in an orbit.” (36:40)
“It is not for the sun to overtake the moon, nor doth the night outstrip the day. They float each in an orbit.” (36:40)
And this earth beneath us and around us,
In which we traverse wide paths,
Between its mountains and its valleys,
Its seas and its rivers,
Its plains and its rugged terrain,
Deserts and forests,
Trees of various colors and tastes,
And different kinds of animals.
If we were to take a simple, contemplative look at ourselves,
We would see wonders beyond measure.
How this human body functions
With such high precision:
A heart that beats without ceasing,
Blood that flows without obstruction,
Hearing and sight,
And internal organs working without pause.
This creation must have a Creator,
And this universe must have an Owner and Disposer of affairs.
The person of sound natural disposition (fitrah)
Cannot fail to realize that Allah, glory be to Him and Exalted is He,
Is the Creator of all things.
A Bedouin was asked, "How did you come to know Allah, the Exalted?"
He replied, "The footprint indicates the traveler,
And the dung indicates the camel."
A sky with constellations,
An earth with paths,
And seas with waves—
Do they not point to the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing?
Allah, the Exalted, says:
﴾And if you asked them, "Who created the heavens and the earth
And subjected the sun and the moon?"
They would surely say, "Allah."
Then how are they deluded?﴿
﴾Allah extends provision for whom He wills
Of His servants and restricts it for him.
Indeed, Allah is Knowing of all things.﴿
“And if thou wert to ask them: Who causeth water to come down from the sky, and therewith reviveth the earth after its death? they verily would say: Allah. Say: Praise be to Allah! But most of them have no sense.” (29:63)
﴾And He gives life to the earth
After its death.﴿
They would surely say, "Allah."
Say, "All praise is due to Allah."
“And if thou wert to ask them: Who causeth water to come down from the sky, and therewith reviveth the earth after its death? they verily would say: Allah. Say: Praise be to Allah! But most of them have no sense.” (29:63)
And the poet said:
Contemplate the plants of the earth and look
At the traces of what the King has fashioned.
Eyes of silver, wide-open,
With pupils that are like molten gold.
Upon stalks of chrysolite, bearing witness
That Allah has no partner.
When Allah created the creation,
It was not in vain.
Rather, He created them for a sublime wisdom
And a momentous purpose.
The Exalted says:
“I created the jinn and humankind only that they might worship Me.” (51:56)
﴾Except to worship Me.﴿
Yes, this is the goal
Of the creation of jinn and mankind:
That Allah, the Exalted, be worshipped.
And worship
Is everything that Allah loves
And is pleased with, from among statements
And actions, both outward and inward.
But,
How are we to know what Allah loves
And is pleased with, of statements and actions?
And before that,
How are we to know who Allah is,
And what His names and attributes are,
And what He has commanded us and what He has forbidden us?
How do we draw near to Him,
And how do we avoid His wrath and His punishment?
All these questions and others
Cannot be answered by the weak servant
Unless Allah guides him to them.
Therefore,
It was out of the mercy of Allah, the Exalted, toward us
That He sent us messengers to guide us to Him,
To inform us of His names and attributes,
And of what He loves and what He does not love.
They convey to us His commands,
So that we may obey them,
And His prohibitions, so that we may avoid them.
They teach us how to worship Him,
And we perform it,
And we carry it out in the correct manner.
And what is the reward of the obedient among us if he obeys,
And what is the reward of the disobedient if he disobeys,
So that we may have clear insight,
And so that mankind will have no argument against Allah
After the messengers.
Allah, the Exalted, says:
﴾Messengers as bringers of good tidings and warners
So that mankind will have no argument against Allah
After the messengers.﴿
“Messengers of good cheer and of warning, in order that mankind might have no argument against Allah after the messengers. Allah was ever Mighty, Wise.” (4:165)
And ever is Allah Exalted in Might and Wise.
It is from the perspective of His might and wisdom, glory be to Him,
That He made these messengers human beings,
With habits like the habits of other humans;
They eat, they drink, and they walk in the marketplaces.
Allah has placed a messenger in every nation
Who speaks their language to clarify the message of their Lord to them.
The wisdom behind this is evident,
For it enables people to learn from them
And to take them as examples.
If the messengers were not human,
There would be no benefit in sending them,
Due to the difference in nature and temperament.
Thus, the need of people for messengers is an urgent need;
Indeed, it is the most essential of necessities for humanity.
It is more important than the food that sustains their bodies,
For the need of people for the Shariah, which sustains the soul,
Is greater than their need for food.
Ibn al-Qayyim, may Allah have mercy on him, said:
"From here you learn the necessity of the servants,
Above every other necessity, to know the Messenger,
To know the Messenger and what he brought,
To believe him in what he informed,
And to obey him in what he commanded.
For there is no path to happiness and success,
Neither in this world nor in the Hereafter,
Except through the hands of the messengers.
And there is no way to know the good from the evil
In detail except from their direction.
And the pleasure of Allah is not attained at all except through them.
The good among deeds, words, and morals
Is nothing but their guidance and what they brought.
They are the accurate scale
By which words, morals, and deeds
Are weighed.
And by following them, the people of guidance are distinguished from the people of misguidance.
The necessity for them is greater than the necessity of the body for its soul,
Of the eye for its light,
And of the soul for its life.
So whatever necessity or need you imagine,
The servant's necessity and need for the messengers is far greater.
And what is your thought of one who, if their guidance
And what they brought were absent from you for the blink of an eye,
Your heart would become corrupt,
And you would be like the fish when it leaves the water and is placed in the frying pan.
Such is the state of the servant when his heart is separated
From what the messengers brought,
Like this state,
Or even worse.
But only a living heart feels this,
For the dead feel no pain from a wound."
His words end here.
Prophethood and messengership are a choice and selection from Allah, the Exalted.
“Allah chooseth from the angels messengers, and (also) from mankind. Lo! Allah is Hearer, Seer.” (22:75)
Indeed, Allah is All-Hearing, All-Seeing.
No one has the right to object to the choice of Allah, the Exalted.
For these prophets and messengers
Are the purest of people in heart,
The most truthful in faith,
The strongest in worship,
The most intelligent in mind,
The best in character,
The most perfect in religion,
The strongest in patience,
The greatest in mercy,
The most perfect in physical form,
The best in appearance,
And the most truthful in speech.
And yet, with all that,
They are like other human beings;
They do what other humans do,
Such as marriage, eating, and drinking.
And they are afflicted by what afflicts humans in terms of ailments,
Such as sickness, hunger, and pain,
And other things.
And it is from the mercy of Allah, the Exalted,
That there is no nation
But that a warner from Allah has passed through it.
The Children of Israel
Were governed by the prophets and messengers,
And sometimes there would be,
In a single village,
More than one messenger,
As the Exalted said in Surah Yasin:
﴾But they denied them both,
So We strengthened them with a third.﴿
Then We strengthened them with a third.
They said, "Indeed, we
have been sent to you."
From this,
we know that the number of
prophets and messengers is large.
This is due to the multitude of those
who preceded us from the nations,
and the many to whom they were sent.
Abu Dharr once asked
the Messenger of Allah,
peace be upon him,
about the number of messengers.
He replied, "A great
multitude: three hundred
and a dozen or so."
And when asked about the number of prophets,
he said,
"One hundred and twenty-four
thousand prophets."
The difference between a prophet and a messenger
is that a prophet
is one to whom
Allah the Exalted reveals a revelation,
so he informs others of what Allah has revealed
to him and acts
according to what came before him.
But if he is sent, in addition to that,
to a people or a land
to convey the message of Allah
to them, or if he brings a new
law from Allah,
then he is a messenger.
Based on this,
every messenger is a prophet,
but not the reverse.
We believe in detail
in all the prophets and messengers
whom Allah the Exalted mentioned
in His Book,
[and] twenty prophets,
or those mentioned in the Sunnah of the Prophet,
peace be upon him.
We also believe that
there are prophets and messengers
other than those we know,
and we believe in them in general.
Allah the Exalted says:
"And We have sent
messengers before you;
of them are those We have related
to you, and of them are those
“Verily We sent messengers before thee, among them those of whom We have told thee, and some of whom We have not told thee; and it was not given to any messenger that he should bring a portent save by Allah's leave, but when Allah's commandment cometh (the cause) is judged aright, and the followers of vanity will then be lost.” (40:78)
We make no distinction between any
of them in our belief."
We believe that some of them
are superior to others,
as the Exalted says:
"Those messengers, We favored
some of them over others."
The best of them are the five
of firm resolve,
who are Nuh, Ibrahim,
Musa, 'Isa,
and Muhammad, may the
prayers and peace of Allah be upon them all.
We will cover the biographies
of those whom Allah has related to us
in the Noble Qur'an
in this blessed series, if Allah wills,
drawing
lessons and admonitions from their stories
as much as we are able
and as Allah grants us success.
For Allah the Exalted says:
"So relate the stories
that perhaps they will give thought."
Thus, recounting the stories of the prophets
is an act of worship, a source of lessons,
and benefits,
and a sound path followed by
those who truly know Allah.
We will mention some of the Isra'iliyyat (narrations from the People of the Book)
that are not problematic to mention,
or that contain some benefit.
The Prophet,
peace be upon him, said:
"Narrate from the Children of Israel,
for there is no harm in it."
He also said:
"Do not believe the People of the Book,
and do not deny them,
but say: 'We believe in Allah
and what was revealed to us.'"
Before beginning
to mention the stories of the noble prophets,
it is appropriate for us
to mention some of their characteristics
with which Allah the Exalted
has distinguished them.
Among these is
that they were distinguished by revelation from Allah the Exalted,
and that they were all
free men.
Allah the Exalted says:
"And We sent not before you
except men to whom We revealed."
“We sent not before thee (any messengers) save men whom We inspired from among the folk of the townships - Have they not travelled in the land and seen the nature of the consequence for those who were before them? And verily the abode of the Hereafter, for those who ward off (evil), is best. Have ye then no sense? -” (12:109)
Among their characteristics
is that they are infallible
from committing major sins.
They may fall into minor errors,
but they do not persist
in them, nor do they continue in them;
rather, they desist
from them and seek forgiveness,
and their state after
repentance is better than it was before.
They were also distinguished
by the fact that their eyes sleep,
but their hearts do not sleep.
They do not experience nocturnal emissions
in their sleep.
They have a guaranteed answered prayer.
They are given a choice
at the time of death.
They are buried where they die.
The earth
does not consume their bodies.
They do not leave behind
wealth as inheritance;
what they leave is charity.
Each one of them
has a basin on the Day of Resurrection
to which his Ummah will come.
In studying the stories
of the prophets, peace be upon them,
there are numerous benefits,
the most important of which is
taking lessons and admonitions
from their stories,
as the Exalted says:
“In their history verily there is a lesson for men of understanding. It is no invented story but a confirmation of the existing (Scripture) and a detailed explanation of everything, and a guidance and a mercy for folk who believe.” (12:111)
"A lesson for those of understanding."
In them is also a strengthening for the heart of the Prophet,
peace be upon him,
and his Ummah.
Allah the Exalted says:
"And each [story] We relate to you
from the news of the messengers."
“And all that We relate unto thee of the story of the messengers is in order that thereby We may make firm thy heart. And herein hath come unto thee the Truth and an exhortation and a reminder for believers.” (11:120)
We should know that the call
of all the prophets is one;
they are like brothers from different mothers,
meaning
that their religion is one,
though their laws differ.
The religion with Allah
is Islam.
Perhaps one of the most important benefits
of studying the stories of the prophets
is knowing their methods
in calling to Allah,
their patience with their people,
and following their example in that,
as the Exalted says:
“Those are they whom Allah guideth, so follow their guidance. Say (O Muhammad, unto mankind): I ask of you no fee for it. Lo! it is naught but a Reminder to (His) creatures.” (6:90)
"So from their guidance, take an example."
We ask Allah the Exalted
to grant us success
in this blessed series,
and to grant us the ability to
listen well and follow well.
Allah is the Grantor of success.
Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds.
May the peace and blessings of Allah be
upon our Prophet Muhammad,
and upon his family
and all his companions.
You have been
with the Stories of the Prophets.