The Necessity of Prophethood

The sending of prophets and messengers is not an arbitrary divine choice but a profound necessity given the nature of human beings and the nature of the relationship between creation and the Creator. Al-Ashqar's argument for the necessity of prophethood draws on multiple dimensions: epistemological, moral, and spiritual, establishing that revelation and prophethood are the indispensable means by which human beings can know how to fulfill their purpose.

From the epistemological dimension, human reason, while powerful within its proper domain, is fundamentally limited when it comes to knowledge of Allah, the unseen world, the nature of worship, the details of the afterlife, and the specific obligations that Allah requires. Philosophers have debated the nature of God and ethics for millennia without reaching consensus, because reason alone — without revelation — cannot access these realities with certainty. Different cultures arrived at radically different (and often contradictory) answers to these fundamental questions. The sending of prophets resolves this impasse by providing authoritative divine information that reason cannot independently generate.

From the moral dimension, human beings have a natural inclination toward good (fitrah) but are also pulled by desires, tribalism, self-interest, and social conditioning that distort moral judgment. History demonstrates that human moral systems unaided by revelation drift toward self-serving justifications: slavery was 'natural,' conquest was 'civilizing,' exploitation was 'progress.' The prophets brought moral standards that were not subject to these distortions because they derived from the One Being who has no self-interest, no tribalism, no desire to exploit — the Creator whose commands reflect pure justice and pure wisdom.

From the spiritual dimension, the correct form of worship cannot be known without revelation. It is not sufficient to know that a Creator exists and that He deserves worship — one must know how He wishes to be worshipped. The diversity of pre-Islamic religious practices — from human sacrifice to ritual prostitution to the veneration of stars — illustrates what happens when human beings attempt to construct forms of worship without prophetic guidance. The prophets were sent precisely to correct these distortions and to establish worship in its pure, divinely approved forms.

The mercy dimension is perhaps the most theologically significant: the sending of prophets is itself an act of divine mercy, because it spares human beings from being held accountable for what they could not have known. The Quran states: 'And never would We punish until We have sent a messenger.' Prophets are the precondition of accountability — without them, neither reward nor punishment would be just, because the standard against which actions are measured would not have been established.