The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 5) — Page 475
PT. 30 4. And AL-FAJR the Even and the 4708 Odd,4 5. And the Night when it moves on to its close, 4709 4708. Commentary: Continuing the allegory the word (the Even) may allude to the Holy Prophet and Abu Bakr his ever faithful Companion. The two of them made the number even, and God Who was with them in the hour of tribulation was (the Odd). To this "Even and Odd" number a pointed reference is to be found in the words "One of the two when they were both in the cave, when he said to his Companion, 'Grieve not, for Allah is with us' (9:40). Or the Holy Prophet and the Promised Messiah may be taken as making an even number and Allah an odd, because, while the Prophet in his first advent took refuge along with Abu Bakr in the Mount Thaur, Allah being with them; in his second advent, according to a revelation of the Promised Messiah, the Holy Prophet "took refuge in the fortress of India" (Tadhkirah), along with the Promised Messiah, Allah being the third of them. Or "the Even and the Odd" may signify that though the Holy Prophet and the Promised Messiah were two separate individuals, the Promised Messiah was completely lost in the Holy Prophet as to become one person with him. 4709. Commentary: CH. 89 وَالشَّفْعِ وَالْوَتْرِة وَالَّيْلِ إِذَا يَسْرِة year of the Hijrah which did not see any abatement of the Holy Prophet's anxieties and in which the Quraish of Mecca marched to the battlefield of Badr with a powerful army to give Islam a coup de grace from which it should never recover. It was in the Battle of Badr, about one year after the Hijrah, that the Quraish suffered an ignominious defeat and this literally fulfilled Prophet Isaiah's prophecy: "For thus hath the Lord said unto me, within a year, according to the years of an hireling, all the glory of Kedar shall fail. " (Isa. , 21:16) Thus though after the Migration to Medina the 'morning' had dawned for the Muslims, still they were not completely out of the wood; they had to suffer hardships for another night, i. e. a year. Or the verse may signify that after the advent of the Promised Messiah which heralded the break of the Dawn for Islam, its difficulties would not altogether disappear. One night of darkness one century of difficulties—seems to lie ahead; after which Islam would march forward on a uniform course of success. Thus the Surah embodies a double prophecy which was made at a time when the prospects for Islam appeared to be very bleak indeed. It was remarkably fulfilled first, in the first phase of the chequered career of Islam, and it is at present in the process of being in the shape of the "The Night" may represent the first fulfilled 3371