Ma'arif al-Qur'an
Mufti Muhammad Shafiفَقَالُوا أَبَشَرٌ يَهْدُونَنَا (…but they said, “ Shall some mortals give us guidance?”…64:6). Though the word basher [ mortal (s)] is singular, but in meaning it is plural. Therefore, the verb يَهْدُونَنَا ‘give us guidance’ is plural. All unbelievers held the notion that prophets and messengers cannot be human beings. The Qur’ an has time and again falsified and refuted this notion of the unbelievers. Alas, there is also a group of Muslims who denies the mortality of the Allah’ s Messenger. They need to think in which direction they are moving. His mortality is not contradictory to his prophet-hood, nor is it incompatible with his high station of messenger-ship, nor is his being a Messenger inconsistent with his being a Nur (light). He is Nur (light) as well as a mortal. It is a false analogy to compare his light with that of a lamp or of the sun or the moon.