The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 3) — Page 704
CH. 18 R. 12. AL-KAHF PT. 16 that they can take My servants أَفَحَسِبَ الَّذِيْنَ كَفَرُوا أَنْ يَتَّخِذُوا Do the disbelievers think. 103 عِبَادِى مِنْ دُونِى اَوْلِيَاءَ اِنَّا اَعْتَدُنَا ?as protectors instead of Me جهلم الكفِرِينَ نُزُلات Surely, "We have prepared Hell as an entertainment for the "29:69; 33:9; 48:14; 76:5. and to have reached its zenith in our own time. The account of Dhul-Qarnain will remain incomplete unless the reason is given as to why it has been assigned such a prominent place in the Quran, when as a fact of history does not appear directly to concern us nor does its narration benefit us materially or spiritually. In fact, it is more for its spiritual than for its historical importance that the story of Dhul-Qarnain has been given so large a space in the Holy Book. The Quran is not a book of history. The stories of past Prophets and other historical incidents have not been mentioned in it to acquaint us with events which took place in the remote past. They are so many prophecies about future events. Some of these prophecies have already been fulfilled in the person of the Holy Prophet while others await fulfilment in some future time. The account of Dhul-Qarnain, like other similar Quranic accounts, embodies a great prophecy which has been fulfilled in the person of Ahmad, the Holy Founder of the Ahmadiyya Movement. Aḥmed was the Dhul- Qarnain of our age. Whereas the Quranic account of Dhul-Qarnain historically applies to the great Persian monarch Cyrus, spiritually it applies to Ahmad. Thus besides its historical value the story is pregnant | 1912 with great spiritual import. It implies a great prophecy to the effect that, just as in the 6th century B. C. Cyrus saved Persia from the depredatory raids of Gog and Magog, by erecting a barrier of brick and stone in their way, another Dhul-Qarnain will save the soul and spirit of mankind, from the devastating moral assaults of Christian nations of the West who are the descendants of Gog and Magog. He will accomplish his great and noble task by the help of divine knowledge and the signs that God will show at his hands. The nature of the work entrusted to both these Dhul-Qarnains a striking likeness to each other, only the one was in the mundane sphere, the other in the spiritual. The Prophet Aḥmad possessed many physical and spiritual resemblances with the great Cyrus. Like Cyrus, he was called the Messiah and like he, was of Persian origin. Cyrus was Dhul-Qarnain in the sense that he was the ruler of the bears was Dhul- double Medo-Persian Empire and Ahmad (1835--1908) Qarnain in the sense that he saw the beginning of two centuries of several eras (Qarn meaning a century). For a further study of this most interesting subject the reader is referred to Barāhīn-e-Aḥmadiyyah, Part v, pp. 91-93; also the Review of Religions, Qadian, vol. 17, No. 6.