What is Islam

AL RUM (The Romans).

1 Alif Lam Mim
2 The Roman Empire has been defeated
3 In a land close by; but they, (even) after (This) defeat of theirs, will soon be victorious
4 Within a few years. With Allah is the Decision, in the Past and in the Future: On that day shall the Believers rejoice
5 With the help of Allah. He helps whom He will, and He is Exalted in Might, Most Merciful.
6 (It is) the promise of Allah. Never does Allah depart From His promise: But most men understand not.
7 They know but the outer (Things) in the life of this world: but of End of things they are heedless.
8 Do they not reflect in their own minds? not but for just ends and for a term appointed, did Allah create the heavens and the earth, and all between them: yet are there truly many among men who deny the meeting with their Lord (At the Resurrection)!
9 Do they not travel through the earth, and see what was the End of those before them? They were superior to them in strength: they tilled the soil and populated it in greater numbers than these have done: there came to them their Messengers with Clear (Signs). (Which they rejected, to their own destruction): it was not Allah who wronged them, but they wronged their own souls.
10 In the long run Evil in the extreme will be the End of those who do evil; for that they rejected the Signs of Allah, and help them up to ridicule.
11 It is Allah who begins (the process of) creation, then repeats it; then shall ye be brought back to him.
12 On the Day that the Hour will be established, the guilty will be struck dumb with despair.
13 No intercessor will they have among their Partners and they will (themselves) Reject their Partners.
14 On the Day that the Hour will be established, That Day shall (all men) Be sorted out.
15 Then those who have believed and worked righteous deeds, shall be made happy in a Mead of Delight.
16 And those who have rejected Faith and falsely denied our Signs and the meeting of the Hereafter, such shall be brought forth to punishment.
17 So (give) glory to Allah, when ye reach eventide and when ye rise in the morning;
18 Yea, to Him be praise, in the heavens and on earth; and in the late afternoon and when the day begins to decline.
19 It is He Who brings out the dead, and brings out the dead from the living, and Who gives life to the earth after it is dead: and thus shall ye be brought out (from the dead).
20 Among His Signs is this, that He created you from dust; and then, behold, ye are men scattered (far and wide)!
21 And among His Signs is this, that He created for you mates from among yourselves, that ye may dwell in tranquillity with them, and He has put love and mercy between your (hearts): verily in that are Signs for those who reflect.
22 And among His Signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the variations in your languages and your colours: verily in that are Signs for those who know.
23 And among His Signs is the sleep that ye take by night and by day, and the quest that ye (make for livelihood) out of His Bounty: verily in that are Signs for those who hearken.
24 And among His Signs, he shows you the lightning, by way both of fear and of hope, and He sends down rain from the sky and with it gives life to the earth after it is dead: Verily in that are Signs for those who are wise.
25 And among His Signs is this, that heaven and earth stand by His Command: then when He calls you, by a single call, from the earth, behold, ye (straightway) come forth.
26 To Him belongs every being that is in the heavens and on earth: all are devoutly obedient to Him.
27 It is He Who begins (the process of) creation; then repeats it; and for Him it is most easy. To Him belongs the loftiest similitude (we can think of) in the heavens and the earth: for He is Exalted in Might, full of wisdom.
28 I does propound to you a similitude from your own (experience): do ye have partners among those whom your right hands possess, to share as equals in the wealth we have bestowed on you? do ye fear them as ye fear each other? Thus do We explain the Signs in detail to a people that understand.
29 Nay, the wrongdoers (merely) follow their own lusts, being devoid of knowledge. But who will guide those whom Allah leaves astray? to them there will be no helpers.
30 So set thou thy face steadily and truly to the Faith (establish) Allah's handiwork according to the pattern on which he has made mankind: no change (let there be) in the work (wrought) by Allah: that is the standard Religion: but most among mankind understand not.
31 Turn ye back in repentance to Him, and fear Him: establish regular Prayers, and be not ye among those who join gods with Allah,
32 Those who split up their Religion, and become (mere) Sects, each party rejoicing in that which is with itself!
33 When trouble touches men they cry to their Lord, turning back to Him in repentance: but when He gives them a taste of Mercy as from Himself, behold, some of them pay part worship to other god's besides their Lord,
34 (As if) to show their ingratitude for the (favours) We have bestowed on them! Then enjoy (your brief day); but soon will ye know (your folly).
35 Or have We sent down authority to them, which points out to them the things to which they pay part worship?
36 When we give men a taste of Mercy, they exult thereat: and when some evil affects them because of what their (own) hands have sent forth, behold, they are in despair!
37 See they not that Allah enlarges the provision and restricts it, to whomsoever he pleases? verily in that are Signs for those who believe.
38 So give what is due to kindred, the needy, and the wayfarer. That is best for those who seek the Countenance, of Allah, and it is they who will prosper.
39 That which ye lay out for increase through the property of (other) people, will have no increase with Allah: but that which ye lay out for Charity, seeking the Countenance of Allah, (will increase): it is these who will get a recompense multiplied.
40 It is Allah Who has created you: further, He has provided for your sustenance; then He will cause you to die; and again He will give you life. Are there any of your (false) Partners who can do any single one of these things? Glory to Him! and High is He above the partners they attribute (to Him)!
41 Mischief has appeared on land and sea because of (the meed) that the hands of men have earned, that (Allah) may give them a taste of some of their Deeds: in order that they may turn back (from Evil).
42 Say: Travel through the earth and see what was the End of those before (you): Most of them worshipped others besides Allah.
43 But set thou thy face to the right Religion, before there come from Allah the Day which there is no chance of averting: On that Day shall men be divided (in two).
44 Those who reject Faith will suffer from that rejection: and those who work righteousness will spread their couch (of repose) for themselves (in heaven):
45 That He may reward those who believe and work righteous Deeds, out of His Bounty. For He loves not those who reject Faith.
46 Among His Signs is this, that He sends the Winds, as heralds of Glad Tidings, giving you a taste of His (Grace and) Mercy, that the ships may sail (majestically) by His Command and that ye may seek of His Bounty: in order that ye may be grateful.
47 We did indeed send, before thee, messengers to their (respective) peoples, and they came to them with Clear Signs: then, to those who transgressed, We meted out Retribution: and it was due from Us to aid those who believed.
48 It is Allah Who sends the Winds, and they raise the Clouds: then does He spread them in the sky as He wills, and break them into fragments, until thou seest rain drops issue from the midst thereof: then when He has made them reach such of His servants as He wills, behold, they do rejoice!
49 Even though, before they received (the rain) just before this they were dumb with despair!
50 Then contemplate (O man!) the memorials of Allah's Mercy! how He gives life to the earth after its death: verily the Same will give life to the men who are dead: for He has power over all things.
51 And if We (but) send a Wind from which they see (their tilth) turn yellow, behold, they become, thereafter, ungrateful (Unbelievers)!
52 So verily thou canst not make the dead to hear, nor canst thou make the deaf to hear the call, when they show their backs and turn away.
53 Nor canst thou lead back the blind from their straying: only those wilt thou make to hear, who believe in Our Signs and submit (their wills in Islam).
54 It is Allah Who created you in a state of (helpless) weakness, then gave (you) strength after weakness, then after strength, gave (you) weakness and a hoary head; he creates as He wills, and it is He Who has all knowledge and power.
55 On the Day that the Hour (of reckoning) will be established, the transgressors will swear that they tarried not but an hour: thus were they used to being deluded!
56 But those endued with knowledge and Faith will say: Indeed ye did tarry, within Allah's Decree, to the Day of Resurrection, and this is the Day of Resurrection: but ye were not aware!
57 So on that Day no excuse of theirs will avail the Transgressors, nor will they be invited (then) to seek Grace (by repentance).
58 Verily We have propounded for men, in this Quran. Every kind of Parable: but if you thou bring to them any sign, the Unbelievers are sure to say, ye do nothing but talk vanities.
59 Thus does Allah seal up the hearts of those Who understand not.
60 So patiently persevere: for Verily the promise of Allah is true: nor let those Shake thy firmness, who have (themselves) no certainty of Faith.

**************************************************

Explination of the Surah

Name The Surah takes its name Ar-Rum from the second verse in which the words ghulibat-ir-Rum have occurred. Period of Revelation The period of the revelation of this Surah is determined absolutely by the historical event that has been mentioned at the outset. It says: "The Romans have been vanquished in the neighboring land. "In those days the Byzantine occupied territories adjacent to Arabia were Jordan, Syria and Palestine, and in these territories the Romans were completely overpowered by the Iranians in 615 A. D. Therefore, it can be said with absolute certainty that this Surah was sent down in the same year, and this was the year in which the migration to Habash took place. Historical Background The prediction made in the initial verses of this Surah is one of the most outstanding evidences of the Quran's being the Word of Allah and the Holy Prophet Muhammad's being a true Messenger of Allah. Let us have a look at the historical background relevant to the verses. Eight years before the Holy Prophet's advent as a Prophet the Byzantine Emperor Maurice was overthrown by Phocus, who captured the throne and became king. Phocus first got the Emperor's five sons executed in front of him, and then got the Emperor also killed and hung their heads in a thoroughfare in Constantinople. A few days after this he had the empress and her three daughters also put to death. The event provided Khusrau Parvez, the Sassanid king of Iran; a good moral excuse to attack Byzantium. For Emperor Maurice had been his benefactor; with his help he had got the throne of Iran. Therefore, he declared that he would avenge his godfather's and his children's murder upon Phocus, the usurper. So, he started war against Byzantium in 603 A. D. and within a few years, putting the Phocus armies to rout in succession, he reached Edessa (modern, Urfa) in Asia Minor, on the one hand, and Aleppo and Antioch in Syria, on the other. When the Byzantine ministers saw that Phocus could not save the country, they sought the African governor's help, who sent his son, Heraclius, to Constantinople with a strong fleet. Phocus was immediately deposed and Heraclius made emperor. He treated Phocus as he had treated Maurice. This happened in 610 A. D. , the year the Holy Prophet was appointed to Prophet-hood. The moral excuse for which Khusrau Parvez had started the war was no more valid after the deposition and death of Phocus. Had the object of his war really been to avenge the murder of his ally on Phocus for his cruelty, he would have come to terms with the new Emperor after the death of Phocus. But he continued the war, and gave it the color of a crusade between Zoroastrianism and Christianity. The sympathies of the Christian sects (i. e. Nestorians and Jacobians, etc. ) which had been excommunicated by the Roman ecclesiastical authority and tyrannized for years also went with the Magian (Zoroastrian) invaders, and the Jews also joined hands with them; so much so that the number of the Jews who enlisted in Khusrau's army rose up to 26, 000. Heraclius could not stop this storm. The very first news that he received from the East after ascending the throne was that of the Iranian occupation of Antioch. After this Damascus fell in 613 A. D. Then in 614 A. D. the Iranians occupying Jerusalem played havoc with the Christian world. Ninety thousand Christians were massacred and the Holy Sepulchre was desecrated. The Original Cross on which, according to the Christian belief, Jesus had died was seized and carried to Mada'in. The chief priest Zacharia was taken prisoner and all the important churches of the city were destroyed. How puffed up was Khusrau Parvez at this victory can be judged from the letter that he wrote to Heraclius from Jerusalem. He wrote: "From Khusrau, the greatest of all gods, the master of the whole world : To Heraclius, his most wretched and most stupid servant: 'You say that you have trust in your Lord. why didn't then your Lord save Jerusalem from me? '" Within a year after this victory the Iranian armies over-ran Jordan, Palestine and the whole of the Sinai Peninsula, and reached the frontiers of Egypt. In those very days another conflict of a far greater historical consequence was going on in Makkah. The believers in One God, under the leadership of the Prophet Muhammad (may Allah's peace be upon him), were fighting for their existence against the followers of shirk under the command of the chiefs of the Quraish, and the conflict had reached such a stage that in 615 A. D. , a substantial number of the Muslims had to leave their homes and take refuge with the Christian kingdom of Habash, which was an ally of the Byzantine Empire. In those days the Sassanid victories against Byzantium were the talk of the town, and the pagans of Makkah were delighted and were taunting the Muslims to the effect: "Look the fire worshippers of Iran are winning victories and the Christian believers in Revelation and Prophet-hood are being routed everywhere. Likewise, we, the idol worshippers of Arabia, will exterminate you and your religion. " These were the conditions when this Surah of the Quran was sent down, and in it a prediction was made, saying: "The Romans have been vanquished in the neighboring land and within a few years after their defeat, they shall be victorious. And it will be the day when the believers will rejoice in the victory granted by Allah. " It contained not one but two predictions: First, the Romans shall be Victorious; and second, the Muslims also shall win a victory at the same time. Apparently, there was not a remote chance of the fulfillment of the either prediction in the next few years. On the one hand, there were a handful of the Muslims, who were being beaten and tortured in Makkah, and even till eight years after this prediction there appeared no chance of their victory and domination. On the other, the Romans were losing more and more ground every next day. By 619 A. D. the whole of Egypt had passed into Sassanid hands and the Magian armies had reached as far as Tripoli. In Asia Minor they beat and pushed back the Romans to Bosporus, and in 617 A. D. they captured Chalcedon (modern, Kadikoy) just opposite Constantinople. The Emperor sent an envoy to Khusrau, praying that he was ready to have peace on any terms, but he replied, "I shall not give protection to the emperor until he is brought in chains before me and gives up obedience to his crucified god and adopts submission to the fire god. " At last, the Emperor became so depressed by defeat that he decided to leave Constantinople and shift to Carthage (modern, Tunis). In short, as the British historian Gibbon says, even seven to eight years after this prediction of the Quran, the conditions were such that no one could even imagine that the Byzantine Empire would ever gain an upper hand over Iran. Not to speak of gaining domination, no one could hope that the Empire, under the circumstances, would even survive. When these verses of the Quran were sent down, the disbelievers of Makkah made great fun of them, and Ubayy bin Khalaf bet Hadrat Abu Bakr ten camels if the Romans became victorious within three years. When the Holy Prophet came to know of the bet, he said, "The Quran has used the words bid`i sinin, and the word bid in Arabic applies to a number up to ten. Therefore, make the bet for ten years and increase the number of camels to a hundred. " So, Hadrat Aba Bakr spoke to Ubayy again and bet a hundred camels for ten years. In 622 A. D. as the Holy Prophet migrated to Madinah, the Emperor Heraclius set off quietly for Trabzon from Constantinople via the Black Sea and started preparations to attack Iran from rear. For this he asked the Church for money, and Pope Sergius lent him the Church collections on interest, in a bid to save Christianity from Zoroastrianism. Heraclius started his counter attack in 623 A. D. from Armenia. Next year, in 624 A. D. , he entered Azerbaijan and destroyed Clorumia, the birthplace of Zoroaster, and ravaged the principal fire temple of Iran. Great are the powers of Allah, this was the very year when the Muslims achieved a decisive victory at Badr for the first time against the mushriks. Thus both the predictions made in Surah Rum were fulfilled simultaneously within the stipulated period of ten years. The Byzantine forces continued to press the Iranians hard and in the decisive battle at Nineveh (627 A. D. ) they dealt them the hardest blow. They captured the royal residence of Dastagerd, and then pressing forward reached right opposite to Ctesiphon, capital of Iran in those days. In 628 A. D. in an internal revolt, Khusrau Parvez was imprisoned and 18 of his sons were executed in front of him and a few days later he himself died in the prison. This was the year when the peace treaty of Hudaibiya was concluded, which the Quran has termed as "the supreme victory", and in this very year Khusrau's son, Qubad II, gave up all the occupied Roman territories, restored the True Cross and made peace with Byzantium. In 628 A. D. , the Empcror himself went to Jerusalem to install the "Holy Cross" in its place, and in the same year the Holy Prophet entered Makkah for the first time after the Hijrah to perform the Umra-tul-Qadaa'. After this no one could have any doubt about the truth of the prophecy of the Quran, with the result that most of the Arab polytheists accepted Islam. The heirs of Ubayy bin Khalaf lost their bet and had to give a hundred camels to Hadrat Abu Bakr Siddiq. He took them before the Holy Prophet, who ordered that they be given away in charity, because the bet had been made at a time when gambling had not yet been forbidden by the Shariah; now it was forbidden. Therefore, the bet was allowed to be accepted from the belligerent disbelievers, but instruction given that it should be given away in charity and should not be brought in personal use. Theme and Subject matter The discourse begins with the theme that the Romans have been overcome and the people the world over think that the empire is about to collapse, but the fact is that within a few years the tables will be turned and the vanquished will again become victorious. This introductory theme contains the great truth that man is accustomed to seeing only what is apparent and superficial. That which is behind the apparent and superficial he does not know. When in the petty matters of life, this habit to see only the apparent and superficial can lead man to misunderstandings and miscalculations, and when he is liable to make wrong estimates only due to lack of knowledge about "what will happen tomorrow", how stupendous will be his error if he risks his whole life-activity by placing reliance only upon what is visible and apparent with respect to his worldly life as a whole. Then, from the question of the conflict between Byzantium and Iran the direction of the discourse turns to the theme of the Hereafter, and as far as verse 27, man has been made to understand in different ways that the Hereafter is possible as well as rational and necessary; then for the sake of keeping the system of his life also stable and balanced it is absolutely necessary that he should plan and order his present life on the faith in the Hereafter; otherwise he will commit the same error as has always been the result of placing one's reliance only upon the apparent and the visible. In this connection, the Signs of the universe which have been presented as evidence to prove the doctrine of the Hereafter arc precisely the same which support the doctrine of Tauhid. Therefore from verse 28 onward, the discourse turns to the affirmation of Tauhid and the refutation of shirk, and it is stressed that the natural way of life for man is none else but to serve One God exclusively. Shirk is opposed to the nature of the universe as to the nature of man. Therefore, whenever man has adopted this deviation, chaos has resulted. Again here, an allusion has been made to the great chaos that had gripped the world on account of the war between the two major powers of the time, and it has been indicated that this chaos too, is the result of shirk, and all the nations who were ever involved in mischief and chaos in the history of mankind were also mushriks. In conclusion, a parable has been presented to make the people understand that just as dead earth comes to life, all of a sudden, by a shower of rain sent by God and swells with vegetation and plant life, so is the case with the dead humanity. When God sends a shower of His mercy in the form of Revelation and Prophet-hood, it also gives a new life to mankind and causes it to grow and develop and flourish. Therefore: "If you take full advantage of this opportunity, the barren land of Arabia will bloom by Allah's mercy and the whole advantage will be your. But if you do not take advantage of it, you will harm only your selves. Then no regret will avail and no opportunity will be provided to make amends. "