Introduction to the Study of The Holy Quran — Page 75
75 result was an Arab-led world movement embracing every conceivable side of human progress – spiritual, intellectual, political. The Arabs became the keepers not only of their own vineyard, but of the vineyards of the whole world. (e) The Song of Solomon also contains a warning for Israel: they are told not to meddle with the Promised Prophet. Thus in 2:7 we have: I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please. The theme is continued in the Song in 3:5 and in 8:4. These passages only mean that when the Promised Prophet appeared, Jews and Christians, two branches of Israel, would oppose and oppress him; but as the Prophet would be a God-appointed Prophet, they would not succeed, but would instead suffer an ignominious defeat. Solomon, accordingly, warned his people saying: I charge you, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please. The Israelites, both Jews and Christians, were advised to do nothing to the Promised Prophet. When his influence spread to their land, they should accept him. It would not do to oppose him and to try to stem the tide of his influence. Opposition would spell the opponents’ own destruction. For a people who meddle with a Prophet’s mission become liable to divine punishment. The warning proved true. Jews and Christians became meddlesome and brought divine punishment upon themselves. If a people remain passive and show no hostility to a Prophet, he adopts no violent steps against them but confines himself to teaching and preaching. Occasionally, a Prophet draws the sword, but only against those who first draw the sword against him. He makes war only upon those who first make war upon him and seek to put down by force and oppression the Message sent by God. The Holy Prophet’s example illustrates this point. It was the risk entailed by thoughtless hostility to a true Message against which Solomon warned. These prophecies cannot possibly apply to Jesus. Jesus did not appear from the south of Palestine. Nor was he one of the brethren of Israel. Nor did he have the means to resist and to destroy the opposition of Israel. The prophecies apply only to the Prophet of Islam. He is the beloved of the Song of Solomon. The Song is, in fact, a rapturous description of the Prophet. Isaiah’s Prophecies The book of Isaiah also is full of prophecies about the Holy Prophet of Islam. They all point to the advent of another great Prophet, the harbinger of peace and contentment for the whole world. In accordance with the divine way, however, the prophecies contain a symbolic element which has to be interpreted before the meaning of the prophecies can be unravelled. The use in them of such names as Jerusalem, Zion, etc. , is only symbolic. But Christian writers have been misled by