The Essence of Islam – Volume I — Page 207
The Holy Prophetsa انا الحاشر الذى يحشر الناس على قدمی 124 207 That is, I am the resurrector at whose footsteps the dead are raised. The Holy Qur'an is full of the idiom that the world had died and that God Almighty revived it through sending the Holy Prophet [peace and blessings of Allah be on him] as is said: اعْلَمُوا أَنَّ اللهَ يُحْيِ الْأَرْضَ بَعْدَ مَوْتِهَا 125 Know that Allah revives the earth after its death. In the same way, it is said with reference to the compan- ions of the Holy Prophet [peace and blessings of Allah be on him]: وَأَيَّدَهُمْ بِرُوحِ مِّنْهُ 126 This means that God helped them with the Holy Spirit. The help of the Holy Spirit is that it revives the hearts, delivers from spiritual death, bestows pure faculties, pure senses and pure knowledge, and carries a person to the station of nearness to God through certain knowledge and conclusive arguments. . . . This knowledge on which salvation depends cannot be obtained without that life which is bestowed through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Qur'an affirms it emphatically that that spiritual life is obtained only through following the Holy Prophet [peace and blessings of Allah be on him] and that all those who repudiate obedience to him are dead and do not possess that life. Spiritual life means the intellectual and active faculties which are brought to life by the Holy Spirit. 124 Bukhārī 125 al-Hadid, 57:18 [Publisher] 126 al-Mujadilah, 58:23 [Publisher]