Tafsir

Only a human being can be a messenger of Allah: Angels cannot be sent as messengers to human beings

Common disbelievers and polytheists thought that 'bashar,' that is, a man, could not be the messenger of Allah because he is someone accustomed to all human compulsions like them. When so, what edge did he have over them to make them call him the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and take him as their leader claiming that they follow him? This assumption of theirs has been answered in the Holy Qur'an, at several places in various ways. The outcome of the answer given here in this verse: مَا مَنَعَ النَّاسَ (And nothing prevented people - 94) is that a messenger of Allah sent to a set of people has to be from their genus or race. If these people are human, the messenger should be human because mutual congruity does not exist between one genus and the other - and without congruity, guidance and grooming bring no benefit. Had some angel been sent to men as their messenger, he would have known no hunger, or thirst, or sexual de-sires, nor would he have felt the effect of chill and heat, nor fatigue after hard work.

He would have, then, expected human beings to act like him without having ever realized their weaknesses and limitations. Similarly, when human beings knew that he was an angel, after all, they would have come to the conclusion that they just did not have the ability to do what he did. Who would have, then, followed him? Following is the fruit of correction, reform and right guidance. This benefit can be hoped for only when the messenger of Allah is from the genus of men. He should be an embodiment of human emotions and physical desires while, at the same time, he should also have an angelic majesty that could serve as a liaison - intermediary communicator - between human beings and angels, receiving revelation from angels bringing it and communicating it to his fellow human beings.

This submission also removes the doubt that arises by thinking: when human beings cannot derive benefit from the angel, how would a messenger - despite being human - derive the benefit of revelation from them?

As for the doubt - when the compatibility of genus is a condition between a messenger and his people, how was the Holy Prophet ﷺ made a messenger of the jinns for they are not from the same genus as men? - it can be answered by saying that the messenger is not simply a human being, instead, he also has an angelic majesty about him because of which jinns too could also be congruous to him.