The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 4) — Page 3
of Jews and Christians was given in those two Surahs. In fact in those two Surahs it was stated that the rise of Islam would closely resemble that of the Jewish Dispensation. In Sūrah Bani Isrā'īl we were told that Jews would suffer national eclipse twice and twice would they rise to power and glory, and that the followers of Islam would also meet a similar fate. Like the Jews they would rise to prosperity twice and twice like them would they decline and fall. It may be mentioned here that in the era of the Prophets David and Solomon when the political power of the Israelites had reached its zenith, Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon destroyed Jerusalem, the centre of Jewish temporal and spiritual power and glory, and carried away into captivity a large number of Jews, their royal family and even some of their Prophets. This catastrophe took place about the year 586 B. C. After long years—in 516 B. C. , however, they were brought back to Jerusalem by Cyrus, the King of Media and Persia, and the city was rebuilt. Jerusalem was destroyed for the second time by Roman forces under Titus in 70 A. D. , amid circumstances of unparalleled ferocity and horror, and the Temple of Solomon was burnt down. This second destruction of Jerusalem brought about the complete and irrevocable ruin of the temporal power of Jews, and they became dispersed all over the world (Jew. Enc. & Enc. Bib. , under "Jerusalem"), till in 1947-1948, through the machinations of British and American Governments the State of Israel came into being. These two destructions of the Jewish temporal power correspond to the two destructions of the temporal power of Islam. Its first destruction took place when in 1258 A. D. Baghdad, the centre of the political power and glory of Muslims, was laid waste by the Tartar hordes under Hulagu Khan who put to the sword the entire royal family and killed in cold blood about two million Muslims. The second eclipse of the political power of Muslims began towards the latter half of the last century. Better days, however, seem now to have dawned on them. See also 17:6-9 & 105. In Surah Kahf the same subject was dealt with at some greater length, viz. that after their second national degradation the Israelites would rise to great progress and prosperity and would spread in the world by accepting Jesus Christ, their Messiah and the last Prophet of the Mosaic Dispensation, and that an analogous phenomenon awaited the Islamic Dispensation. And as in the case of the Mosaic Dispensation the "Dwellers of the Cave" became the means and instrument of the rise to prosperity and power of Christianity, 1917