ذِكْرِى

21:43; 39:46.

Commentary:

The verse means to say that at that time worship of God will totally disappear from among the Christian peoples and love of Mammon will take the place of love of God in their hearts. They will completely forget their Creator and will attribute all their great achievements to their own skill and effort.

The words, and they could not even hear, mean that their hearts will become so much rusted and corroded that they will lose all attachment for the word of God and will refuse to listen to it.

The foregoing verses refer to the great material progress and widespread conquests of Gog and Magog—western Christian nations—and their utter disregard for God and religion. We have also been told that, elated with their political power and military glory, they will give themselves up to a life of pleasure and sin and as a result will bring the wrath of God upon themselves and their prosperity will give place to decline and degradation. Then in despair and despondency, as hinted at in Moses’ vision, they will turn to God and, having realized the error of their ways, will come back to the "junction of the two Seas" i.e. they will accept the Holy Prophet. The following prophecy of the Bible forms a befitting sequel to the account of Gog and Magog and indicates the time of their rise to power and greatness:

And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison. And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle; the number of whom is as the sand of the sea (Revelation 20:7-8).

By "the thousand years" are meant the thousand years of the Hijrah—Migration of the Holy Prophet to Medina in 622 A.D. The above passage along with chapters 38 and 39 of Ezekiel makes it quite clear that the rise of Gog and Magog was to have begun in the 17th century A.D. and to have reached its zenith in our own time.

The account of Dhul-Qarnain will remain incomplete unless the reason is given as to why it has been assigned such a prominent place in the Quran, when as a fact of history does not appear directly to concern us nor does its narration benefit us materially or spiritually. In fact, it is more for its spiritual than for its historical importance that the story of Dhul-Qarnain has been given so large a space in the Holy Book. The Quran is not a book of history. The stories of past Prophets and other historical incidents have not been mentioned in it to acquaint us with events which took place in the remote past. They are so many prophecies about future events. Some of these prophecies have already been fulfilled in the person of the Holy Prophet while others await fulfilment in some future time. The account of Dhul-Qarnain, like other similar Quranic accounts, embodies a great prophecy which has been fulfilled in the person of Ahmad, the Holy Founder of the Ahmadiyya Movement. Ahmed was the Dhul-Qarnain of our age. Whereas the Quranic account of Dhul-Qarnain historically applies to the great Persian monarch Cyrus, spiritually it applies to Ahmad. Thus besides its historical value the story is pregnant with great spiritual import. It implies a great prophecy to the effect that, just as in the 6th century B.C. Cyrus saved Persia from the depredatory raids of Gog and Magog, by erecting a barrier of brick and stone in their way, another Dhul-Qarnain will save the soul and spirit of mankind, from the devastating moral assaults of Christian nations of the West who are the descendants of Gog and Magog. He will accomplish his great and noble task by the help of divine knowledge and the signs that God will show at his hands. The nature of the work entrusted to both these Dhul-Qarnains bears a striking likeness to each other, only the one was in the mundane sphere, the other in the spiritual. The Prophet Ahmad possessed many physical and spiritual resemblances with the great Cyrus. Like Cyrus, he was called the Messiah and like he, was of Persian origin. Cyrus was Dhul-Qarnain in the sense that he was the ruler of the double Medo-Persian Empire and Ahmad (1835--1908) was Dhul-Qarnain in the sense that he saw the beginning of two centuries of several eras (Qarn meaning a century).

For a further study of this most interesting subject the reader is referred to Barahin-e-Ahmadiyyah, Part v, pp. 91-93; also the Review of Religions, Qadian, vol. 17, No. 6.

28:36.

Important Words:

لا تنیا (slacken not) is derived from ونی which means, he was or became languid, remiss, weak, feeble or faint. ونی فیه means, he entered upon a thing languidly or weakly; توانی فی الامر he flagged or was remiss in the affair; ونی عنه, he passed from it and left it (Lane & Aqrab).

Commentary:

The words, and slacken not in remembering Me, show that prayer and constant remembrance of God are greatly helpful in attaining success. They constitute the spiritual means which one must employ along with physical and material means for the furtherance and success of one’s cause. They are as essential as the physical means.

God’s command to Moses and Aaron to adopt these means, although He had promised them His help, makes it abundantly clear that the promise of Divine help does not absolve one of the obligation to use those means which God has created for the attainment of a certain object. God wants us to use all legitimate means that lie in our power for the accomplishment of our object and leave the rest to Him.

18:102.

Commentary:

The verse means to say that a person who consigns God to oblivion in this life and leads a life which obstructs or impedes his spiritual development and growth and thus deprives himself of heavenly light will be born blind at the time of his second birth in the afterlife. This will be because his soul in this life which serves as a body for the much more spiritually developed soul in the next world had become blind on account of his having led a sinful and depraved life in this world. This is one meaning of the verse.

It may have another interpretation. معیشة (life) signifies the basis of human life and it is not only physical amenities and comforts on which human life depends but other innumerable things also contribute to its sustenance and to man’s social, moral and spiritual development. Of these things those people who reject Divine teaching remain deprived and thus they lead a difficult life, full of strains and stresses. Moreover, the sphere of action of the rejecters of Divine teaching is very narrow and limited because they have no grand and great goal before them, as it is belief in Divine attributes and the development by man of these attributes in his person that help to broaden his vision. This is why the Prophets of God and His Elect stand on a much higher moral plane than the votaries of philosophy.

Important Words:

سخریا (laughing stock) is derived from سخر. They say سخر منه i.e. he mocked at, laughed at, derided or ridiculed him, سخرت السفینة means, the ship had a good wind and voyage; it obeyed and ran its course. سخرہ (sakhkhara) means, he compelled him to do what he did not like; or to work without recompense, hire or wages. سخری or سخری (sikhriyyun) means mockery; scoff; derision; ridicule; one who is mocked at, scoffed at, derided or ridiculed; one who is compelled to work against his will, without wages or compensation (Lane & Aqrab). See also 2:165; 2:213.

Commentary:

The verse means to say that the believers were weak and the disbelievers strong and powerful. In the pride of their power and wealth the latter mocked at the poor believers and indulged so much in this unseemly business of scoffing and mocking at them that they lost all sense of propriety and dignity and even forgot their responsibilities and duties to God. Thus the poverty of the believers became the cause of the disbelievers indulging in mockery and consigning God to oblivion.

The verse also means that the believers being poor and weak, the disbelievers employed them against their will or desire, exploited them and exacted compulsory service from them without paying them any wages or compensation for the work they did.

54:26.

Commentary:

The verse refers to a great obstacle which stands in the way of disbelievers to accept the truth. They simply cannot, they say, persuade themselves to follow the lead of a man just like themselves—rather inferior to them in certain respects. The same subject has been referred to in 43:32 where the Meccan infidels are described as refusing to accept the Message of the Quran on the pretext, "why has not this Quran been sent to some great man of the two towns."