﴿ وَإِن يُكَذِّبُوكَ فَقَدْ كَذَّبَتْ قَبْلَهُمْ قَوْمُ نُوحٍۢ وَعَادٌۭ وَثَمُودُ ﴾

“AND IF THEY [who are bent on denying the truth] give thee the lie, [O Muhammad, remember that, long] before their time, the people of Noah and [the tribes of] Ad and Thamud gave the lie [to their prophets],”

The people who denied Abraham and Moses were their contemporaries and not those living when this verse was revealed: by the time the Quran was revealed, all the people professed to be followers of these prophets. The same thing happened in the case of all the other prophets. The people of their age disbelieved them, and it was the successors of these very people who elevated them to the status of greatness and holiness. The reason for this is that, in his own times, a prophet is simply a call-giver without the trappings of greatness, but in later ages, a history of greatness gathers round his name. The people of every age have proved that they are not capable of recognising a prophet,—a lonely herald of Truth. They can recognise a prophet only when greatness already attaches to his name. The Prophet Muhammad brought the same message as was brought by Prophet Abraham and Moses. But the people of his age, who were proud of being associated with Abraham and Moses, refused to accept him. This shows which people are in reality believers in a prophet. The real believers in a prophet are those who recognise the ‘call-giving’ prophet while he is still at the stage of having no signs of greatness attached to him. Those who recognise him only when he has achieved greatness are simply believers in history and not real believers in the Prophet of God.