I Am The Brick That Completes The House.

Narrated Abu Huraira:

Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said, "My similitude in comparison with the other prophets before me, is that of a man who has built a house nicely and beautifully, except for a place of one brick in a corner. The people go about it and wonder at its beauty, but say: 'Would that this brick be put in its place!' So I am that brick, and I am the last of the Prophets."

In this hadith, the Prophet SAW likens prophethood to a beautiful house made of bricks. Each brick represents one prophet, from Adam to Jesus. The house is missing one brick. Prophet Muhammad is the last brick that completes the house. As the house is already completed, there is no more need for any new brick. Likewise, as prophethood is already completed, there is no more need for any new prophet after him.

This would be the literal interpretation of the above hadith.

It would be more useful, however, to imagine that the teaching of our Prophet Muhammad SAW is the amalgamation of the teachings of all prophets. In other words, Allah combines and refines all teachings from all prophets and put everything into one nice package.

That one nice package is the Quran.

That is why Quran is a complete guidance for our lives. It guides all affairs in our lives, whether it is about faith, act of worship, economy or how to make a living, relationship with others, family life, the do and don't, everything.

Maybe some of us will say: I read Quran but don't really understand. In what way, therefore, Quran is said as a complete guidance?

The answer is that, like other guidebook, we often need teacher to help explain. Imagine we are not used to cooking. Then one day we try cooking using the recipe book. Definitely we will not be successful. The food that we cook will not be tasty.

Likewise with Quran. It needs the teacher who shows us the way. And the first teacher is the Prophet himself. As the teacher, the Prophet leads his life exactly as Quran wants. That is why the Prophet is called the walking Quran. In other words, we have two forms of Quran. First in the form of book. Second in the form of living person.

Although the Prophet had already died as a person, he is actually still living among us. This is because his life has been fully captured. It is what we call sunnah. We will find his sunnah in the book of hadith, seerah, or any book that talks about his life and teaching.

That is why the Prophet said whoever follows the Quran and my sunnah, he will be rightly guided.

After the Prophet died, the next teachers who help explain the guidance in the Quran were his companions. After them, the teachers are the scholars.

To summarize, we have with us the basic teachings of all prophets nicely packaged in one book called Quran. Together with Quran, we have the Prophet’s sunnah in the book of hadith, seerah, etc. To help us understand these guidances, we have scholars who explain to us what we do not understand.

Since Islam is based on Quran, and since the teachings in the Quran combine the teachings of all prophets, that is why no issue, no problem and no question that Islam cannot answer. If we don't know the answer, then we must ask those who know. Those who know are what we call scholars or ulama.

And this is the more practical way to understand the meaning of the hadith quoted at the beginning of this article.