The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 3) — Page 690
CH. 18 R. 11. AL-KAHF PT. 16 وَيَسْتَلُوْنَكَ عَنْ ذِي الْقَرْنَيْنِ قُلْ And they ask thee about. 84 سَأَتْلُوْا عَلَيْكُمْ مِّنْهُ ذِكْرَات Dhul-Qarnain. Say, 'I will certainly recite to something of his story. 2122 of His Mercy. you In fact, the Isra' of Moses constituted a beautiful prelude to the coming Islamic Dispensation which was to supplant the Mosaic Law. 2122. Important Words: ذو القرنين (Dhul-Qarnain). derived from قرن is (qarana). They say i. e. he connected a thing with a thing. means, horn; edge; border of the rising sun; trumpet of the Last Judgement; nobleman; one's equal in age; a generation of men; people of one time; people of a time among whom there appears a Prophet of God; century; age (Lane & Aqrab). See also 6:7. Commentary: Before proceeding to know and establish the identity of Dhul-Qarnain it is necessary to state the reasons why at all his story has been related in the Quran and why it has found such prominent mention in the present Surah. A pointed reference has already been made in this Surah to the two periods of the great material progress of Christian nations. Its opening verses give a somewhat detailed account of the Dwellers of the Cave. We are told that in the early days of Christianity, Christians were true and righteous followers of their Faith. Even in later years when they came to acquire great political power but lost much of not their former spiritual vitality and religious fervour, they did altogether become divorced from their religion because till that time they had retained some faith in Jesus and because also a new Dispensation which demanded their allegiance had not yet come into force. After the story of the Dwellers of the Cave an account of the Isra' (c) or Spiritual Journey of Moses which represents the advent of the Holy Prophet of Islam has been given in some detail in order to show that with the Holy Prophet's appearance the first period of the material prosperity and progress of the Christian people would come to an end and though it would still be possible for them to make some progress they would reach the zenith of their material glory and greatness for a second time long after his advent. Spiritually, however, they would be a dead people and without the Holy Prophet's acceptance there would be no redemption for them. This second period of material pomp and grandeur and the spiritual death of the Christian people are represented in Divine Scriptures by the phenomenal rise to power of Gog and Magog which forms one of the central themes of the present Surah. Because politically Gog and Magog and Dhul- Qarnain are inseparably linked with each other, as will appear from the following paragraphs, Dhul-Qarnain's 1898