will appear and will be a source of higher realization for the
seekers after truth. Subsequent events tell us that it is the present
scientific age which is referred to here. Indeed, in this age, such
facts about the world of nature have come to the knowledge of
man as are undoubtedly a source of realization.
Keeping this reality in view, it would perhaps be right to say
that the brothers of the Prophet will be those believers who,
born in the scientific age, will derive intellectual nourishment
from scientific discoveries, and thus attain high levels of
realization. These will be the people who will support
Mahdi,
or
Masih,
in the final stage of human history by performing great
dawah
work at the global level.
One example of this matter is the phenomenon of the solar
and lunar eclipses. An eclipse is the obscuring of the reflected
light from one celestial body by the passage of another between
it and the earth. But in the age of the companions of the Prophet
in the first half of the 7
th
century, the eclipses were
misrepresented in the current popular tales as subjects of great
mystery and superstition. It was only by rising above superstition
that the companions of the Prophet learnt the truth about solar
and lunar eclipses, i.e. that they were actually the divine signs of
the Lord of the Universe — heavenly demonstrations of God’s
power. Once having accepted this truth, they attained the
realization of God. On seeing solar and lunar eclipses, they
prostrated themselves before God in prayer and in
acknowledgement of His greatness.
In the present scientific age, new discoveries about the solar
system have been made by means of telescopic observation. Such
information is undoubtedly a source of higher realization. In
the light of these new discoveries, when one sees the phenomena
of solar and lunar eclipses today, one has that great experience
of the realization of God which can move hearts and make our
body hair stand on end.
According to modern discoveries, the earth, the sun, and
the moon are three astral bodies which are widely different in
size but which are so positioned in their orbits in the vastness
Ikhwan-e-Rasool
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