Now, this question of 7000 years is extending the thing too far, in fact. When you talk of a period of 7000 years or 7 days or 7 nights, there are religious terminologies indicating a certain period with fixed developmental periods within. And it’s meant only that. So you don’t translate them into human countings and human years, because they are different things altogether.
Moreover, if you also speak of 7000 years periods of human history within our own concept of years, even then there is no sharp, hard and fast line to be drawn between the beginning of a 7000 years era and the ending of the one. Because what happens is that for a particular 7000 years, the development which takes place is much more long-rooted in history. And the ultimate 7000 years which count, they are mentioned, but the whole history behind it, the preparatory history is not mentioned because it’s not worth mentioning. Only the final consummate stage of that development is mentioned in years. That can be understood if you consider the creation of man.
Man was created, to the best of human knowledge, as a homo sapien, he was created about a few hundred thousand years ago. That is the maximum they can go back. While all that took for the preparation of man was so large in comparison to the creation of man itself, that the age of this world and its development is 4.5 billion or thereabout. 4.5 billion years. So the scientists compare it, those who know mathematics, in the form of a 24-hour watch. They say suppose this 4.5 billion period is concentrated into 24 hours, then the creation of man would be placed somewhere in the last second of the 24 hours. That is the comparison. So all that is important is man, not the period behind, because that period was created only for the creation of this ultimate purpose of creation, that is man. So that which was most important took the shortest period. So when they speak of 7000 religious years in human history, all that is meant is that all the important period of religious history comprise 7000 years.
Before that whatever it was, of course there were human beings, but the period before this was not worthy of mention. It only meant that, nothing more. So don’t conceive a very narrow concept of human race, as if to whom man has been created for the last 6000 or 7000 years, and the humanity, human race would end after 6000, 7000 years. The decay also, that is the aftermath of a period, takes very long. The period itself sometimes is much shorter than the decadent period which follows. And that may be spread over many many thousand years, even it could be many hundred thousand years, for the man to decay ultimately and to be finally rejected, and for a new race to develop from among men or maybe from some other source.
So that is what is meant by Hazrat Musleh Maud al-Islam, the founder of the Ahlulbayt community, when he speaks on this subject in terms of years. Have you received the answer or have I been… I have been speaking on quite something different I suppose. I have been on the subject all the time? I have grasped the subject. But that is not what you wanted to find out. That’s right, that’s what I am saying. The Promised Messiah has specifically mentioned 7000 years. So have I been mentioning it? 5 years to end of its duration. This is what I have been trying to tell you, that when man has reached the consummate stage of his final creation and has completed the purpose of his life, that would happen by the end of 7000 years. But after that man will continue to live. So will religion. But it would not be worthy of mention. Because then man would have been rejected. Having served its purpose and having gone astray once again, after reaching the ultimate of purpose, then the man would be rejected. So that period, after that 7000 years, is not mentioned.
As the period before is not mentioned either. So by drawing that analogy, I was trying to make you understand that this is what happens and 7000 years have no sharp edges. Neither in the beginning nor at the end. You may not be satisfied, but this is the answer, please. I thought that the Promised Messiah meant that at the end of those 7000 years, the whole thing will end and then God… No, that is not at all what he meant. 7000 years would be the period by which one final global religion would have gained its influence over the whole world, would be accepted as such. Not only that, at the end of 7000 years, according to the Promised Messiah, having completed this circle, it would have entered the period of decay.
So from then on, he doesn’t speak of man as such. Because the man has then ultimately started the downward journey and is beginning to go into oblivion. So that is why 7000 years are mentioned and not the period following it. As the period preceding 7000 years, which is, as you know, is very much in existence, has been in existence, has never been mentioned. Why? Because that was not worthy of mention.
