How Great Is the Gap Between the Least of the Prophets and Sayyiduna Abu Bakr?
Answered by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani
Question
All prophets rank above all non-prophets. How great is that gap? Is the rank of the least of the prophets nearer to that of the Prophet Muhammad (Allah bless him and give him peace), or nearer to that of Sayyiduna Abu Bakr?
Answer
In the Name of Allah, the Merciful and Compassionate.
May Allah reward the care in your question, which is well-framed and courteous.
Your question rests on a picture that needs correcting, and once corrected, it largely answers itself. You are imagining one scale on which everyone stands, prophets higher and the friends of Allah lower, with a measurable distance between. That is not what prophethood is. Prophethood is a station (maqam), and its whole reality is the receipt of revelation (wahy). This is a station no one even approaches; nor can a non-prophet fathom the station of prophethood, as they lack true realization of what revelation is [Ghazali, Ihyaʾ Ulum al-Din].
Prophets and Prophethood
A prophet is a human being to whom revelation is given, with a sacred law he acts by, whether or not he is commanded to convey it [Bajuri, Tuhfat al-Murid ala Jawharat al-Tawhid]. No quantity of worship produces that. Nobody climbs to it.
Imam Laqani (Allah have mercy on him) puts it in a line of the Jawhara that the commentators have worked over for four centuries:
Prophethood is not acquired, even though a person ascends in goodness to the highest pass;
Rather, it is Allah’s bounty, given to whom He wills
[Laqani, Jawharat al-Tawhid]
Imam Bajuri (Allah have mercy on him) explains that it is not earned by following any particular regimen of means, such as keeping to seclusion, and that “the highest pass” refers to the most arduous acts of worship [Bajuri, Tuhfat al-Murid]. He glosses the second line’s “Giver of gifts” as the One who gives without any counter-payment. The philosophers held the opposite, that prophethood is the fruit of ascetic training, and Bajuri observes that the whole disagreement is definitional: they differ over whether it can be earned because they differ over what it is.
The Comparison Asked About
That is why your comparison, natural as it is, has no measure. The gap between a prophet and Abu Bakr (Allah be pleased with him) is not a distance along one road. It is the difference between one who is given revelation and one who is not.
Imam Tahawi (Allah have mercy on him) fixes the ordering in the creed: no friend of Allah is preferred over any prophet, and a single prophet is better than all the friends of Allah together [Tahawi, al-Aqida al-Tahawiyya].
Imam Nasafi (Allah have mercy on him) reaches the same conclusion from the very hadith you would think of: that no sun has risen or set upon anyone after the prophets, better than Abu Bakr, which places him above everyone who is not a prophet and below anyone who is [Nasafi, al-Iʿtimad fi al-Iʿtiqad].
Ranking among the prophets themselves is affirmed in the Book, “Those are the messengers, We having preferred some above others” [Quran 2:253], but the Book affirms the fact without giving the measure, and the scholars decline to specify what revelation left unspecified. You asked to be told if this is one of those. It is, and that is a position rather than a gap in our knowledge.
What Is Ours to Know, and What Is Not
Prophethood is bestowed, not earned. Friendship with Allah is earned in following a prophet, and the follower does not overtake the one he follows. Hold the ordering with certainty, love them all, and leave the measure to the One who set it. Your Lord knows best all those in the heavens and the earth [Quran 17:55].
And Allah knows best.
Faraz Rabbani
Related Answers
- The Disbelief of Iblis and a Ranking of the Prophets, Angels, and Humankind — How creation is ranked: our Prophet first, then the messengers and prophets, then angels and humankind.
- Does the Mahdi Have a Higher Rank Than Prophet Isa (Peace be upon him)? — The Mahdi does not outrank Prophet Isa, since no one who is not a prophet outranks a prophet.
- Is There Consensus Regarding the Superiority of Abu Bakr? — Sunni scholars, the Four Imams among them, agree that Abu Bakr is the best of the Companions.
- Do We Make a Distinction Between Prophets? — We believe in every prophet without exception, while their ranks with Allah differ.
- Is There Consensus That the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) Is the Best of Creation? — Ahl al-Sunna agree that the Prophet is the best of all creation, prophets and angels included.
