according to the Holy Qur’ān, is not the solitary experience of this or that nation but the spiritual experience of the whole of the human race. Allāh is spoken of in the very opening verse as the Rabb of all the nations of the world, the Nourisher unto perfection, physically as well as spiritually, of the whole human race. Starting from that broad basis, the Holy Qur’ān develops the theory that prophets were sent to every nation: “There is not a people but a warner has gone among them” (35:24); “And for every nation there is a messenger” (10:47). At the same time it is stated that every prophet was sent to a single nation and, therefore, though prophethood was in one sense a universal fact, it was more or less a national institution, the scope of the preaching of every prophet being limited to his own nation. The advent of the Holy Prophet Muḥammad universalized the institution of prophethood in a real sense. The day of the national prophet was over, and one prophet was raised for the whole world, for all nations and for all ages: “Blessed is He Who sent down the Furqān48 upon His servant that he may be a warner to the nations” (25:1). “Say: O mankind, surely I am the Messenger of Allāh to you all, of Him, Whose is the kingdom of the heavens and the earth” (7:158). “And We have not sent thee but as a bearer of good news and as a warner to all mankind, but most men know not” (34:28).
The world-prophet therefore took the place of the national prophets, and the grand idea of unifying the whole human race, and gathering it together under one banner, was thus brought to perfection. All geographical limitations were swept away as were all bars of colour and race, and the basis of the unity of the human race was laid upon the grand principle that the whole human race was one, and that all men, wherever they maybe found, were a single nation (2:213). Such unity could not be accomplished unless the finality of prophethood was established, for if prophets continued to appear after the world-prophet, they would undoubtedly demand the allegiance of this or that section, and shatter the very foundations of the unity at which Islām aimed by giving a single prophet to the whole world.
48 Furqān (lit., discrimination) is one of the names of the Holy Qur’ān, because of the clear distinction it brought about between truth and falsehood.