I have a question about the interpretation of one passage from the New Testament about the second coming of the Messiah. The quotation is from Matthews and it reads: For as the lightning comes out of the east and shines even unto the west, so also shall be the coming of the Son of Man. Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened and the moon shall not give its light.
Exactly, that’s right. And the stars shall fall from heaven and the powers of the heaven shall be shaken. My question is about the two last bits. The stars shall fall from heaven and the powers of the heaven shall be shaken. What is the meaning of this? Could you bring it here? Which particular lines would you point out? You have taken it from? A book written on the? Entitled? I see. For as the lightning comes out of the east and shines even unto the west, so also shall be the coming of the Son of Man.
Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened and the moon shall not give its light. The stars shall fall from heaven and the powers of the heaven shall be shaken. This is Matthew 24, 27-29. Which particular line did you say bothered you? The stars falling from heaven. The Promised Messiah has already written on it. In fact, sometime before this phenomenon occurred, he had mentioned it in his prophecies that Allah had told him that there would be an extensive activity, an intensive activity of shooting stars in the heaven.
And in the following some years, there was a very special phase of increased activity of shooting stars. Sometimes people would watch heavens like they would watch a fireball show. And it was so interesting to watch in the clear summer skies the shooting stars occurring so much and so often. So it was literally fulfilled in the time of the Promised Messiah. And also the Promised Messiah predicted about great earthquakes and particularly predicted some to come within a specific time.
And we also noticed that great earthshakes did occur. And even in Qadian, very special shakings were witnessed to a degree that at times people had to leave their houses and go out because of the fear. First of all, they were predicted by Mr. Sathya Swami. Then they did occur as predicted. So the severity of the earthquake which was described in the prophecies of the Promised Messiah was misapplied by the people of that time. That severity in fact was to be applied to the world wars because the description fits that much more than an ordinary earthquake.
But because people for the first time heard those prophecies and they could not fully understand the implications of those prophecies, when the earthquakes literally occurred, they thought all that has been said would be fulfilled during this earthquake which they were witnessing, you know, that sort of thing. So the description was so terrifying in the revelation of the Promised Messiah that they would run out and, you know, go seek some shelter elsewhere, run for the open.
And also there was a joke, as narrated to us by Hazrat Musleh Maud, something which actually happened, it is a very good joke too. An earthquake was felt. And in light of all these prophecies, you know, earthquakes were taken very seriously in those days. So there was also an old lady sitting who was suffering from giddiness and, you know, she thought things around were moving. While it was her entire subjective experience, she was suffering from this giddiness.
So suddenly she heard one day that people were rushing out and saying, it was an earthquake and let’s go for the safety and this and that. And that old lady said, no, no. Yes, I am suffering from giddiness. There is no such thing as earthquake, you know. Don’t be afraid. You understand that? So these two references are to those phenomena which were predicted by Hazrat Musleh Maud Alehissalaam for great events and phenomena.
And partly they were fulfilled literally and partly they were to be fulfilled metaphorically as well or in other larger terms. Like the earthquake, as predicted by Nassim A.A. was explained by him himself, that although, he said, wrote once, although I am using the words earthquake, zalzalah, but only Allah knows what is meant by this and maybe it’s a different type of calamity. Because he himself must have wondered that the description under the word zalzalah does not apply to all zalzalah at all.
So himself took note of it and wrote this comment about these prophecies. So that was fulfilled literally as well as in that broader context. And shooting of stars also can be interpreted differently. And that has been interpreted differently by previous scholars as well. That if the great religious scholars are unhinged and unmoored and fall from the heaven, that is debased and rejected by Allah, then this can be described as shooting of stars. They leave their moorings and drop to the earth.
So in the time of Hazrat Nassim A.A. this was to be the case because most of the scholars had become worldly-wise and were not as God-fearing as scholars should have been. So they were being rejected and expelled from the heavenly places which were attributed to them previously. So that also could be the meaning of that. Shaking of the… of course, yes, yes. Very much so.
