The Promised Messiah’s [Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian] Denial of Prophethood
The Light (Pakistan), 16th February 1944 Issue (Vol. 23, No. 4, p. 30)
“I have written in some of my books that the office of ‘tahdith’ [the office of being a muhaddath (a non-prophet, to whom God speaks)] bears a close resemblance to that of prophethood. There is no difference between them save that of power and position. People have not understood me and say that I am a claimant to prophethood. But the Most High God knows it well that this saying of theirs is quite baseless and false, and contains not even the proverbial grain of truth. They have connected it to incite the people to scoff and scold at me, and to call me a ‘kafir’ [non-Muslim] and create mischief in the land, and create dissension among the believers. I declare upon the most solemn oath that I believe in the Most High God and His Apostle; and I believe also that the Apostle of God is the Last of the prophets. I have said, it is true, that a Muhaddath contains elements of prophethood in him, but in point of power and not in point of position; and if the door of prophethood had not been closed, he would have been a prophet by position also. In ‘tahdith’ all the excellences of prophethood lie latent and hidden, but these manifest not to the prophetic degree, the door of prophethood having been closed for ever. It was to this fact that the Holy Prophet [Muhammad (pbuh)] was alluding when he said: ‘Had there been a prophet after me, it would have been Umar’. Hazrat Umar was a Muhaddath and the Holy Prophet said so to indicate that the seed of prophethood, its embryo as it were, is present in a Muhaddath. (Vide: Hamamat-ul-Bushra, pp. 81, 82)
“My prophethood in the eyes of God, means ‘frequency of revelation’ only, and no more and the malediction of God be upon him who claims anything beyond it or attaches any importance to his own self, or withdraws his neck from under the yoke of Muhammad. Our Holy Prophet, of a truth [certainly], is the Last of the prophets; the line of the apostles has terminated with him. No one, therefore, has a right to claim real prophethood after him; and nothing has remained of it excepting His frequent Communion, and this too with, and not without subservience to the Holy Prophet. I swear by the Most High God that whatever has been achieved by me, has been obtained from the light and lead of Muhammad’s footprints. The title of prophet which the Most High God has given me is merely by way of metaphor and not in the strict sense of the term.” (Vide: Haqiqat-ul Wahy (1907), p. 65).