﴿ وَقَالُوا۟ مَالِ هَٰذَا ٱلرَّسُولِ يَأْكُلُ ٱلطَّعَامَ وَيَمْشِى فِى ٱلْأَسْوَاقِ ۙ لَوْلَآ أُنزِلَ إِلَيْهِ مَلَكٌۭ فَيَكُونَ مَعَهُۥ نَذِيرًا ﴾

“Yet they say: What sort of apostle is this [man] who eats food [like all other mortals] and goes about in the market places? Why has not an angel [visibly] been sent down unto him, to act as a warner together with him?””

Every preacher giving the call for Truth has had to face the same experience, as that of a Prophet. While his contemporaries looked down upon him with contempt, the people of succeeding ages venerated the preacher like a god. This is so because during his lifetime, a prophet lives the life of an ordinary human being and his contemporaries therefore fail to appreciate the wisdom he propagates. They see him cast in an overly idealized form, wearing the halo conferred by legend, and therefore, feel obliged to pay homage to him and glorify him in an exaggerated manner. The minds of succeeding generations develop such deep-seated notions about the extraordinary greatness of the prophet, that nobody is held superior to or even at par with him. A living prophet, however, is treated scornfully by the majority of his contemporaries. The few who develop a reasoned understanding of his message are also ‘advised’ to disassociate themselves from one who is “possessed”. Having no rational arguments, the unrelenting contemporaries of a prophet, resort to unfair vilification of his image so as to curb the preaching of his message.