The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 1) — Page 194
CH. 2 AL-BAQARAH during the days of their captivity in Babylon. The verse further indicates that the mischief-mongers of Solomon's time were those "rebellious men" who called him an as PT. 1 Harassed by the oppression of Christian rulers, they had taken refuge in Persia, where they enjoyed a good deal of religious freedom, and their religious centre shifted from Judah and Jerusalem to Babylonia (Hutchinson's History of the Nations, p. 550). In the seventh century of the Christian era, i. e. , during the lifetime of the Holy Prophet, Jews suffered exceptionally cruel persecution at the hands of the Christian Emperors of unbeliever. God says that those wicked men themselves, and not Solomon, lacked belief. Again, the verse tells us that these men taught their associates such signs conveyed to them meanings quite different from those generally accepted, for the purpose of the Eastern Roman Empire. "Both deceiving other people and concealing their own activities. All this leads to the conclusion that this verse alludes to those secret plots which the enemies of Solomon made against him, and by which they wished to break his empire. It is pointed out that now, in the time of the Holy Prophet, these people are resorting to the selfsame tactics, but that they will fail. As the verse refers to a number of historical events, it is advisable to relate them here at some length. When Jews saw that the power of Islam was steadily expanding and that no opposition from the Arabs had been able to arrest the progress of Muslims, they began to excite outsiders against them. At that time there were two large empires in the neighbourhood of Arabia: (1) The Byzantine or Eastern Roman Empire; and (2) The Persian Empire. As Jews were already at enmity with the Roman Government, because they were in constant trouble under it, so it was only the Persian Government to which they could look for support. 194 Phocas and Heraclius", says the Historians' History of the World (vol. 7, p. 175), "attempted to exterminate the Jewish religion, and if possible to put an end to their national existence. Heraclius not only practised every species of cruelty himself to effect this object within the bounds of his own dominions, but he even made the forced conversion or banishment of the Jews a prominent feature in his diplomacy. " So, in the time of the Holy Prophet the only government to which the Jews could look for help was that of Persia, where their co- religionists enjoyed much influence, especially in the reign of Chosroes II (Jew. Enc. , ix. 648). Consequently, when the Jews saw that their efforts to check the progress of Islam had totally failed, they took to exciting the Persian Court against the Holy Prophet by various means; and as a result, Chosroes II issued orders to the Governor of Yemen to send to him the Arabian claimant as a captive. But when the envoys of the Governor came to the Holy Prophet, he asked them to see him the next