THE PROPHET AND REVELATION
The ninth part dwells on the relationship between Muhammad and the other prophets. Their stories are told as an example, an encouragement, a consolation. The trials undergone and the promises received are common.
The repetition and the significance of the stories come from the passage from one memory to another. The stories aim to recall and restore a memory preserved by those whom the Koran calls the “People of memory” (ahl al-dhikr). The Prophet receives a “memory of the past” for him and his community as well as for the future of each soul and of humanity: all the stories of the prophets aim at the foundation of a memory. Many points are shared, as if mirrored.
The function of these stories is thus to establish or restore a forgotten memory: “to remember” (after having forgotten). All recast a memory for a new revelation and a new prophecy.
THE PROPHET AND THE PROPHETS
The tenth and last part deals with the relationship between the Prophet and his community of which Muhammad is both a member and a witness. The People of the House (ahl al-bayt) is the same expression that designates the family circle of Abraham. Like him, the Prophet does not expect any salary, but only the love of kinship.
The intimate closeness of Abu Bakr is related in the episode of the cave during the Hegira which announces a new beginning of the mission in Medina and prefigures the fight in the way of God. In this context, God is the One who assists and dispenses his “Divine Help”.
In the same context, the Companions are on a path of bliss and light in the Beyond by prayer also during “two-thirds of the night”, which the Prophet sees “bowed, prostrate on their faces”. They are on a path of holiness, a path of rectitude and patience in the face of trials (“stand straight”).
Closeness to the Prophet is closeness to God, which implies total commitment and fidelity: “do not betray God and the Messenger”. The formation of the Muslim community establishes an exemplary history, a founding core and the model of a spiritual elite linked by love to the Prophet and inner commitment. While Jesus is followed by his disciples on the path of monasticism “out of a desire for the satisfaction of God” without being able to fully assume it, believers are called to this divine approval, “a light thanks to which you will walk”.
The Koran insists on the fact that the Prophet came from his community, “from themselves”. The prayer instituted on his person as well as the ritualization of this practice established by Revelation reflects the will to internalize the presence of the Prophet. Likewise, divine orders are first addressed directly and explicitly to the Prophet and then to the community. Taking God as your “patron” (wali), as well as his Envoy” brings this authority back to its principle.
CONCLUSION
The different times of this study by Professor Denis Gril allow us to take a clearer measure of the Quranic figure of the Prophet. The portrait that the Koran paints remains incomplete, features of his person still escaping us. Highlights exposed in the Sunna are also passed over in silence: no allusion to the miracles that tradition attributes to him but that the divine Word refuses to him.
The relationships evoked shed light on his person: his relationship to the Lord, to his Companions, to his community, to his wives, to humanity and to the community of the prophets. This clearly establishes the difference in register between the two main traditional sources of Islam: if the Koran speaks to the Prophet in a familiar way, he remains as if seen from above, whereas the Sunna approaches him horizontally, as “a man speaking of a man “.
As Denis Gril points out at the conclusion of his study, this is a “preliminary investigation” which calls for additional questions. The question of knowing who the Prophet is indeed remains open in the Koran which speaks of a “place of return” to which he will be sent back. An unidentified place of return but which is perhaps the place where the mysteries of human destiny will be unveiled”.