Sūrah Yā-Sīn :(36:20).Part3

وَجَاءَ مِنْ أَقْصَى الْمَدِينَةِ رَجُلٌ يَسْعَىٰ قَالَ يَا قَوْمِ اتَّبِعُوا الْمُرْسَلِينَ

A man came running from the farthest end of the city and said: ‘O my people! Follow those who have been sent (to you as Messengers).(Yā-Sīn 36:20)

The Qur’ān is not a book addressing only a specific time and place and specific conditions; rather, it addresses everyone regardless of time, place, and conditions. Therefore, a reader should think: “With the exception of the fact that I am not a Prophet, the Qur’ān addresses me directly,” and if one views the Qur’ān and reads it from this perspective, one will see that the Qur’ān addresses him or her.

How can God and the truths about Him be restricted to a specific time and place? 

Therefore, having issued from the All-Eternal God’s Attribute of Speech, the Qur’ān addresses everybody regardless of time and space; at the same time it addresses God’s Messenger and his Companions. Despite this fundamental reality, if we view the narratives in the Qur’ān as certain stories about certain bygone peoples, our benefit from it will be little.

Back to the verse under discussion once again, the incident mentioned in it will continue in a similar form, if not the exact same form, until the end of time. As for the heroes of such incidents, one may count many similar heroes ever ready to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the Ultimate Truth, from the believer of the clan of the Pharaoh who emerged at a most critical point to support Prophet Moses to the hero mentioned in this verse, from Abū Bakr to many similar others who have exhibited the same heroism throughout history.

As referred to above, the Qur’ān mentions another of these heroes. He belonged to the clan of the Pharaoh and emerged at a most critical point to support Moses and prevent the attempts to kill him, saying:

“Would you kill a man only because he declares, ‘My Lord is God!’” (Al-Mu’min 40:28).

If someone from the lower classes of the society had done the same, he would not have been able to avert the plans to kill Moses.

The same heroism was exhibited by Abū Bakr in Makkah. At a time when Muslims were severely persecuted to the extent that they would nearly be killed, Abū Bakr, who belonged to the Makkan aristocracy, came out with the same exclamation:

“Would you kill a man only because he declares, ‘My Lord is God!”( Bukhārī, Fadā’ilu’s-Sahābah, 5; Manāqibu’l-Ansār, 29; Tafsīru Sūrah 40:1; Musnad Ahmad, 2/204.)

All this means that the events narrated in the Qur’ān are the foundational building-blocks of human history. They are repeated in all times and in all places.