The Angels, the Scriptures and the Messengers: Belief in the angels, the Books and the prophets is one of the pre-requisites of faith, without which no one will be considered to be a believer. Angels are God’s messengers to the prophets and the prophets are messengers of God to mankind. The Holy Scriptures (Books) are the messages conveyed by the angels to the prophets and by the prophets to mankind.
Divine Revelation:
The necessity of Divine revelation is a rational possibility. This is because God is capable of creating the angels, nominating the prophets and laying down laws. Once the human intellect believes in the existence of God, His ability and power, it cannot deny this possibility. Revelation has occurred because the news of its occurrence has been conveyed to us with certitude. We stated earlier that “Certitude through news conveyed from an authentic person is as good as certitude by seeing and feeling.” This is why we believe in what is communicated to us with authenticity, in the same way-as we believe in what we see and hear.
Divine revelation is necessary because, without it, mankind would be engrossed in a material life, oblivious of the fact that there is an Afterlife. Without such revelation, human beings would behave like animals – eating, drinking and indulging in carnal pleasures. They would have no contact with their Lord nor would they seek to work for the life Hereafter. If it were not for Divine revelation, man would be deprived of moral values and nobility of character. He might live in a world of illusion, drawing inspiration from various theories on social ethics. But any system based on social ethics alone, is like a palace built on quicksand. Man is by nature self-centered and seeks to satisfy his own needs and protect himself from harm and does not do anything which does not give him pleasure or some sort of gain. Say someone who only has fifty pence with which to buy himself dinner notices a charity box in aid of orphans. Would he be willing to donate his fifty pence towards that cause in a discreet manner, not telling anyone what he has done – and forgoing his dinner, unless he were a believer in God and the Day of Judgement? A believer would certainly give money in such a case, and would be aware that God is watching him, and that if he donates his fifty pence he will be rewarded with the equivalent of, say, fifty thousand pounds on the Day of Judgement. Only a believer carries out charitable actions, without caring whether people notice what he has done or not, or whether they express gratitude, or reward him or not. And only a believer restrains himself from doing what he knows is wrong, regardless of whether he is alone or in the company of others.
However the person who does good in order to gain recognition will not do so unless he is sure of obtaining a good name and fame. Likewise, the person who will not commit a crime for fear of being caught by the police or shown up in the public eye will nonetheless act without regret if he knows he is alone. If God were to take people to task on the Day of Judgement, for the mistakes they have made in their lives and had not sent prophets to teach mankind the Divine laws, they would certainly protest, saying, “Oh Lord- if only Thou had sent us an apostle, we should certainly have followed Thy signs before we were humbled and put to shame.” (Qur’an;20:134). And they might also claim that had the Message been sent to them sooner they would have abided by it, and had they known the Divine law they would have adhered to it. The Holy Qur’an states that the apostles gave good news as well as a warning so that… mankind after (the coming) of the apostles should have no plea against God. (Qur’an;4:165).