Predictions by the Qur’an

Napolean Bonaparte was one of the greatest generals of his time. His initial successes showed signs of his surpassing even such renowned conquerors as Caesar and Alexander. It was not unnatural that his phenomenal success should foster the idea that he was the master of his own destiny. He then became so over-confidant that he stopped consulting even his closest advisers. He believed that nothing short of total victory was to be his lot in life: but how did his career end? On June 12, 1815, Napoleon set off from Paris with a huge army, which was intended to annihilate the enemy.

Just six days later, Napoleon and his army were given a thorough trouncing at the Battle of Waterloo by the Duke of Wellington who was leading the forces of Britain, Holland and Germany.

His hopes and aspirations shattered, he abandoned his throne and attempted to flee to America to seek asylum. But no sooner had he reached the harbour than he was arrested by enemy guards and forced to board a British ship. He was subsequently taken to the Island of St. Helena in the Southern Atlantic, where he was compelled to live in isolation, bitter and frustrated, till he breathed his last on 5th of May 1821.

Another example of the hazards of human prophecy is the Communist Manifesto of 1848 in which it was presaged that Germany would be the first country to witness a communist revolution. But even after one hundred and thirty eight years, this prophecy has still to be fulfilled. Karl Marx wrote, in May 1849, that in Paris, red democracy was just around the corner. More than a century has passed, but the dawn of red democracy has yet to rise over that city.

Another important, but ill-fated prophecy was made in 1798 by the British economist, Robert Malthus (1766-1834), more than a thousand years after the Quran was revealed. In his book, An Essay on the Principle of Population as it Affects the Future Improvement of Society, he set forth his famous theory on the growth of population. ‘Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio.

Subsistence only increases in an arithmetical ratio.’ Simply stated, growth in population and growth in sustenance are not naturally equal. Human population grows geometrically, that is at a ratio of 1-2-4-8-16-32, while the growth of food supplies maintains an arithmetical ratio: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8.

Sustenance, therefore, cannot keep up with the astronomical growth in human population. The only solution to this problem, according to Malthus, was for mankind to control its birth rate. The population should not be allowed to exceed a certain limit. If it did, the number of people on earth would become greater than the amount of sustenance available, ushering in an age of famine in which countless people would starve to death.

Malthus’s book made a powerful impression on human thought, winning substantial support among writers and thinkers, and leading to the launching of birth-control and family-planning schemes. Recently, however, researchers have come to the conclusion that Malthus was quite wrong in his calculations. Gwynne Dyer has summarised this research in an article which appeared in The Hindustan Times (New Delhi) on December 28, 1984.

The provocative headline read: ‘Malthus: The False Prophet.’
In it he wrote: It is the 150th anniversary of Malthus’ death, and his grim predictions have not yet come true. The world’s population has doubled and redoubled in a geometrical progression as he foresaw, only slightly checked by wars and other catastrophes, and now stands at about eight times the total when he wrote. But food production has more than kept pace, and the present generation of humanity, is on average the best fed in history.

Malthus was born in an age of ‘traditional agriculture’. He was unable to envisage the approach of an age of ‘scientific agriculture’, in which amazing advances in production would become possible. Over the 150 years since Malthus’s death, methods of cultivation have been radically altered. Crops under cultivation are chosen for their particularly high yield. Cattle are able to produce a far higher amount of dairy food than before. New methods have been discovered to increase the fertility of land. Modern machinery has brought vast new areas under cultivation. In technologically-advanced countries of the world there has been a 90% fall in the number of farmers: yet at the same time a tenfold increase in agricultural produce has taken place.

As far as the third world is concerned, 3 billion people inhabit these under-developed countries, but the third world also possesses the potential to produce food for 33 billion—ten times the present population. According to F.A.O. estimates, if the increase in the population of the third world continues unabated, reaching over the 4 billion mark by the year 2000 A.D., there will still be no cause for alarm. The increase in population will be accompanied by an increase in production: the means will be available to provide food for 1½ times more than the number of people who have to be fed. And this increase in food production will be possible without deforestation. So there is no real danger of a food crisis, either on a regional or on a universal scale. Gwynne Dwyer concludes his report with the following words: ‘Malthus was wrong. We are not doomed to breed ourselves into famine.’ Fourteen hundred years before this, the Quran had said: ‘And fearing hunger, do not slay your own offspring. We provide for them and for you. Surely, it is a great error to slay them. Where Malthus’ book on population and sustenance—the work of a human mind working within the confines of time and place—was very far out in its predictions for the human race, (and this was proved to the world just 150 years after the author’s death) the Quran, on the other hand—the work of a superhuman mind—still bears out external realities to this very day.

Nearer to our times, one of the most famous unfulfilled prophecies was that which the German dictator, Adolf Hitler made about himself.

In a famous speech delivered in Munich on the 14th of March, 1936, he declared that he was marching ahead with full confidence that victory would come his way. The world knows, however, that after several brilliant victories, the destiny that awaited him was a final crushing defeat, and an ignominious death by suicide.

If we look at the historic prophecies which have been made in this world, those made in the Quran stand out from all the rest in that they all came quite literally true. This fact is ample proof that their origin was a superhuman mind which, with its eternal knowledge, controls the course of cosmic events—in short, they were the words of God. Of particular interest are the predictions concerning the victories respectively of the Prophet of Islam over his antagonists and of the Romans over the Persians.

When the prophet Muhammad began propagating the message of Islam, almost the whole of Arabia turned against him. On the one hand were the idolatrous tribes, who were thirsty for his blood and, on the other, were the rich and powerful Jews who were determined to foil every attempt on his part to propagate his message. A third group consisted of Muslims who made a public show of having embraced the faith, while concealing their intention to infiltrate the ranks of the genuinely faithful in order, without arousing any suspicion, to bring about the downfall of the Islamic cause.

Thus the Prophet was carrying on his mission in the face of three inimical groups, two of which openly displayed their power and resources, while the third, the conspirators, donned the mask of hypocrisy. Leaving aside a small band of slaves and few people from the lowest rungs of society, no one was willing to rally to his cause. Out of all the highly placed people of Makkah, those who answered his call were almost negligible in number, and when they converted, they too incurred the wrath of their people, so that, in spite of having come from the nobility, they were destined to become just as helpless as the Prophet was.

The Islamic mission went on, however, irrespective of the obstacles placed in its path. But a time came when circumstances became so critical that the Prophet and his companions were forced to leave their home town, Makkah. These neo-converts were already defenceless and almost without resources, but their situation became even worse when they emigrated to Madinah, for whatever their meagre possessions, they had all to be left behind in Makkah. The helpless state in which they reached Madinah can be imagined form the fact that some of the emigrants did not even have so much as a roof over their heads. They had to live out in the open with only a curtain stretched above their heads to make a kind of shed. Because of this they were known as ‘the companions of the shed.’ The number of those who lived in this shed from time to time has been placed at four hundred. Abu Huraira, one of their members said he had seen seventy of them together. All they owned was one piece of coarse cloth, which they wore from neck to knee.

He himself was reduced to a pitiable state during those days. He would often lie so still in the Prophet’s mosque that people thought he was unconscious. But the truth was that continuous starvation had weakened him so much that he was hardly fit to do anything else but just lie motionless.

When this forlorn little caravan was camping of Madinah, there was the danger that at any moment their enemies, who were all around them, would suddenly swoop down on them and there would be a massacre. But God repeatedly gave them the good tidings that they were His representatives and that, therefore, no one could overcome them.

They seek to extinguish the light of God with their mouths; but God will perfect his light, much as the unbelievers may dislike it. It is He who has sent His apostle with guidance and the Faith of Truth, so that He may exalt it above all religions, much as the Pagans, may dislike it.

Shortly after this prediction, the whole of Arabia surrendered before him. The believers, who were far fewer in number and completely lacking in resources, overpowered the unbelievers, who greatly exceeded them in numbers and in material resources.

In material terms, no explanation can be offered as to how, exactly according to the prediction, the Prophet came completely to dominate Arabia and the neighbouring countries. The only explanation possible is that he was God’s emissary, and that purely on the strength of God’s assistance, he was able to gain a victory over his enemies. And such was the victory granted by God to his mission that all his enemies came over to his side and became his helpers. The fact that, in face of extraordinary opposition and enmity, this unlettered prophet’s mission bore fruit, is sound evidence that he was a representative of the Lord of the Universe. Had he been an ordinary man, it would have been impossible for his words to have made the impact that they did, and they would certainly never have made history—and history which, till today, has no parallel. J.W.H. Stobart, in his book, Islam and its Founder, underlines the fact that, when seen in terms of the scarcity of resources at his disposal, his far-reaching and permanent achievements make his name stand out as the most radiant and prominent God in the whole of human history (p.228). There is such compelling evidence of his being a messenger of God that even Sir William Muir, the distinguished Orientalist, has accepted him as such, albeit indirectly. In his book, The Life of Mahomet he speaks of how ‘Muhammad, thus holding his people at bay, waiting, in the still expectation of victory, to outward appearance defenceless, and with his little band, as it were, in the lion’s mouth, yet trusting in His Almighty power whose messenger he believed himself to be, resolute and unmoved—presents a spectacle of sublimity paralleled only in the sacred records by such scenes as that of the Prophet of Israel, when he complained to his Master, “I, even I only, am left.’”

Another prediction of the Quran worth mentioning here is the overpowering of the Iranians by the Greeks (who at that point formed part of the eastern Roman Empire). This is recorded in the thirtieth chapter of the Quran. “The Greeks have been defeated in a neighbouring land. But after the defeat, they shall themselves gain victory within a few years.” The Persian empire, known as the Sassanid empire, lay to the east of Arabian peninsula on the other coast of the Persian Gulf, while the Roman empire, known as the Byzantine empire, was situated on the western side, stretching from the shores of the Red Sea to the Black Sea. The frontiers of both the empires met on the banks of the Tigris and the Euphrates in the north of Arabia.
These empires were the super powers of their times and Edward Gibbon, the noted historian, holds that the Roman empire, whose history dates back to the early part of the second century B.C., was the most civilized empire of its time.

More than any other civilzation, the Roman Empire has attracted the attention of historians, one of the most famous historical works being Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. The second chapter of the fifth volume is of particular concern to us. Constantine, a former Roman emperor, having embraced Christianity in the year 325 A.D. made this new faith the state religion.

Thus the majority of the Romans became Christians, following in the footsteps of their king. The Persians, on the contrary, were worshippers of a sun-god. Eight years before Muhammad, may peace be upon him, attained prophethood, Maurice, who was the head of this Roman Empire, thanks to his lack of administrative ability, suffered an insurrection of his army, lead by Captain Phocas, in the year 602 A.D. This coup being successful, he was usurped by Phocas, who then acceded to the throne of Rome. Once in power, Phocas, brutally assassinated the Roman emperor and other members of his family. After consolidating his hold, he deputed one of his envoys to proclaim his recent coronation in the neighbouring state of Persia. At that time, Nao Sherwan Adil’s son, Chosroes II, was the emperor of Persia. Once in 590-91 A.D., Chosroes had had to flee from Persia because of an uprising of his own people. During this period, the Roman emperor, who had been so brutally murdered, had given him asylum, helped him to regain his throne, and given his daughter to him in marriage. Maurice, therefore, was like a father to him, and he was greatly enraged when he learnt of the overthrow and assassination of his father-inlaw. He therefore imprisoned the Roman envoys, refused to recognize the new government and promptly declared war against the Roman Empire.

In the year 603, his troops crossed the Euphrates and entered Syrian cities. Phocas failed to arrest this unexpected advance and the Persian troops continued their march until they had finally captured the city of Antioch and seized the sacred city of Jerusalem. Within no time, the boundaries of the Persian Empire were extended up to the Nile Valley. Because of the policy of inquisition pursued by the erstwhile Roman State, the anti-Church sects like the Nestorians, the Jacobites and the Jews were already simmering with discontent, so they supported the Persian conquerors in over-throwing the Christian regime—a factor which was of considerable help in the Persian conquest. On seeing the failure of Phocas to combat the Persians, some nobles of the Roman Court sent a secret message to the Roman governor of the empire’s African colony, begging him to save the empire. The governor, therefore, appointed his son, Heraclius, to lead the military campaign. He marched with his troops from Africa in such secrecy that no hint of their approach was received until, from his castle, Phocas, himself could see their ships approaching the coast. Heraclius captured the capital, Constantinople, after a minor battle and Phocas was killed.

Although Heraclius succeeded in eliminating Phocas, he failed to counteract the Persian menace, which eventually proved insuperable. By 616, the Romans had lost the entire territory in the east and west, save the capital, to the Persian emperor. In Iraq, Syria Palestine, Egypt and Asia Minor, the Zoroastrian flag replaced the Christian flag.

Heraclius was besieged on both sides by these implacable enemies and the Roman Empire was eventually reduced to what lay within the walls of Constantinople. After the loss of Egypt, the capital was afflicted by famine and pestilence. Thus the situation was worsening day by day. Only the trunk of the Roman Empire’s huge tree had survived, and even that had begun to wither away. The public lived in fear and horror of the Persians who might lay siege to Constantinople at any moment. Normal transactions came to a standstill and public places, which at one time had been bustling with activity, now wore a deserted look.

After capturing the Roman territories, the fireworshippers’ regime took a series of oppressive measures to eradicate Christianity. The offerings of the devout over a period of three hundred years were rifled in one sacrilegious day, the patriarch Zachariah and the true cross were transported into Persia and ninety thousand Christians were massacred. The Christians of the East were scandalized by the worship of fire and the impious doctrines of the conquerors. Gibbon comments: ‘If the motives of Chosroes had been pure and honourable he must have ended the quarrel with the death of Phocas, and he would have embraced as his best ally the fortunate African who had so generously avenged the injuries of his benefactor Maurice. The prosecution of the war revealed the true character of the barbarian; and the suppliant embassies of Heraclius, to beseech his clemency, that he would spare the innocent, accept a tribute, and give peace to the world, were rejected with contemptuous silence or insolent menace.’

What a marked difference there now was in the balance of strength between the Roman and Persian empire, and how far superior the Persian conqueror supposed himself to be to his Roman counterpart we may judge from the tone in which Chosroes II addressed a letter to Heraclius from Jerusalem: ‘From Chosroes, the supreme god of all gods, the lord of the earth, to his mean and block-headed slave, Heraclius. Thou sayest that thou hast confidence in God. Why did not thy God save Jerusalem from my hands.

Heraclius, incapable of resistence and hopeless of relief, had resolved to transfer his person and government to the more secure residence of Carthage. His ships were already laden with the treasures of the palace, but the flight was arrested by the Patriarch, who armed with the powers of religion in the defence of his country, led Heraclius to the altar of St. Sophia, and extorted a solemn oath that he would live and die with the people whom God had entrusted to his care.

‘During this time, the friendly offer of Sain, the Persian general, to conduct an embassy to the presence of the Great King, was accepted with the warmest gratitude…but the lieutenant of Chosroes had fatally mistaken the intentions of his master.

When Chosroes learnt about this peace mission, he said: ‘It was not an embassy’, said the tyrant of Asia; ‘It was the person of Heraclius bound in chains that he would have brought to the foot of my throne. I will never give peace to the emperor of Rome till he has abjured his crucified God and embraced the worship of the sun.

‘However, a six-year long battle finally inclined the Persian monarch to make peace on certain conditions: ‘A thousand talents of gold, a thousand silk robes, a thousand horses and a thousand virgins.’

Gibbon rightly describes these terms as ignominious. Heraclius would definitely have accepted these terms, but, in view of how circumscribed and depleted the territory was and considering in how short a time he was expected to meet these terms, it was preferable for him to employ those very resources in preparation for a final decisive battle with the enemy.

These events that were taking place in Rome and Persia, the greatest empires of the time, had their repercussions in Makkah, which occupied a central place in Arabia. The Iranians worshipped a sun god and fire, whereas the Romans believed in revelation and prophethood. It made sense psychologically for the Muslims to side with the Christian Romans, whereas the Makkan idolaters sided with the Zoroastrians, they too being nature worshippers.

The conflict between the Romans and Persians, therefore, took on a symbolic value for the believers and unbelievers of Makkah, in the sense that both looked to the outcome of this transfrontier war as a precursor to their own future.

In 616 A.D., the Iranians emerged victorious and all the territories of the Roman Empire were annexed to Persian territory. When this news reached Madinah, the opponents of Islam made capital out of it and began to demoralize the Muslims. They taunted the Muslims with the fact that their Persian brothers had prevailed over the Romans who were adherents of a religion which was similar to Islam.

They claimed that in the same way they would uproot the Muslims and their religion. In the weak and helpless state the Muslims were in, these sardonic words from the non-believers were like salt to their wounds. It was at this time that the Prophet had a highly significant revelation made to him:
The Greeks have been defeated in the neighbouring land. But after their defeat they shall themselves gain victory within a few years. God is in command before and after. On that day the believers will rejoice in God’s help. He gives victory to whom He will. He is the Mighty one, the merciful. That is God’s promise. He will never be untrue. Yet most men do not know it.

At the time this prediction was made, no series of events could have been more inconceivable for, according to Gibbon, ‘the first twelve years of Heraclius were proclaiming the dissolution of the empire.

Clearly, this prediction had come from a Being both omniscient and omnipotent. No sooner had the Prophet received God’s message, than pronounced changes in Heraclius began to become evident.

Writes Gibbon, ‘Of the characters conspicuous in history, that of Heraclius is one of the most extraordinary and inconsistent. In the first and last years of a long regime, the emperor appears to be the slave of sloth, of pleasure, of superstition, the careless and impotent spectator of public calamities.

But the languid mists of the morning and evening are separated by the brightness of the meridian sun: the Arcadius of the palace arose the Caesar of the camp; and the honour of Rome and Heraclius was gloriously retrieved by the exploited trophies of six adventurous campaigns. It was the duty of the Byzantine historians to have revealed the causes of his slumber and vigilance. At this distance we can only conjecture that he was endowed with more personal courage than political resolution; that he was detained by the charms, and perhaps the arts, of his niece Martina, with whom, after the death of Eudocia, he contracted an incestuous marriage’ (p.82).

The same Heraclius who had abandoned all hope and courage, and whose mind had become so confused, then planned a military expedition which was entirely successful. Since the days of Scipio and Hannibal, no bolder enterprise has been attempted than that which Heraclius achieved for the deliverance of the empire. In Constantinople, all the might and power which he could muster went into preparations for war. In the year 622, however, when Heraclius set sail with a select band of five thousand soldiers from Constantinople to Trebizond, people felt they were witnessing the final acts of the grand drama of the Roman Empire.

Heraclius, knowing that the Persian navy was weak, first deployed his own fleet to take the enemy from the rear. Charting a perilous course through the Black Sea and braving the hazards of the mountains of Armenia, he penetrated into the very heart of Persia, to the very point where Alexander the Great had defeated the Persians in the course of his famous march from Syria to Egypt. This surprise attack played havoc with the Persian army, and before they could counter-attack with a strong reserve force of theirs positioned in Asia Minor, Heraclius launched another unexpected offensive from the northern coast. Subsequently to this attack, Heraclius returned by a sea route to Constantinople. On the way, he entered into a pact with the Avars, who then helped in arresting the advance of the Persian troops beyond their own capital. These two Roman attacks were followed by three more expeditions between 623 and 625 A.D. Invading from the southern coast of the Black Sea, the Romans penetrated into the heart of the Persian empire and went as far as Mesopotamia. The Persian aggression had by now received a deathblow, and all the occupied territories were vacated. The conclusive battle, however, was fought at Nineveh, on the banks of the River Tigris, in December 627.

By this time, Chosroes II had no fight left in him. He planned to flee from Dastgard, his favourite palace, but his flight was rudely arrested by rebellion against him from within his own palace. Eighteen sons were massacred before his very eyes, and he was thrown into a dungeon by his own son, Siroes, where he expired on the fifth day. The glory of the house of Sassan ended with the death of Chosroes; his unnatural son enjoyed the fruits of his crimes for only eight months, and in the space of four years, the regal title was assumed by other pretenders to the throne, who disputed with the sword or the dagger the last remnants of an exhausted monarchy. In such a state of anarchy, the Persians were clearly in no position to launch another expedition against the Romans. Cabades II, the son of Chosroes II, entered into a peace treaty with the Romans and handed over all Roman territories. The wood of the Holy Cross was restored at the urgent entreaties of Constantine’s successor. Chosroes’ son abandoned the conquests of his father with no apparent regret.

‘The return of Heraclius from Tauris to Constantinople was a perpetual triumph. After a long impatience, the senate, the clergy, and the people went forth to meet their hero, with tears and acclamations, with olive branches and innumerable lamps; he entered the capital in a chariot drawn by four elephants’.

Thus the Quranic prediction about the Romans regaining their lost territories came true, to the letter, within the specified period of ten years. Gibbon expressed astonishment at this prediction but at the same time, in order to lessen its importance, he has quite wrongly related it to the epistle sent by the Prophet Muhammad to Chosroes II. Gibbon observes: ‘While the Persian monarch contemplated the wonders of his art and power, he received an epistle from an obscure citizen of Makkah inviting him to acknowledge Mahomet as the apostle of God. He rejected the invitation, and tore up the epistle. It is thus, exclaimed the Arabian Prophet, that God will tear the kingdom, and reject the supplications of Chosroes. Placed on the verge of the two great empires of the East, Mahomet observed with secret joy the progress of their mutual destruction; and, in the midst of the Persian triumphs, he ventured to foretell that, before many years should elapse, victory would again return to the banners of the Romans. At the time when this prediction is said to have been delivered, no prophecy could be more distant from its accomplishment, since the first twelve years of Heraclius announced the approaching dissolution of the empire’.

But other historians are in agreement that his prediction does not relate to the epistle addressed to Chosroes II, because this having been sent to the emperor of Persia in the seventh year of Hijrah, in 628 A.D., whereas the prediction of the Roman victory had been made in 616 A.D. in Makkah, before the emigration.