imprint on human lives the Qur’ān ranks as supreme.
i. In 615 CE Sūrah al-Rūm was revealed to the Prophet, with these opening verses:
Alif. Lām. Mīm. The Roman empire has been defeated, in a land close by; but they, after this defeat of theirs, will soon be victorious, within a few years. With Allah is the decision, in the past and in the future. On that day the believers shall rejoice, with the help of Allah: He helps whom He will, and He is Exalted in Might, Most Merciful. It is the promise of Allah. Never does Allah depart from His promise, but most men do not understand.
(al-Rūm 30:1-6)
As pointed out by ‘Abdullāh Yūsuf ‘Alī, this prophecy about the Roman victory was made
when the tide of the Persian conquest over the Roman Empire was running strong. The Christian Empire of Rome had lost Jerusalem to the Persians, and Christianity had been humbled in the dust. At that time it seemed outside the bounds of human possibility … that the tables would be turned and the position reversed within the space of eight or nine years.1
ii. While comforting and consoling the Prophet Muḥammad (peace and blessings be upon him) in the early Makkan period when the unbelievers ruthlessly persecuted him and even planned to assassinate him with a view to obliterating his nascent Islamic community, the Qur’ān promised him: “We have exalted your fame,” (al-Inshirāḥ 94:4). In the given circumstances, the Makkan unbelievers took this as a cruel joke. For he was then a lone figure, detested by his own tribesmen, including some of his own family members. By then only a handful of weak, resourceless people had responded positively to his call. Otherwise, he was widely dismissed as an outcast. Within a few years of the above prophecy, however, he reached the zenith of success, both spiritual and material. To this day he is universally acclaimed as the most successful religious figure, even by Orientalists given to Islam-bashing. The following glowing tributes paid by them point to the heights of fame scaled by him, as the Qur’ān promised:
“It does not seem too much to say that if any one man changed the course of history that man was Muhammad.” (Charles Issawi, “Muhammad’s Historical Role”, The Muslim World, CT, USA 40 (April 1950, p. 95). “Of all men Muhammad has exercised the greatest influence upon the human race.” (J.W. Draper, History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, London, 1864, 1, 329.) “Muhammad is the most successful of all Prophets and religious personalities.” (Encyclopaedia Britannica, XVth edition, p. 898.) “Compare Muhammad with the long roll of men whom the world by common consent has called “Great”. Take him all in all, what he was and what he did, and what those inspired by him have done, he seems to stand alone above and beyond them all.” (Bosworth-Smith, Mohammed and Mohammedanism, London, 1874, pp. 339-340.) “Within a brief span of mortal life, Muhammad called forth, out of the unpromising material, a nation never united before, in a country that was hitherto but a geographical expression; established a religion which in vast areas superseded Christianity and Judaism and still claims the adherence of a goodly portion of the human race; and laid the basis of an empire that was soon to embrace within its far-flung boundaries the fairest provinces of the civilized world.” (Phillip K. Hitti, History of the Arabs, London, 1948, pp. 121-122.)
These accounts give a fair idea of the veracity of the Qur’ānic prophecies. Needless to add, no human work can even be remotely compared with the Qur’ān on this count.
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