انتصار الرومان The Victory of the Romans and the Lowest Point on Earth

مراقب عام المنتدى

The Victory of the Romans and the Lowest Point on Earth
انتصار الرومان وأدنى نقطة على الأرض

Description: The Quran lays light on the lowest place of earth.

By Sherif Alkassimi (© 2008 IslamReligion.com)

In the early 7^th century, the two most
powerful empires at the time were the Byzantine[1]
and Persian Empires. In the years 613 - 614 C.E the two Empires went
to war, with the Byzantines suffering a severe defeat at the hands of
the Persians. Damascus and Jerusalem both fell to the Persian Empire.
In the chapter, The Romans,
in the Holy Quran, it is stated that the Byzantines
had met with a great defeat but would soon gain victory:

“The Romans have been defeated in the lowest land, but after their
defeat they will soon be victorious. Within three to nine years. The decision
of the matter, before and after, is with God.” (Quran 30:2-4)

These verses, above,
were revealed around 620 C.E, almost 7 years after the severe defeat of
the Christian Byzantines at the hands of the idolater
Persians in 613 – 614 C.E. Yet it was related in the verses that the
Byzantines would shortly be victorious. In-fact, Byzantine had been so
heavily
defeated that it seemed impossible for the Empire to even maintain its
very existence,
let alone be victorious again.

Not only the Persians,
but also the Avars, Slavs and Lombards
(located to the North and West of the Byzantine Empire) posed serious
threats
to the Byzantine Empire’s sovereignty. The Avars had come as far as the
walls
of Constantinople and had nearly captured the Emperor, himself. Many
governors
had revolted against Emperor Heraclius, and the Empire was
on the point of collapse. Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, Egypt and
Armenia, which had earlier belonged to the Byzantine Empire, were
invaded by the
Persians. In short, everyone was expecting the Byzantine Empire to be
destroyed, but right at that moment the first verses of the chapter, The
Romans,
were revealed announcing that the Byzantines would regain triumph in a
few
years time. Shortly after this revelation, the Byzantine Emperor
proceeded to order
the gold and silver in churches to be melted and turned into money in
order
both to meet the demanding expenses of the army, and finance his drive
to regain
the lost territories.

Around 7 years after the revelation of the first verses
of The Romans, in December, 627 C.E, a decisive battle between The Byzantine
Empire and the Persian Empire was fought in the area around the Dead Sea,[2]
and this time it was the Byzantine army which surprisingly defeated the
Persians. A few months later, the Persians had to make an agreement with the Byzantines
which obliged them to return the territories they had taken from them. So, in
the end, the victory of the Romans proclaimed by God in the Quran miraculously
came through.

Another miracle revealed in the mentioned verses is the
announcement of a geographical fact that no-one would have been able to
discover in that period. In the third verse of The Romans, it was
mentioned that the Romans were defeated “in the lowest land” (Quran 30:3).
Significantly,
the places where the main battles took place (in Damascus and
Jerusalem) lie in a vast area of low-lying land called the Great Rift
Valley.
The Great Rift Valley is a huge 5,000 km fault line in the earth’s
crust that
runs from northern Syria in the Middle-East of Asia to central
Mozambique in East Africa. The northernmost extension runs through
Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Jordon. The rift then extends south to
the Gulf of Aden, makes its way
through East Africa, then finally ends at the lower Zambezi River valley
in Mozambique.

An interesting fact that has been discovered recently,
with the help of satellite images, is that the area around the Dead Sea (located
in the Great Rift Valley) has the lowest altitude on Earth. In fact, the lowest
point on Earth is the shoreline of the Dead Sea, with an altitude of around 400
meters[3]
below sea level. The fact that it lies at the
lowest point means that water does not drain from the sea. No land point on earth
has a lower altitude than the shoreline of the Dead Sea.[4]

Dead Sea Rift Valley,
Israel and Jordan October 1984. Seen
from an altitude of 190 nautical miles (350 kilometers) in this
near-vertical
photograph, the Dead Sea Rift Valley slices south-north through the
Middle East. The surface of the Dead Sea, 1292 feet (394 meters) below
sea level, is the
lowest point on Earth. (Courtesy: The Image Science & Analysis
Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center, Photo #: STS41G-120-56,
http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov)

Therefore it becomes clear that the country or
prefecture which occupies the rift valley in the vicinity of the Dead Sea is what is meant in the Quran by “the lowest land.” This is a true miracle
of the Quran because no-one could have known or foreseen such a fact in the 7th
century due to the fact that satellites and modern day technology were not
available at the time. Once again, the only possible explanation is that
Prophet Muhammad had truly received divine revelation from God, The Creator and
Originator of the universe.

Footnotes:

[1] The Arabs also
refer to the Byzantines as the Romans.

[2]
The History of Persia Part I: Ancient Persia by Scott Peoples

[3] (http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2000/SanjeevMenon.shtml)

[4] (http://www.elnaggarzr.com/index.php?l=ar&id=51&cat=6)

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Source
http://www.islamreligion.com/articles/1563/