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After describing the dream, Daniyal told the king its meaning:

Daniel 2:37-45

Your Majesty, you are the king of kings. The God of heaven has given you dominion and power and might and glory; in your hands he has placed all mankind and the beasts of the field and the birds in the sky. Wherever they live, he has made you ruler over them all. You are that head of gold.

After you, another kingdom will arise, inferior to yours. Next, a third kingdom, one of bronze, will rule over the whole earth. Finally, there will be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron—for iron breaks and smashes everything—and as iron breaks things to pieces, so it will crush and break all the others. Just as you saw that the feet and toes were partly of baked clay and partly of iron, so this will be a divided kingdom; yet it will have some of the strength of iron in it, even as you saw iron mixed with clay. As the toes were partly iron and partly clay, so this kingdom will be partly strong and partly brittle. And just as you saw the iron mixed with baked clay, so the people will be a mixture and will not remain united, any more than iron mixes with clay.

In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever. This is the meaning of the vision of the rock cut out of a mountain, but not by human hands—a rock that broke the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold to pieces.

The great God has shown the king what will take place in the future. The dream is true and its interpretation is trustworthy.

Daniyal showed the king that, as Allah had revealed, his kingdom would pass away and another kingdom would come, inferior to his. Then, successively, other kingdoms represented by different parts of the statue will come and go.

This dream is not concerned with some obscure events. It foretold events of world history, taught to schoolchildren in every generation, centuries before they happened. Daniyal’s interpretation of this dream is one of the most solid proofs of the reliability of prophetic word that exist. It is of a particular interest to Muslims, since it mostly speaks about the history of countries which now lie in the heart of the Muslim world. Let’s take a closer look:

It is easy to see that there is a progression in the symbols in this dream: Each successive power is represented by a metal which is of a lower value, but harder than the one before. The feet, upon which the whole image stands, are different, made partly of iron like the legs, but partly of clay instead of – as we would expect – another metal. (You can also compare this by a different prophetic characteristic of these same kingdoms in chapter of the book of Daniel 7. This further shows the accuracy of the prophetic words, revealed centuries before the event described in them.)

The Empire of Babylon (Neo-Babylonian empire) (626-539 BC)

Babylon, the kingdom ruled by Nebuchadnezzar, rose to power and defeated its former master - Assyria. It centered on today’s Iraq, and its rule extended from western Iran to southern Turkey and as far south as Yathrib (Medina). It had no rival at the height of its power. After conquering the land of the Yehudi (as prophesied by several nebiim of Allah), Nebuchadnezzar ordered young men such as Daniyal to move to Babylon. Gold represents the uniqueness of the position of this empire.  Gold was also used excessively to decorate Babylon’s palaces and specially to model its many false gods.

In chapter 3 of the book of Daniel we read that king Nebuchadnezzar had a huge statue built entirely of gold, and that he ordered everybody, including the servants of Al-Muhyee (the Giver of Life), to worship him by bowing to the statue. This was an act of open rebellion against Allah. No king, however powerful, can change the will of the Almighty. Some sixty years after Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, Babylon fell to the next emerging super-power.

Medo-Persian kingdom (Achaemenid Empire) (539-331 BC)

Nabi Daniyal was still in Babylonian captivity, when king Cyrus II. (The Great) conquered the great city. Under his successor Darius I., the empire reached an extent beyond anything imaginable up to that time. It controlled all of today’s Turkey including Trakya (European Turkey), Transcaucasia, Central Asia as far as southern Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. In the east, it stretched to Pakistan, in the south to Oman, and in the west as far as Libya and Macedonia. Silver, besides describing the quality of the kingdom, was the main currency in this vast domain, as testified by both archaeologists and the prophetic books of the time. The empire, which lasted for two centuries, collapsed in less than four years.

The Greek empire (331-188 BC)

The conquest was achieved by a young Macedonian ruler – Alexander III. of Macedon, best known to Muslims by his Persian name Iskander. After Alexander wrested control of Anatolia from Persian control, he went on to Jerusalem. There, the rabbis of his day showed him the book of Daniyal. He recognized himself as the king, prophesied about centuries ago, and believed that, as foretold, he is going to crush the Persians completely. Some scholars also identify the Dhu Al-Qarnayn, mentioned in sura Al-Kahf, with Iskander. The Macedonian fought his way as far as Egypt, Tajikistan, and Pakistan, leaving behind cities, some of which are inhabited to this day: Çanakkale in Turkey, Khujant in Tajikistan, Herat and Kandahar in Afghanistan, and of course, Al-Iskandriya (Alexandria) in Egypt. Alexander died young, but his Greek heritage in the Middle East and Central Asia lasted for centuries, mostly through the kingdoms of Seleucos and Ptolemy, two of Alexander’s generals. Bronze, the metal representing his empire in the image shown to Nebuchadnezzar, really fits the picture. The Greeks, fighting for Alexander, wore chest-plates and helmets made of bronze, besides numerous other uses of this metal.

Roman Empire (Rum) (188 BC-476 AD)

The next empire that achieved world dominance is probably known to us all – Rome. This was the longest lasting one of those portrayed in the dream. Remains of Roman cities dot Anatolia and all of the Mediterranean countries, and even Germany or Britain. This admired and feared empire achieved great things and saw Europe turning from the “edges of civilisation” to its bearer. It was also the most tyrannical power of those described. Roman soldiers (and not the Jews, as the Qur’an attests in An-Nisa 4:157) nailed nabi Isa (may his peace be upon us) to the cross. Iron became the principal metal used in their times – of the least quality and value, but harder than any of the three metals preceding it.

Who is Next?

Isn’t it amazing that a man, living in the 6^th century BC predicted the rise and fall of four subsequent world empires over hundreds of years? Who can doubt the words of Allah? Who would dear to question the validity of the prophetic word found in the Tawrat, Zabur and Injil when they see that no one other than Al-Malik (the Ruler) himself is behind it?

The next thing, though, surpasses all that we have seen so far.

Read next: Daniel 2, part 3: Daniyal, the Feet and the Stone