The Descent of the Messiah — Page 42
THE DESCENT OF THE MESSIAH the plague: The first is that the creature of the earth is mentioned in the context of chastisement, as Allah says: وَإِذَا وَقَعَ الْقَوْلُ عَلَيْهِمْ أَخْرَجْنَا لَهُمْ دَابَّةً مِّنَ الْأَرْضِ Meaning: "When the argument shall be completed upon them through heavenly Signs and intellectual arguments, the creature shall be brought out of the earth”. It is evident that the emergence of the creature from the earth will serve as a punishment, rather than occurring randomly with no consequence. Some may argue that according to the lexicon the creature of the earth refers to an insect that arises from the ground, rather than a disease-causing microbe that causes disease. The answer to this is that modern re- search has established that the plague is borne of a microorganism that originates from the earth. In fact, this same microbe is utilised in the production of vaccines and its essence is extracted. When viewed under a microscope, the shape of these germs resemble two adjacent dots, like so: (). Hence, just as the signs of the solar and lunar eclipses appear in the sky in dual forms, a similar phenome- non manifests on earth through the emergence of the germ. The second proof is that certain passages of the Holy Quran serve as commentary for others, and we find that wherever this compound word appears in the Holy Quran, it denotes a worm. For example: فَلَمَّا قَضَيْنَا عَلَيْهِ الْمَوْتَ مَا دَلَّهُمْ عَلَى مَوْتِهَ إِلَّا دَابَّةُ الْأَرْضِ تَأْكُلُ مِنْسَأَتَهُ 2 1 "And when the sentence is passed against them, We shall bring forth for them a creature out of the earth. " An-Naml, 27:83 [Publisher] 2 "And when We decreed his [Solomon's] death, nothing pointed out to them that he was dead save a worm of the earth that ate away his staff. " Saba, 34:15 [Publisher] 42