Judgement Day said:
Thank you for the answer, Scott. What about hadiths? Do you approve the hadiths too? There are a lot of hadiths which does not need interpreting telling that Muhammad is the last Prophet.
JD
Well, I give some weight to hadith, but as Muhammad says as the Apostle of God that the BEST hadith is the Qur'an. The hadith on the subject at hand of which I am aware, does not run counter to my interpretation of the Qur'an's statement.
Feel free to ask virtually anything here in this forum, there are several Baha`i's on this forum who will give you answers as good as anything I can say.
To get a better understanding of how Baha`i's see the issue you can check out this paper by a friend of mine (Khazeh Fananapazr) at:
http://bahai-library.com/articles/jbs.5-3.fazel.html
"Since there is no question as to the authenticity of the verse Qur'án 33:40, the challenge, therefore, is to reconcile the Bahá'í position of the continuity of divine revelation after Muhammad with the commonly understood meaning of Muhammad as the `Seal of the Prophets'. A starting point, we suggest, is a rational and balanced textual analysis of the Qur'ánic use of the words `Prophets' and `Seal'."
and:
"
The Founder of Islam as Khátam
As indicated earlier, many traditions exist which take the phrase
khátam al-nabiyyín (seal of the prophets) to mean "the last prophet." However, the completion of some activity is only one meaning of "seal". The historical use of this word provides other interpretations as follows.
Sealing may also be a guarantee of authenticity, or a device designed to prevent the unauthorised opening of a receptacle without knowledge of the owner. In pre-Muslim Arabia, seals were used in place of a signature, giving validity to a document. They were also utilised as a guarantee that property was kept intact and thus took the place of locks and keys. The possession of another person's seal was evidence that the latter had delegated his authority. Pharaoh, for example, gave Joseph his signet as a sign of authority (Gen 41:42). Jezebel forged a letter in Ahab's name and sealed it with Ahab's seal to give it validity (1 Kings 21:8). Tradition has a certain amount to say about Muhammad's
khátam (seal). For instance, Al-Bukhari recounts that the Prophet wished to write to the Byzantines, and was told that it would not be read unless it had a seal on it. He therefore adopted a silver seal with the inscription `Muhammad rasúl Alláh' at the year 7 A.H. (Allan,
Khátam 1103).
The expression
khátam al-nabiyyín (seal of the prophets) is found in several places in classical Arabic poetry. A verse in the
Díwán of Umayya b. Abí al-Salt speaks of the Prophet as the one "by means of whom God sealed [
khatama] the prophets [
nabiyyín] before him and after him" (
Prophecy 57). This verse implies the appearance of prophets after Muhammad, so that the verb
khatama here cannot be understood to mean the termination of something. Friedmann suggests the possibility that it means "he stamped upon them his seal [of approval]" (ibid). This idea that the Prophet came to confirm the former prophets is supported by Qur'án 37:37: "he cometh with truth and confirmeth the Sent Ones [
mursalin] of old."
[30]
There are other indications that the belief in the finality of Muhammad's prophethood was not generally accepted in the early days of Islam. In a gloss explaining the expression of
khayr al-khawátim (the best of the seals) used in the
Naqá'id, the commentator Abú `Ubayda who died in 209 A.H. says, "He [the poet] means that the Prophet . . . is the seal of the prophets, which means he is the best of the prophets" (
Naqá'id 349). A similar interpretation is given by Abú Riyásh al-Qaysí in his commentary on al-Kumayt's
Háshimiyyat. Commentating on a verse in which the prophet is referred to as
khátam (or
khátim)
al-anbiyá', Abú Riyásh says that the meaning of
khátim al-anbiyá' is someone who seals the prophets;
khátam al-anbiyá', on the other hand, means "beauty of the prophets" or "the best of them" (Friedmann,
Prophecy 57). Another explicit tradition that supports this idea is attributed to `Á'isha, who said, "Say [that the Prophet is] the seal of the prophets and do not say that there is no prophet after him" (Al-Suyúti, qtd. in Friedmann,
Prophecy 63). The phrase
khátam al-nabiyyín (seal of the prophets) here cannot mean "the last prophet", but is understandable in the sense of the best prophet. Also, the foremost Kúfí grammarian al-Tha'lad held that "
al-khátim is the one who sealed the prophets and
al-khátam is the best of the prophets in character and physical constitution" (Al-`Ayní, qtd. in Friedmann,
Prophecy 58).
These doxological
[31] interpretations of seal seem to indicate that even in the third century of Islam, there still existed different interpretations of
khátam al-anbiyá' (seal of the prophets). These interpretations also found their way into hadíth literature. For instance, there is a saying of the Imam `Alí that "Muhammad is the Seal of the Prophets [
khátam al-anbiyá'] and I am the Seal of the Successors [
khátam al-wasiyyín]" (Majlisí,
Bihár 4-5).
[32] If seal solely meant termination, then how can one understand `Alí as sealing the successorship, when there were to be eleven Imams after him according to Shi`i belief and the Caliphate was to continue after him in the history of Sunni Islam? Also, one Bahá'í writer discusses the implications of a hadíth in which the Prophet is reported to have said, "I am the last prophet and the mosque I am constructing is the last mosque." Rawshani argues that if by the term "last mosque" is understood that no other mosque will be built in the dispensation of Islam, then clearly this is an absurd contradiction, unless it was used in a doxological manner. On this ground the term
khátam al-nabiyyín (seal of the prophets) refers to the fact that the Prophet confirmed the prophets before him and thus the peoples of Arabia, who had not accepted the prophethood of the prophets of the past, particularly those of the Abrahamic tradition, were summoned to recognise them (Rawshani, Kh
átamiyyat 30-31). Moreover, there are variant meanings of seal suggested in the Qur'án; one verse states that on the Day of God a `choice' wine will quench the thirst of the Righteous, "whose seal [
khitám] is musk" (83:26).
In summary, there is cogent evidence to suggest that the word
khátam (seal) did not mean `the last' in a temporal sense to early Muslims. There are instances in classical Arabic poetry and hadíth literature to suggest that the word
khátam (seal) was used to mean `the one who confirmed' (the prophets of the past), and understood in a honorific way as `the best' (of the prophets)."
Regards,
Scott
