Why did God choose human beings as His messengers? Wouldn’t it be more appropriate if God sent angels to guide people and to show them the straight path? Wouldn’t people be more eager to believe an angel than merely another human like themselves? How fair would it be for human beings to have angels as their prophets?
A messenger is assigned to convey the law of God and to inform people about the divine message, so he must be one of them — speaking their language and knowing their habits — to be able to convey the message. People must have known him before his mission; his honesty, truthfulness, and noble manners should be unquestionable.
Not only would the prophet convey the divine law, but he would also teach people how to apply it. The law is theoretical and must be practically applied; people need to see their messenger offering prayers, performing Hajj, and applying the divine law he brought to them. Therefore, the humanity of the prophet is imperative.
For this reason, God chose honorable humans to be His Prophets, a choice that the disbelievers would oppose till the Day of Judgment. Every prophet was a human and was attacked by his people for being one.
[Is it a wonder for humankind that We have inspired a man among them, saying: Warn humankind and bring unto those who believe the good tidings that they have a sure footing with their Lord? The disbelievers say, “Lo! This is a mere wizard.”] (Yunus 10:2)
Questioning the prophets’ humanity is not limited to a single prophet, but it was the norm among all prophets starting from Noah, the first messenger sent after Adam (peace and blessings be upon both of them), and this was shown in the Qur’an.
[But the chiefs of those who disbelieved from among his people said, “We do not consider you but a mortal like ourselves, and we do not see any have followed you but those who are the meanest of us at first thought, and we do not see in you any excellence over us; nay, we deem you liars.”] (Hud 11:27)
The same attitude was repeated nation after nation. The Qur’an narrates the stories of the peoples of `Aad and Thamud and those after them. They rejected the prophets’ message under the pretext that the prophets were no more than human beings like them.
When Allah sent Shu`aib (peace and blessings be upon him) to his people to tell them that they should give full measure and weigh with the true and straight balance, they accused him of lying.
Also, Pharaoh and his people accused Moses and his brother Aaron (peace and blessings be upon both of them) of lying, when they told them [Shall we believe in two men like ourselves, and their people are servile unto us?] (Al-Mu’minun 23:47).
Similarly, the humanity of Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) was taken as a basis for raising doubts about his message:
[Their hearts trifling; and those who are unjust counsel together in secret: He is nothing but a mortal like yourselves; what! will you then yield to enchantment while you see?] (Al-Anbiyaa’ 21:3).
Moreover, if God had sent down angels as prophets, people would have not recognized them, being that angels do not live on earth. Even if we assume that He had made the angel prophets known to people, they will say, “Such angelic prophets could not be examples to us because they are created from light and we are created from clay. They are infallible by nature, and they carry out the commands they receive from Allah. Unlike them, we humans are liable to err.”
Angels, therefore, could not be prophets to humans because angelic powers and nature differ from those of humans. Allah willed that His prophets be as human as the peoples to whom they were sent, so that none would dare argue on the Day of Judgment, “O Lord, you have burdened us beyond our power and enjoined on us what we could not do.” The answer would simply be that your prophet was a human like you, yet he was able to faithfully apply the divine law without feeling burdened beyond the capacity of humans.
By Sheikh Muhammad Mitwalli Ash-Sha`rawi
