Have any of the prophet's predictions concerning the distant future been proven true?

• God�s Messenger gave the tidings of the conquest of Istanbul, saying: Certainly, Constantinople will be conquered. How good is the commander who will conquer it and how good his army!31
  
  Hoping to be the object of the Prophet�s praise, Muslim rulers and commanders, from the time of Mu�awiya, attempted many times to conquer Constantinople (Istanbul). It was in one of those campaigns that Abu Ayyub al-Ansari, the noble Companion of God�s Messenger, was martyred and buried in the vicinity of the city walls.
  
  Istanbul was conquered by the Ottoman ruler, Mehmed, the Conqueror. Besides this great commander and statesman, his two school friends, Hasan of Ulubat and Qadi Khidr Calabi, as well as his tutor Ak Shamsaddin, were also symbols of this conquest, one in the army, the others in the departments of religious and scientific education. The prayer and praise of God�s Messenger encompasses all of them.
• God�s Messenger predicted and explained the principle reasons for the destruction of the Ottoman State and the condition of the Muslim world in the aftermath of the First World War, saying:
  
  Nations will call each other, as people make invitations to a meal, to make a concerted attack on you. Someone asked: �Will this happen because of our being small in number?� God�s Messenger answered: �Rather, you will then be great in number, but as powerless as wood-chips or straw carried in a flood. God will remove fear of you from the hearts of your enemies and implant in you fear of death and love of the world.�32
   
• God�s Messenger once declared:
  
  The Euphrates will probably go dry, uncovering a treasure (a mountain, according to another version) of gold beneath it. Whoever of you witnesses it, should refrain from taking any of it.34
  
  This hadith alludes to great bloodshed which is expected to take place along the Euphrates. Although the Euphrates has so far witnessed many wars, like the Iran-Iraq war, what this hadith points to is a much greater bloodshed which will occur in the future. While we may take the hadith in its literal meaning � that is, the Euphrates may actually go dry to uncover a treasure or a mountain of gold beneath it � we may also regard it in a figurative sense. For example, we tend to call petrol �black gold�, or the water of the Euphrates may be, in the future, as valuable as gold, and cause regional or even international wars.
• In another Tradition, God�s Messenger upon him be peace and blessings, describes �the end of time�, saying:
  
  Prior to Doomsday, people will make discrimination when offering their greetings (preferring to greet only some); trade will be given so much currency and preference that a wife will help her husband in it; parents and relatives will no longer be visited; false evidence and false testimony will replace true ones, and writing will gain prominence.37
  
  Everything predicted in this hadith fourteen centuries ago, has proved to be true. Today, trade is the most preferred way of making a livelihood and women are exploited in it as a means of advertisement and for attracting customers. Secondly, the rights of parents and relatives are no longer considered and, once they become old � when they are most in need of attention and affection � they are often driven from their family homes to old people�s homes. Thirdly, the power of the the modern press is unquestionable and thousands of books are published every day. Fourthly, lying is so widespread that few can refrain from it. This is true at all levels from business lies to false testimony in law suits.
   
• In a hadith qudsi, the Prophet, upon him be peace and blessings, relates from God:
  
  At the end of time I will cause knowledge to be obtained by everyone, including men and women, slaves and the free, and the old and the young.38
  
  As we all know, education is now open to almost everyone through numerous institutions including schools, universities, and the media. Many intellectuals and scientists say that the next age will be the age of information.
• In another authentic Tradition, God�s Messenger declares:
  
  The Hour (the Last Day) will not come until God�s Book (the Qur�an) is a means of shame and Islam is left without a powerful group to support it.39a
  
  We have seen the truth of this prediction. For nearly a century, Muslims have been persecuted even in their own lands, and, while atheists and unbelievers have openly declared their unbelief everywhere, Islam has been the target of verbal, written and, even, active assaults. Muslims have felt compelled to conceal their belief and have become too ashamed to openly declare their confirmation of the Qur�an.
• The hadith continues:
  
  The Hour will not come until the distances of time and space diminish.39b
  
  I have translated the word taqarub as diminishing. It means �to approach each other� and implies that before the Day of Judgement comes, things which took a long time in the past will be possible in a very short time. This hadith, in addition to predicting modern vehicles of transportation, implies that time is relative.
   
• God�s Messenger also predicted:
  
  A time will come upon people when almost everyone will eat from usury, to the extent that those who refrain from it will be exposed to its �dust�.40
  
  God�s Messenger points to two important facts:
  • A time will come when all formal transactions will involve interest. No one will be able to avoid it completely. However, those who do not enter into interest-based transactions will not be held accountable for the interest they eat unintentionally so long as they do their best to refrain from usury.
  • God�s Messenger, upon him be peace and blessings, may have meant by �being exposed to its dust� that a �capitalist� class would emerge and increase its wealth through interest. This would gradually lead the �working class� into deeper and deeper poverty, which would result in direct and bitter class warfare.
• In the following authentic Tradition, God�s Messenger, upon him be peace and blessings, points to another aspect of the present world:
  
  A time will come upon people when believers conceal themselves as hypocrites do among you today.41
  
  At the time of the Prophet, upon him be peace and blessings, hypocrites used to conceal themselves. Inwardly they were unbelievers but outwardly they performed all the religious duties. God�s Messenger foretold the pitiful state of Muslims when they would conceal their belief and perform even their religious obligations secretly.
  
  The same state was described in another hadith:
  
  Sedition and deviation will occur, and a Muslim will be disgraced because of performing prescribed prayers as a woman is disgraced today because of fornication.
• In another narration, God�s Messenger, upon him be peace and blessings, predicted that petroleum would be discovered in Taleqan, saying:
  
  Good tidings to Taleqan, for there are God�s treasuries there, but not of gold and silver.42
  
  In the past, people meant by �treasury� gold and silver. For this reason, God�s Messenger, upon him be peace and blessings, emphasized that the treasuries which would be discovered in Taleqan would not be those of gold and silver. What comes to mind first today when told of a treasury which is not of gold and silver is petroleum.
• The following is another prediction by God�s Messenger, which has come true:
  
  You will certainly walk in the footsteps of those who preceded you so closely that if, for example, they had put their heads in the hole of a lizard, you would do the same. The Companions asked him if he meant by �those who preceded you� the Jews and Christians, he answered: Who else could it be other than them?43
  
  Muslims have been suffering from an identity crisis for two centuries. They are blind imitators of the West and have been caught up in the vices which destroyed all previous civilizations.

All the foregoing together with hundreds of other predictions constitute a decisive proof that Muhammad was a Prophet, a Messenger, taught by God.

31. Hakim, Mustadrak, 4.422; I. Hanbal, 4.335.

32. Abu Dawud, Malahim, 5; I. Hanbal, 5.278.

33. Bukhari, Fitan, 16; Muslim, Fitan, 45; I. Hanbal, 2.50, 72.

34. Bukhari, Fitan, 24; Muslim, Fitan, 30; Abu Dawud, Malahim, 12,13.

35. Muslim, Iman, 244�7.

36. Muslim, Fitan, 110; Tirmidhi, Fitan, 59; I. Hanbal, 4.182.

37. I. Hanbal, 1.407, 408; Hakim, Mustadrak, 4.98, 448.

38. Darimi, Muqaddima, 27.

39a. Kanz al-�Ummal, 14.244.

39b. Haythami, Majma� al-Zawa�id, 7.324.

40. I. Ma�ja, Tijara, 58; I. Hanbal, 2.494; Nasa�i, Buyu, 2.

41. Hindi, Kanz al-�Ummal, 11.176.

42. Kanz al-�Ummal, 14.591

43. Muslim, �Ilm, 6; Bukhari, Anbiya�, 50.