Iqbal Ansari and Said Nursi
It was the Muslim philosopher/poet, Dr Muhammad Iqbal who, in recognizing this aspect of the Qur’anic revelation, applied the methodology (Usul al-Tafsir) of critically examining unfolding events in the historical process in order to penetrate the meaning and significance of certain verses of the Qur’an. He responded to the successful conclusion in 1917 of Western civilization’s thousand years of Crusades to liberate Jerusalem with a verse of Urdu poetry in which he declared that all the forces of Gog and Magog had been released. The verse went on to direct Muslim attention to the supreme importance of studying and penetrating the two verses of Surah al-Anbiyah’ of the Qur’an that are linked to Gog and Magog:
Khul ga’ae Ya’juj aur Ma’juj kay lashkar tamam,
Chashmay Muslim dekh lay tafsiray harfay yansilun!
[Set loose are all the hordes of Gog and Magog
To the Muslim eye manifest is the meaning of the word yansilun]
[Bang-e-Dara - Zarifana:23]
[Bang-e-Dara means ‘Signal for start of Caravan’
Zarifana means ‘Witty Observations’]
It is amazing, really, that Iqbal could have penetrated these two critically important verses of the Qur’an and identified the ‘town’ as Jerusalem as soon as the European Crusades had finally succeeded in its quest for liberating Jerusalem. After all, it was not until 1948 that a State of Israel was restored in the Holy Land.
Iqbal’s verse which directed attention to the two verses of Surah al-Anbiyah’, and thus to the ‘town’, did not escape the attention of the outstanding Islamic scholar, Maulana Dr Muhammad Fadlur Rahman Ansari – himself a student of Iqbal. Dr Ansari also recognized the ‘town’ to be Jerusalem. Evidence of this is recorded in Ebrahim Ahmad Bawany’s truly remarkable booklet entitled: ‘Gog Magog and the State of Israel’, which was published in Pakistan about fifty years ago by the Aisha Bawany Wakf (i.e. in the late 1950’s, no date of publication was given for this booklet).
Commenting on the same two verses of Surah al-Anbiyah’ and to the ‘town’, Bawany declared in that booklet: “we firmly believe, and for which we have advanced solid arguments in the following pages, that this Ayah refers in particular to the city of Jerusalem . . .” (page 2). He went on to declare: “Thus the Ayah of the Holy Qur’an (i.e. alAnbiyah’: 95-6), beyond doubt, relates to the establishment of the State of Israel by the connivance and support of the powers of Gog and Magog.” (page 3). He also acknowledged his debt to Maulana Fazlur Rahman Ansari “whose interpretation and explanation of the Ayat relating to the return of the people to the ‘town’ which was destroyed . . . inspired me to make research and to write on the subject” (page iii). We can only lament the fact that Dr Ansari, for reasons of which are unaware, chose not to write himself on the subject, nor to speak on it publicly. However it is certain that he was able to identify the ‘town’ as Jerusalem because of his methodology (i.e. Usul al Tafsir) of seeking to discover the system of meaning pertaining to the subject (see chapter two).
Since we also recognized the ‘town’ mentioned in Surah alAnbiyah’ to be Jerusalem, we understand the verses of the Qur’an referred to above to have declared such a return to have been impossible unless and until Gog and Magog had been released and had spread out in every direction. In other words, since the Israelite people have now returned to Jerusalem to reclaim it as their own, it follows that the one thousand years of European Crusades to liberate Jerusalem was a Gog and Magog phenomenon, and thus Gog and Magog must have been released into the world a long time ago. In coming to this conclusion this humble book has done nothing more than to take to its logical conclusion the trail that was previously blazed by the outstanding Islamic scholars of the modern age, Dr Muhammad Iqbal, his student, Dr Muhammad Fadlur Rahman Ansari (rahimahumullah) and the Turkish Islamic scholar, Badiuzzaman Said Nursi.
There is considerable additional evidence, such as the unique phenomenon of globalization in the modern world, the increasingly ominous corruption of the moral fabric of society around the world today, the amazing replication of the essentially godless and decadent Western way of life amongst all of mankind (including the world of Islam), which can be used to further argue the case that the release of Gog and Magog into the world took place a long time ago. We leave that task to others who are convinced by the central thesis of this book, and who may consequently be inspired to further extend the arguments here raised.
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