The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 5) — Page 474
CH. 89 PT. 30 سُورَةُ الْفَجْرِ مَكّيَّةٌ ۸۹ اتھا ٣١ بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّحِيمِ والفجرة وَلَيَالٍ عَشْرِن (AL-FAJR) 1. "In the name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful. 2. By the Dawn, 4706 3. And the Ten Nights, 4707 4706. Commentary: "See 1:1. "The Dawn" may mean the Holy Prophet's Migration to Medina with which ended the ten dark nights or ten years of persecution of the Holy Prophet and his righteous and noble Companions at Mecca. "The Dawn" may also signify the advent of the Promised Messiah who brought a message of hope and of a bright future for Islam after ten dark centuries of its decline decadence. and See also Introduction to the Surah. 4707. Commentary: of the Promised Messiah, with which ended a dark period of degradation, and which ushered in the dawn of a glorious future for Islam. An implied reference to these "Ten Nights" of the decline of Islam is also to be found in the Quranic verse: "He will plan the Divine Ordinance from the heavens unto the earth, then shall it go up to Him in a day the duration of which is thousand years according to what you reckon" (32:6). These ten centuries (or a thousand years) of the moral decadence of Muslims came after the first three centuries of the heyday of their glory and grandeur which have been called the best three centuries of Islam by the Holy Prophet (Bukhārī, Kitābur-Riqāq). The decline of Islam began towards the end of the third century A. H. when on the one hand an Umayyad Caliph of Spain signed a pact of mutual assistance with the Pope against the Abbasid Empire of Baghdad and, on the other, the Caliph of Baghdad entered into a treaty of friendship with the Caesar of Rome against the Umayyad The word meaning, a night, may signify one year after the Hijrah in the case of the Holy Prophet and one century in the case of the Promised Messiah. Thus "the Ten Nights" represent the ten dark years of severe persecution to which Muslims were subjected at Mecca before the Holy Prophet's Migration to Medina which has been likened to the break of the dawn in the preceding verse. Or "the Ten Nights" may refer to the ten centuries of the decline and decadence of Islam before the advent | Caliph of Spain. 3370