The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 1) — Page cxxxii
GENERAL INTRODUCTION since the world began. For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you. And it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people. Yea, and all the prophets from Samuel and those that follow after, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold of these days. The verses contain a reference to the prophecy in Deuteronomy and the clear hint that until the Prophet promised in the prophecy in Deuteronomy has come, the second coming of Jesus will not take place. The prophecy in Deuteronomy said that the Promised Prophet would bring a new Law. Reference to this in The Acts means clearly that the teaching of Jesus will be superseded by the teaching of the Promised One. A new Law can have no other meaning. The Prophet promised in the prophecy in Deuteronomy (and in this passage from The Acts), therefore, was to mark the last stage in the spiritual advance of man. For he was to supersede Moses and Jesus and give the world a new Teaching and a new Law. The passage from The Acts points to another significant sign of the Promised One. It says: All the prophets from Samuel and those that follow after, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold of these days (3:24). The prophecy of Moses we have already cited. As Jesus came after Samuel, this verse from The Acts can only mean that from Moses to Jesus, every Prophet has foretold the advent of a Prophet, which means that until this Prophet appears, the spiritual foundations on which man must build will not have been completely laid. As this Prophet, according to the signs of the Bible, is no other than the Holy Prophet of Islam, we must admit that the Holy Prophet is the Promised One of all Prophets and his Law is the Law prophesied by all Prophets. Who can then say that even while the Old and the New Testaments existed in the world, the Quran was a redundance? All the earlier Prophets have pointed to the need of the Quran and prophesied about it. No reasonable plea can be urged by their followers now against the Quran. We can only say that if they deny the need of the Quran, they will cast doubts on the truth of their own Prophets and the truth of the prophecies which they made. Did not Moses say: When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the Prophet hath spoken it presumptuously; thou shall not be afraid of him (Deut. 18:22). cvi