The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 1) — Page cxx
GENERAL INTRODUCTION sacrifices and offerings to Him; Egypt and Syria would unite, the inhabitants of each would visit the other; and both would join in a common form of worship. This prophecy also was fulfilled in the Holy Prophet of Islam. The people of Egypt did become Christian, but only for a short time of their history. Now for 1300 years Egyptians have been Muslims. In the words of Isaiah, God says to the Egyptians; "Blessed be Egypt my people," Let the Egyptians speak for themselves, Do they owe allegiance to Jesus or to the Prophet of Islam? We then have: and Assyria the work of my hands. Similarly let the Assyrians speak for themselves. Do they attribute themselves to Jesus or the Prophet of Islam? And we have: "and Israel mine inheritance". Who holds Palestine, the land of Israel? No doubt, under European and American influence, Jews are entering Palestine. But the Jews are not the followers of Jesus. And in any case Muslims still form a majority in this land of Israel, and Christians still a minority. If Jews take possession of the land it will only mean a temporary lapse in the Muslim possession, and whether it is Jews or Muslims who possess the land, Jesus can have no claim on the prophecy, The prophecy speaks of "a highway out of Egypt into Assyria," i. e. a sign of active contact between the two countries. The prophecy pictures the inhabitants of the two countries visiting and befriending each other and joining in a common mode of worship. Who brought all this about; was it Jesus? Christians were in possession of both Egypt and Assyria and a majority of the inhabitants of these countries, at one time, were Christian. But during this time, did the conditions arise of which the prophecy speaks? According to the prophecy, the two countries were to develop such intimate contact that for all practical purposes they were to become one people, with one language and one faith. Some contact between two neighbouring countries is normal and natural. But the contact between Egypt and Assyria was to be different; it was to result in welding two peoples into one, and to give them a common nationality. Such a fusion between the two never occurred in the time of Christian rule. Under Rome, Egypt and Syria were parts of the same empire, but the mode of administration in the two countries remained different. Egypt was a semi-independent kingdom, and Assyria was under a Roman Governor. The Egyptian Church also was different from the Assyrian Church. In Egypt, under the influence of the Alexandrian Church, Christianity had assumed a form different from that of the Palestinian or Syrian Church. The Egyptians worshipped in their own language, Coptic, and Syrians in a corrupt mixture of Hebrew and Greek. Under Islam conditions became quite different. For xciv