AHMADIYYA BELIEF EACH PROPHET LIVES TO HALF THE AGE OF THE PREVIOUS

Ahmadiyya Mosque, Mauritius

It was over three months ago now, we published an article which presented a refutation of an anti-Ahmadiyya site's claim that The Promised Messiah made up the idea of Jesus a.s. passing away aged 120 himself. We did so by presenting a saying of The Holy Prophet s.a.w's in which he stated that prophets live to half the age of the prophet who comes before them and that as Jesus a.s. had lived to 120, The Holy Prophet s.a.w. would live to around 60. An Ahmadi Muslim commentator raised the question of why The Promised Messiah, being the next prophet after The Holy Prophet s.a.w, had not passed away aged 30. We asked Khalid Nawaz Sahib - a regular Ahmadi Muslim commentator on this site - to look into this issue and he responded by reading a relevant Urdu article written by Maulana Dost Muhammad Shahid Sahib and translating it for us. Khalid Nawaz Sahib's translation of Maulana Dost Muhammad Shahid Sahib's Urdu article has been adapted by our site as follows:

The hadith in question has been recorded in several collections and books and one such book states:

The Holy Prophet (saw) said to his daughter Fatima: "Once in every year, Gabriel recited the Qur'an to me. This year he recited twice. He also told me that every succeding prophet has lived to half the age of his proceeder. He told me that Jesus, son of Mary, lived to 120 years. Therefore, I think, I may live to about 60 years." (Tibrani Kabeer)

This prophecy was majestically fulfilled. However, some mock this prophecy by calculating that it must mean that the first prophet, Adam a.s, lived to millions of years and that The Promised Messiah should have passed away aged 30. We will answer this objection  by relating it to another ahadith from which the second allegation is raised:

Narrated Aisha: The Holy Prophet s.a.w. said, 'Our (ie. prophets) property is not inherited, rather it is given in charity'. (Bukhari)

Of course, from the hadith above the opponents raise the allegation that supposedly The Promised Messiah's children inherited from him therefore he cannot be a prophet of God. However, such people should be directed to the following verses:

And Solomon was heir to David. (The Holy Qu'ran, 27:16/17)

Again we read:

This is an account of the mercy of thy Lord shown to His servant Zachariah. When he called upon his Lord in a low voice. He said, 'My Lord, my bones have indeed become feeble and my head is all aflame with hoariness but never, my Lord, have I been unblessed in my prayer to Thee; And I fear my relations after me, and my wife is barren. So grant me from Thyself a successor, To be my heir. (The Holy Qu'ran, 19:1-7)

So based on these verses it is clear that there was nothing wrong in The Promised Messiah leaving an inheritance, as the prophets David a.s. and Zachariah a.s. had also both left an inheritance for their children. However, then do we reject the hadith which states that prophets of God do not leave an inheritance? This issue is resolved by another hadith:

Narrated Malik bin Aus: The Holy Prophet s.a.w. said, 'Our (ie. prophets) property is not inherited, rather it is given in charity' and Allah's Apostle meant himself (by saying 'we') (Bukhari)

 From this hadith it becomes clear that sometimes The Holy Prophet s.a.w. would say 'The Prophets do this' and by this he would only mean that he himself was to do something. Therefore, we can accept the hadith regarding the inheritance of prophets by interpreting it in this way that is in accordance with one of the narrations and is also in accordance with The Holy Qu'ran.

In the same way, when The Holy Prophet s.a.w. stated that prophets live to half the age of the prophet who proceeds them, he did not mean all prophets have lived to half the age of their predecessor. All that he meant by it was to state the age of Jesus a.s. when he passed away and to make a prophecy about his own impending return to Allah.