Haqiqatul-Wahi (The Philosophy of Divine Revelation) — Page 628
628 HAQIQATUL-WAḤI—THE PHILOSOPHY OF DIVINE REVELATION extreme and they do not desist from committing sins, it is the estab- lished practice of Allah that such a people are overtaken by divine chas- tisement. Thus, from this too it becomes necessary that the Promised Messiah must appear; that is, in keeping with the requirement of the verse: وَمَا كُنَّا مُعَذِّبِينَ حَتَّى نَبْعَثَ رَسُولًا And it is rather extraordinary that just as in the aḥādīth of the Holy Prophet, may peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, there is a proph- ecy about the Promised Messiah who would appear in the Latter Days, so also is there a prophecy regarding a man of Persia who would come in the Latter Days to restore and re-establish lost faith. As is written meaning that, even if the faith had لَوْ كَانَ الْإِيْمَانُ مُعَلِّقًا بِالثَّرَيَّا لَنَالَهُ رَجُلٌ مِّنْ فَارِسَ left for the Pleiades, a man of Persia would bring it back. Now it is clear that in this hadith, the Man of Persia has been given such precedence and ascribed the performance of such a great task that one has to say that the Man of Persia is superior to the Promised Messiah because the Promised Messiah-as alleged by my opponents—will only kill the Dajjal, whereas the Man of Persia will bring the faith back from the Pleiades. It is also mentioned in another hadith, that in the Latter Days, the Holy Quran will be taken up into the heavens. People will recite the Holy Quran but it will not reach beyond their throats. Thus will it be time for the Man of Persia and for the Promised Messiah―both would be contemporaneous. But in comparison to the special function that the Man of Persia would discharge of bringing faith back from the heavens, any service to the Faith for the killing of the Dajjāl is at best the negation of mischief, which alone cannot serve as the basis of salvation. On the other hand, to bring faith back from the skies and to transform people into perfect believers amounts to the acquisition of 1. We never punish until We have sent a Messenger (Surah Bani Isrā'il, 17:16). [Publisher]