Lecture Lahore — Page 66
66 The interpretation of the rest of this verse, which is in the form of a prophecy, is that two major nations have been given the glad tidings of the Coming of the Promised Messiah, and it is to them that the Messiah will primarily address himself. God Almighty says, in the form of a metaphor, that the Promised Messiah, or Dhulqarnain, will encounter two nations in the course of his journey. First, he will find a nation sitting in the dark alongside a foul smelling pool of water that is not fit to drink, and is so full of stinking mud that it can hardly be called water. This metaphor refers to the Christians who are in the dark and have turned the Messianic spring into a pool of stink- ing mud due to their misdeeds. In the second part of his journey, the Promised Messiah, or Dhulqarnain, comes upon a people sitting directly under the blazing sun with no shelter. Though they do not partake of the light of the sun, its heat scorches their bodies and darkens their skins. These are the Muslims, who, despite being blessed with the sun of Divine Unity— Tau hi d —have not derived any real benefit from it, and have only been scorched by its blaze. In other words, they have lost the true beauty and true moral qualities of faith and have instead partaken of bigotry, malice, fierceness and barbarity. Thus, God Almighty has indicated that the Promised Messiah, who is Dhulqarnain, will appear at a time when the Christians will be in darkness, and stinking mud— which is h ama’ in Arabic—will be their lot, and the Muslims will have only a superficial belief in the Unity of