The Finality of Prophecy

by

David Powers

• LAST MODIFIED: 19 February 2025
• DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195390155-0310

Introduction

Evidence of prophecy in the Near East can be traced back to the beginnings of recorded history. An early reference to a prophet occurs in a ration list drawn up in Lagash in the twenty-first century BCE. Over the course of the next 2,500 years, prophecy flourished throughout the region. In Arabia a man named Muḥammad who was born c. 570 CE is said to have received a series of communications from God over a period of twenty-three years between 610 and 632 CE. Within a generation or so after his death, these communications were recorded in writing, collected, and redacted in the text that came to be known as the Qur’ān. In one—and only one—revelation, the divine voice that controls the text refers to the Prophet by name, specifies that he had no adult sons, and characterizes him as the seal of prophets: “Muḥammad was not the father of any of your men but the messenger of God and the seal of prophets (khātam al-nabiyyīn).” This revelation was reportedly communicated to Muḥammad in 5/626–627 and it became verse 40 of Sūrat al-Aḥzāb (“The Confederates”). Within the Muslim community, the expression khātam al-nabiyyīn is widely understood as signifying that Muḥammad was the last prophet. That is to say, upon the Prophet’s death in 632 CE, God ceased to communicate with humankind, with the result that prophecy came to an end, everywhere and forever. Over the past century or so, numerous Western scholars have attempted to recover the earliest history of this phrase and the historical process whereby the seal of prophets became the last prophet. At the same time, Muslim scholars have reinterpreted the phrase and given it new meaning.

General Studies

The doctrine of the finality of prophecy is a key element of Islamic theology. Surprisingly, there are only a few general studies of the subject in Western languages. The student who seeks an introduction to the doctrine will find only a few general surveys, all written during the past twenty years or so. A good starting point is van Ess 2017. For a short encyclopedia entry, see Gobillot 2007. The first and only general introduction by a Western scholar is Sangaré 2018 (in French). At present, the best short overview is Powers 2015.

• Gobillot, Geneviève. “Sceau des prophètes.” In Dictionnaire du Coran. Edited by Mohammad-Ali Amir-Moezzi, 795–797. Paris: Robert Laffont, 2007.

  A succinct summary of scholarship on the seal metaphor in which Gobillot observes that “closure” is only one of several possible meanings of the word khātam in Q. 33:40. Alternatively, the word khātam here may refer to Muḥammad’s status as a prophet who confirms an earlier revelation or who was a member of the class of prophets.

• Powers, David S. “Finality of Prophecy.” In The Oxford Handbook of the Abrahamic Religions. Edited by Adam J. Silverstein and Guy G. Stroumsa, 254–271. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.

  Situates the theological claim that prophecy came to an end following Muḥammad’s death in 11/632 in the context of Jewish and Christian anticipation of the return of prophecy in Late Antiquity, and the emergence of Islam in the Near East over the course of the first/seventh century.

• Sangaré, Youssouf T. Le Scellement de la prophétie en Islam: Khatm al-nubuwwa. Paris: Librairie Orientalist Paul Geuthner, 2018.

  The first general introduction to the doctrine of the finality of prophecy by a Western scholar. The author tracks changes in the understanding of this doctrine from the first centuries of Islam until the present. The book has four sections: (1) the relationship between the qur’ānic hapax khātam al-nabiyyīn and Manicheanism; (2) the understanding of the doctrine of finality between the first/eighth and seventh/fourteenth centuries; (3) specific readings of the doctrine by al-Ghazālī and Ibn Taymiyya; and (4) contemporary understandings of the doctrine.

• van Ess, Josef. “Das Siegel der propheten: Die Endzeit und das prophetische im Islam.” In Propheten und Prophezeiungen. Edited by Matthias Riedl and Tilo Schabert, 53–73. Würzburg, Germany: Königshausen & Neumann, 2005.

  The Qur’ān characterizes Muḥammad as a prophet who was sent to a community that previously had been on the margins of prophecy. Thus, it is unlikely that the phrase khātam al-nabiyyīn in Q. 33:40 originally referred to the last prophet. Rather, van Ess proposes that the initial function of the seal metaphor in Q. 33:40 was to legitimize Muḥammad’s marriage to Zaynab bt. Jaḥsh, which had been criticized by Muḥammad’s contemporaries. It was only around the turn of the second century AH that the phrase khātam al-nabiyyīn came to be understood as signifying the finality of prophecy.

• van Ess, Josef. Theology and Society in the Second and Third Centuries of the Hijra. Vol. 1, A History of Religious Thought in Early Islam. Vol. 1 translated from German by John O’Kane. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2017.

  DOI: 10.1163/9789004344020

  The volume opens with a chapter entitled “Setting the Seal on Prophecy” in which van Ess succinctly reviews earlier scholarship on the idea of the finality of prophecy. A good starting point. Originally published as Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra: Eine Geschichte des religiösen Denkens im frühen Islam. 6 vols. (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1991–1997).