SURA 30 AR-RUM - ROME and History confirm each other. Christians twist historical facts as they did to their holly book

Submitted by Nuray (Portugal), Jan 25, 2006 at 19:01

Let's read what Islamic and non-Islamic history books say.

Non-Islamic source :
610 AD Heraclius became the new Byzantine Emperor (610-641 AD )

622-626 AD During this time the war with the Persians continued in respect to the Byzantines (the war now entered into it's 2nd decade). More lands were won by the Persians, however the Byzantines did manage some large victories over the Persians within Asia Minor (here the Persians were flushed out).

Surah 30 is sent down in 615 AD. It is clear that it were fulfilled within the stipulated period of ten years.

Islamic source :
I didn't summarise the passage that I have taken from English Quran with historical background by MidEastWeb. You will enjoy it because it is about history of both Christians and Muslims.
The passage refers to the British historian Gibbon says, even seven to eight years after this prediction of the Qur'an,the conditions were such that no one could even imagine that the Byzantine Empire would ever gain an upper hand over Persia, not to speak of gaining domination.

If you don't like history you can skip the following section.

30 AR-RUM - ROME
This Surah dates from 615 CE, the year when the Romans were completely
overpowered by the Persians, during the time of the Prophet's residence at Mecca.
This was the same year in which the Prophet gave permission to the oppressed
Muslims to migrate to Habash (Ethiopia).

The prediction made in the initial verses of this Surah is one of the most outstanding
evidences of the Qur'an being the Word of Allah. Research Scholar Abul A'la
Maududi narrated the historical background relevant to this Surah as follows:
"Eight years before the Prophet's advent as a Prophet, the Byzantine Emperor
Maurice was overthrown by Phocus, who captured the throne and became king.
Phocus first had the Emperor's five sons executed in front of him, and then had the
Emperor 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 Sassani king of Persia; a good moral excuse to attack
Byzantine. Emperor Maurice had been his benefactor; with his help he had got the
throne of Persia. Therefore, he declared that he would avenge his godfather's and
his children's murder upon Phocus, the usurper. So, he started a war against the
Byzantines in 603 CE and within a few years, putting the Phocus armies to rout in
succession, he reached Edessa (modern, Urfa) in Asia Minor, on the one front, 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, Hercules, to Constantinople with a strong fleet. Phocus was immediately
deposed and Hercules was made emperor. He treated Phocus as he had treated
Maurice. This happened in 610 CE, the year the Prophet was appointed to the
Prophethood.

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 Jews who enlisted in Khusrau's army rose to
26,000.

Hercules could not stop this storm. The very first news that he received from the East
after ascending the throne was that of the Persian's occupation of Antioch. After this,
Damascus fell in 613 CE. Then in 614 , the Persians 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 Christian
beliefs, 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 Hercules from Jerusalem. He wrote: "From Khusrau, the greatest of all gods,
the master of the whole world : To Hercules, 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 Persian armies overran 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 Mecca. The
believers in One God, under the leadership of the Muhammed, were fighting for their
existence against the followers of shirk under the command of the chiefs of the
Qureysh, and the conflict had reached such a stage that in 615 CE, a substantial
number of the Muslims had to leave their homes and take refuge with the Christian
kingdom of Habash (Ethiopia), which was an ally of the Byzantine Empire. In those
days the Sassani victories against Byzantine were the talk of the town, and the
pagans of Mecca were delighted and were taunting the Muslims to the effect: "Look
the fire worshippers of Persia are winning victories and the Christian believers in
Revelation and Prophethood 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 Qur'an 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 Mecca, and even till eight years after this prediction there appeared no
chance of their victory and domination. On the contrary, the Romans were losing
more and more ground every next day. By 619 CE the whole of Egypt had passed
into Sassani 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 CE they
captured Chalcedony (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 Qur'an,
the conditions were such that no one could even imagine that the Byzantine Empire
would ever gain an upper hand over Persia, not to speak of gaining domination. No
one could hope that the Empire, under the circumstances, would even survive.
When these verses of the Qur'an were sent down, the disbelievers of Mecca made
great fun of them, and Ubayy bin Khalaf bet Sayyiduna Abu Bakr ten camels that the
Romans would not be victorious within three years. When the Prophet came to know
of the bet, he said, "The Qur'an 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, Sayyiduna Abu Bakr spoke to
Ubayy again and bet a hundred camels for ten years.

In 622 CE, when the Prophet migrated to Medina, the Emperor Hercules set off
quietly for Trabzon from Constantinople via the Black Sea and started preparations to
attack Persia 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. Hercules started his counter attack in 623 CE from Armenia. Next
year, in 624 CE, he entered Azerbaijan and destroyed Clorumia, the birthplace of
Zoroaster, and ravaged the principal fire temple of Persia. 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 pagans. 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 Persians hard and in the decisive battle
at Nineveh, (627 CE) they dealt them the hardest blow. They captured the royal
residence of Dast-Gerd, and then pressing forward, reached right opposite to
Ctesiphon, which was the capital of Persia in those days. In 628 CE, 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 prison. This was the year when the
peace treaty of Hudeybiyah was concluded, which the Qur'an 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 CE, the Emperor himself went to Jerusalem to instal the "Cross" in
its place, and in the same year the Prophet entered Mecca for the first time after the
Hijrah to perform the Umra-tul-Q'adah.

After this, no one could have any doubt about the truth of the prophecy of the Qur'an,
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 Sayyiduna Abu Bakr
Siddiq. He took them before the 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 Shari‘ah; but now it had been 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."

(English Quran with historical background MidEastWeb)

Nuray

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".