Proofs of Prophethood
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Do We Still Need Prophets?
Is it possible to be a good human being without believing in God and His prophets? How do we explain people who do not subscribe to any religion but are kind and upright? Before we delve into the proofs of Prophethood, Sh. Mohammad Elshinawy shares 3 reasons that explain why we need Prophets to help us differentiate between what is good and what is bad.
The Proofs for the Prophethood of Muhammad ﷺ eBook is available now. Download your copy here.
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Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. So why should I believe in a prophet? Or why do I need to follow a religion? Why isn't it enough to just be a good, decent human being? You know, there are so many rewordings of this very same question echoed at every turn in our times. And that's why before even rolling out with this series on the very justified reasons to believe that Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, was in fact the final prophet of God, I want to engage this prevalent line of thinking head-on. So, is it enough to just be a good person? We all know people that don't subscribe to a religion or our religion yet seem to be incredibly kind, upright human beings. So how do we make sense of this? Well, for a Muslim, it's pretty simple because the Qur'an told us that God created us as inherently pure in our nature, which means we incline to good and it feels good for us to do good. And that is why you can find people that don't subscribe to a religion that engage in good lives. They are people that have retained that purity or a degree of it. But if it's naturally there, then why religion? Why prophets? I'll give you three reasons. First of all, identifying the good in the fullest sense is not possible without God. You see, human beings are pure-natured, but that does not mean they know the details of good and the ultimate good and to balance between competing values that are all good. Even the sharpest minds in human history, moral philosophers, they have failed to agree on what is the ultimate balanced good for all of humanity. Even people that you know, they all consider themselves morally upright people seeking what is right, but they debate all the time. The moral debates rage on. So without God telling us through the prophets where good lies,
it is impossible for us on our own as human beings to fully identify good without blind spots, without perverted perceptions, without social conditioning. On their own, people, even with good intentions, could choose to live by certain principles in their lives that they assume are good, but then there's a blind spot. There's something they don't notice and it stays hidden, kind of like cancer, that only surfaces when it's too late to repair it. And so God protects us through the prophets from all of that. Escaping plagiarism. Certain virtues like justice and compassion are independently praiseworthy from an Islamic lens, meaning they can invite divine blessings, blessings from God into your life. But in order to be fully good, good in the fullest sense of the word, in the eyes of God, in terms of salvation, a person needs to give credit to God, even though he doesn't need it, but gives credit to God for enabling you to be good. Who gave you your mind, who gave you the wealth by which you are charitable, who gave you the heart by which you are compassionate, all of this came from Him. And so unless you submit to Him and concede to Him on His terms, then you've in a sense stolen that good and refused to attribute it to its rightful source. And that is plagiarism. When someone invents something or brings the world some sort of cutting-edge research, we're all so impressed by it. But if we find out that he stole it from someone else's works without giving them due credit, we don't see this as admirable anymore. We see this as what? As condemnable, prosecutable. Likewise, us as human beings, only by following the path shown to us by the prophets, can we have a relationship with God and proper reverence for God that would qualify our goodness in the fullest sense of the word. Number three, being good to yourself.
Yes, it feels good to treat people good, but without having a meaningful connection with God, even those who treat others good and find some sort of satisfaction through that, these same people find a void inside of them because they are not fulfilling the purpose for which they were created. And from the highest tier universities, you can find study after study about the shallow life satisfaction of people that without God live a life that is empty. That is because our highest purpose is not in finding happiness or even admitting happiness upon others. It is to serve the one true God. That is how we are created. That's how our programming functions. Yes, serving people can be a part of serving God, but it can never replace it. Nothing pleases human beings like pleasing their Creator and knowing that He is pleased with them. But that is not possible without knowing the system that that Creator inspired His prophets with to bring to us. In this series, we will dive into the ocean of proofs for Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, being the final prophet of God, whose message remains intact for the whole world to experience and experience through it a true wholesome meaning of achieving human excellence.
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