By Haroon Balogun

AS the reality is hidden from you, you are at a loss to understand the wisdom of what is happening, and sometimes if it appears that things are going against you, you cry out, ‘How and why has this happened’. The fact is that if the curtain be removed from the “unseen”, you would yourselves come to know that what is happening here is for the best. Even if sometimes it appears that something is going wrong, you will see that in the end, it will also produces some good results for you.

The same is true with the story of Zul-Qarnain for it also admonishes the unbelievers: “0 you vain chiefs of Makkah you should learn a lesson from Zul-Qarnain. Though he was a great ruler, a great conqueror and the owner of great resources, yet he always surrendered to his Creator, whereas you are rebelling against Him even though you are insignificant chieftains in comparison with him. Besides this, though Zul-Qarnain built one of the strongest walls for protection, yet his real trust was in Allah and not in the “wall”.

He believed that the wall could protect him against his enemies as long as it was the will of Allah and that there would be crack and holes in it, when it would be His will : whereas you who possess only insignificant fortified abodes and dwellings in comparison with him, consider yourselves to be permanently safe and secure against all sorts of calamities.”

Fortifiedabodes

While the Quran turned the tables on the unbelievers who had tried to ridicule the Holy Prophet, in the end of the Surah the same thing stated at the beginning was reiterated at the end: “Tauhid and the Hereafter are absolutely true and real and for your own good; you should accept these doctrines, mend your ways in accordance with them and live in this world with this conviction that you are accountable to Allah: otherwise you shall ruin your life and all your doings shall be set at naught.”

This allegory is also related in the Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (end of Chapter 33) but without the spiritual lessons as explained in the Quran. The relativity of Time, how Allah does whatever He wishes in mysterious manners; the position of oppressor and the oppressed, the persecutor and persecuted, as well as the true potency of prayers to guide the actions of man aright.