CHAP. XXX.
Intitled, The Greeks
[a]
; revealed at Mecca
[b]
.
In the name of the most merciful God.
[a] The original word is al Rûm; by which the later Greeks, or subjects of the Constantinopolitan empire, are here meant; tho’ the Arabs give the same name also to the Romans, and other Europeans.
[b] Some except the verse beginning at these words, Praise be unto God.
[c] The Prelim. Disc. §. III. p. 59, &c.
[d]
The Greeks have been overcome by the Persians, &c.] The accomplishment of the prophecy contained in this passage, which
is very famous among the Mohammedans, being insisted on by their doctors as a
convincing proof that the Korân really came down from heaven, it may be
excusable to be a little particular.
The passage is said to have been revealed on occasion of a great victory
obtained by the Persians over the Greeks, the news whereof coming to Mecca,
the infidels became strangely elated, and began to abuse Mohammed and his
followers, imagining that this success of the Persians, who, like themselves,
were idolaters, and supposed to have no scriptures, against the Christians,
who pretended as well as Mohammed to worship one God, and to have divine
scriptures, was an earnest of their own future successes against the prophet
and those of his religion: to check which vain hopes, it was foretold, in the
words of the text, that how improbable soever it might seem, yet the scale
should be turned in a few years, and the vanquished Greeks prevail as
remarkably against the Persians.
That this prophecy was exactly fulfilled the commentators fail not to
observe, tho’ they do not exactly agree in the accounts they give of its
accomplishment; the number of years between the two actions being not
precisely determined. Some place the victory gained by the Persians in the
fifth year before the Hejra, and their defeat by the Greeks in the second year
after it, when the battle of Bedr was fought
[1]
:
others place the former in the
third or fourth year before the Hejra, and the latter in the end of the sixth
or beginning of the seventh year after it, when the expedition of al
Hodeibiyah was undertaken
[2]
.
The date of the victory gained by the Greeks, in the first of these
accounts, interferes with a story which the commentators tell, of a wager laid
by Abu Becr with Obba Ebn Khalf, who turned this prophecy into ridicule. Abu
Becr at first laid ten young camels that the Persians should receive an
overthrow within three years; but on his acquainting Mohammed with what he had
done, that prophet told him that the word bed’, made use of in this passage,
signified no determinate number of years, but any number from three to nine
(tho’ some suppose the tenth year is included), and therefore advised him to
prolong the time, and to raise the wager; which he accordingly proposed to
Obba, and they agreed that the time assigned should be nine years, and the
wager a hundred camels. Before the time was elapsed, Obba died of a wound he
had received at Ohod, in the third year of the Hejra
[3]
;
but the event
afterwards showing that Abu Becr had won, he received the camels of Obba’s
heirs, and brought them in triumph to Mohammed
[4]
.
History informs us that the successes of Khosru Parviz, king of Persia,
who carried on a terrible war against the Greek empire, to revenge the death
of Maurice, his father-in-law, slain by Phocas, were very great, and continued
in an uninterrupted course for two and twenty years. Particularly in the year
of Christ 615, about the beginning of the sixth year before the Hejra the
Persians, having the preceding year conquered Syria, made themselves masters
of Palestine, and took Jerusalem; which seems to be that signal advantage
gained over the Greeks mentioned in this passage, as agreeing best with the
terms here used, and most likely to alarm the Arabs by reason of their
vicinity to the scene of action: and there was so little probability, at that
time, of the Greeks being able to retrieve their losses, much less to distress
the Persians, that in the following years the arms of the latter made still
farther and more considerable progresses, and at length they laid siege to
Constantinople itself. But in the year 625, in which the fourth year of the
Hejra began, about ten years after the taking of Jerusalem, the Greeks, when
it was least expected, gained a remarkable victory over the Persians, and not
only obliged them to quit the territories of the empire, by carrying the war
into their own country, but drove them to the last extremity, and spoiled the
capital city al Madâyen; Heraclius enjoying thenceforward a continued series
of good fortune, to the deposition and death of Khosru. For more exact
information in these matters, and more nicely fixing the dates, either so as
to correspond with or to overturn this pretended prophecy (neither of which is
my business here), the reader may have recourse to the historians and
chronologers
[1]
.
[1] Jallalo’ddin, &c.
[2] Al Zamakh, Al Beidawi.
[3] See p. 298. not. c.
[4] Al Beidawi, Jallalo’ddin, &c.
[1] V. etiam Asseman. Bibl. Orient. t. 3, part. i. p. 411, &c. & Boulainy. Vie de Mahom. p. 333, &c.
[a] In the nearest part of the land;] Some interpreters, supposing that the land here meant is the land of Arabia, or else that of the Greeks, place the scene of action in the confines of Arabia and Syria, near Bostra and Adhraât [2] ; others imagine the land of Persia is intended, and lay the scene in Mesopotamia, on the frontiers of that kingdom [3] : but Ebn Abbas, with more probability, thinks it was in Palestine.
[2] Yahya, Al Beidawi.
[3] Mojahed, apud Zamakh. Jallalo’ddin.
[b] And broke up the earth;] To dig for water and minerals, and to till the ground for seed, &c [4] .
[4] Al Beidawi.
[a] Glorify God in the evening, &c.] Some are of opinion that the five times of prayer are intended in this passage; the evening including the time both of the prayer of sunset, and of the evening prayer properly so called, and the word I have rendered at sun-set, marking the hour of afternoon prayer, since it may be applied also to the time a little before sun-set.
[b] See chap. 3. p. 38.
[c] The variety of your languages and complexions;] Which are certainly most wonderful, and, as I conceive, very hard to be accounted for, if we allow the several nations in the world to be all the offspring of one man, as we are assured by scripture they are, without having recourse to the immediate omnipotency of God.
[d] He justly challengeth the most exalted comparison, &c.] That is, in speaking of him we ought to make use of the most noble and magnificent expressions we can possibly devise.
[e] See chap. 16. p. 220
[a] The institution of God, to which he hath created mankind disposed, &c.] i.e. The immutable law, or rule, to which man is naturally disposed to conform, and which every one would embrace, as most fit for a rational creature, if it were not for the prejudices of education. The Mohammedans have a tradition that their prophet used to say, That every person is born naturally disposed to become a Moslem; but that a man’s parents make him a Jew, a Christian, or a Magian.
[b] Have we sent down unto them any authority, which speaketh of the false gods, &c.] That is, Have we either by the mouth of any prophet, or by any written revelation, commanded or encouraged the worship of more gods than one?
[c] They despair;] And seek not to regain the favour of God by timely repentance.
[d] In usury;] Or by way of bribe. The word may include any sort of extortion or illicit gain.
[e] Corruption;] viz. Mischief and public calamities, such as famine, pestilence, droughts, shipwrecks, &c. or erroneous doctrines, or a general depravity of manners.
[f] That it might make them to taste, &c.] Some copies read in the first person plural, That we might cause them to taste &c.
[a] That they have not tarried;] viz. In the world or in their graves. See chap. 23. p. 287.
[b] According to the book of God;] That is, according to his foreknowledge and decree in the preserved table; or according to what is said in the Korân, where the state of the dead is expressed by these words [1] : Behind them there shall be a bar until the day of resurrection [2] .
[1] Chap. 23. p. 286.
[2] Al Beidawi.