Essence of the Holy Qur’an — Page 63
Al-Qa s a s 63 and benefits of which Mecca, as the Centre and Citadel of the new Faith, was destined to receive. But if they rejected him, they would incur the displeasure of God. The S u rah then proceeds to say that when disbelievers, on account of their persistent rejection of truth are seized with punishment, they start condemning and denouncing their leaders who, they say, lead them astray and are the cause of their ruin. The leaders, on their part, disown them and even curse them for having blindly followed them. The real cause, however, of the rejection of the Divine Message, the S u rah says, is that puffed up with material wealth and thereby lulled into a false sense of security, men of wealth and influence make light of God’s Prophets, mock at them and persecute them, ignoring the supreme moral lesson which is writ large on the pages of history that the rejection of Truth has never been allowed to go unpunished and disbelief has always landed its protagonists into ruin. Towards its close the S u rah makes a pointed reference to a mighty prophecy which was implied in Moses’s flight from Egypt to Midian, in his sojourn there for ten years and his subsequent return to Egypt and in delivering the Israelites from Pharaoh. The prophecy was to the effect that like Moses the Holy Prophet of Islam also would leave his native place and go to live in a strange place for ten years and then would come back to the cradle of his Faith and conquer Mecca and establish Islam on a firm footing. The last few verses of the S u rah sum up its subject-matter, and the Holy Prophet is told that he never had the remotest idea that he will ever be made the bearer of the Divine Message, but now that he has actually been entrusted with his great mission, he should call all mankind to the ways of the Lord, and trusting in Him and refusing to be discouraged or dismayed, should fight his way to success like the great and valiant votary of Truth he is.