One important aspect of being Muslim is to believe in the end of Prophethood. Prophet Muhammad is considered to be the final prophet sent to human kind by Allah the Great and no other human being can become a prophet until the end of time.
This does not mean that humans have not had any prophets after the demise of Muhammad. In fact, as can been seen in this article, numerous individuals claimed prophethood after Prophet Muhammad and Muslims, as seen in this article, consider all of those claims as false.
The idea of finality of Prophethood known as “Khatam an-Nabiyyin” is controversial. In the subcontinent, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian made a claim regarding prophethood and his followers are still being persecuted in Pakistan.
As a freethinking agnostic, I find it extremely hard to believe how the words of the Qu’ran can actually be the literal speech of a metaphysical entity that sustains the entire Universe but chose only Prophet Muhammad as a messenger and sealed the possibility of talking to humanity ever again.
I just can’t come to terms with the fact that Allah, who, if exists, and is by definition the Most Beneficent and the Most Merciful, would choose to keep us humans of the 21st Century into such an abysmal darkness regarding His personal existence. Why would Allah abandon us after the demise of Prophet Muhammad?
Revelation (if it can ever be proved scientifically), in my opinion, has to be progressive. The doors to revelation cannot be sealed off for eternity after a specific period in human history (such as the death of Prophet Muhammad). In this regard, my own views echo with the followers of Bahá’í faith. I recently came across an article on the Wikipedia about the Bahá’í belief “that religious truth is revealed by God progressively and cyclically over time through a series of divine Messengers, and that the teachings are tailored to suit the needs of the time and place of their appearance.“
Whereas the veracity of all religious claims need be first established in some empirical form, the idea of progressive revelation is much more intuitively appealing than the concept of “Khatam an-Nabiyyin.”
Allah, if He is out there, needs to reveal Himself to us in ways that a rational mind of the 21st Century can understand and appreciate.