3:144 Muḥammad is only a messenger. Messengers have passed away before him. What, if he dies or is killed, will you turn back on your heels? If anyone turns back on his heels, he will not harm God in anything, and God will recompense the grateful.
As much as Muḥammad is praised and chosen among all men and caressed by the God of the world's folk, as much as he is the pole of the world and the lamp of heaven and earth, the chieftain and full moon of the universe, emulated by the creatures, the paragon of the engendered beings, and the Seal of the Prophets-despite all this, he is a mortal man. Death is fitting for him and annihilation applies to him. As many prophets as there have been in the world, all of them went. The Real did not disappear, nor was God harmed. The Real remained after all of them, and God is their keeper in the perfection of His exaltedness.
By way of allusion, the folk of realization are being addressed: "The perfection of Our exaltedness is free of need for that which was not, then came to be. There is no link between Our lordhood and that which was not, then came to be. Our unity does not call for an existence-giver, and Our Being does not need a strengthener. Our exaltedness recognizes Our magnificence, and Our Unity knows Our exaltedness.
Her own face had itself as a moon,
her own eye had itself as collyrium.
A sound report has come that He says, "O My servants! If the first of you and the last of you, the men of you and jinn of you, the living of you and the dead of you, had the heart of the most godwary man among you, that would add nothing to My kingdom. O My servants! If the first of you and the last of you, the men of you and jinn of you, the living of you and the dead of you, had the heart of the most depraved man among you, that would take nothing away from My kingdom."
What, if he dies or is killed, will you turn back on your heels? This verse provides evidence for the eminence of Abū Bakr, for when Muṣ?afā was taken away from this house of decrees, and the steed of death was sent for the shining face of his prophethood, the Divine Presence, in the attribute of exaltedness, snatched that shining face away from the steed of death and took him into the embrace of Unity. The folk of dispersion fell into agitation and their eyes were placed inside the veil, except for the insight of Abū Bakr, the truthfulness of whose center point of togetherness Muṣ?afā had put on record in this report: "I and my brother Abū Bakr were created from one clay, but I went before him to prophethood without harming him. Had he gone before me, that would not have harmed me." Hence, when ʿUmar picked up a sword and said, "If anyone says that Muṣ?afā has died, I will take off his head," Abū Bakr-the foot of whose truthfulness was firmly established in the circle of togetherness-went to the pulpit and shouted at ʿUmar and the others, "If anyone was worshiping Muḥammad, surely Muḥammad is dead. If anyone was worshiping God, surely God is the Living who does not die."
What a tremendous God, what an all-compelling Enactor! For all is He, the existence of the creatures is by His holding, their nonbeing by His decree, the subsistence of the world's folk by His desire, the annihilation of the Adamites by His will. He will always subsist and He will live forever. Everything is perishing but His face [28:88].