Verse 5

4709

Commentary:

"The Night" may represent the first 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 gracefrom 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 fulfilled in the shape of the renaissance being wrought at the hands of the Promised Messiah, the Founder of the Ahmadiyya Movement.