Verses 1–7
بِسۡمِ ٱللَّهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ
The meanings of the verses of this sūrah in their different sections clearly apply to the account of the Treaty of Ḥudaybiyyah which took place in the seventh year of the Hijrah and the events that took place around this, with events such as the Bedouins recalcitrance, the idolaters’ obstruction of the pilgrimage, and the pledge of allegiance given beneath the tree detailed in traditions. We shall discuss some of these in the study of the narrations below, God-willing.
The purpose of this sūrah is to expound the favor God has bestowed upon His messenger through the clear victory He granted him on this journey, and upon the faithful amongst those who accompanied him. It also serves to extol their virtue and promise a beauteous reward to those of them who believe and do righteous deeds. The sūrah is Medinan.
Commentary
إِنَّا فَتَحْنَا لَكَ فَتْحًا مُبِينًا ١
(48:1) Indeed We have inaugurated for you a clear victory.
This statement is intended to extol a favor performed by God. The sentence is given emphasis by indeed (inna), the majestic plural We is attached to inaugurated, and the victory is described as clear is to call attention to the importance of the victory that is being extolled as God’s favor.
Key Debate: “That God May Forgive You What Is Past of Your Sin” →
Based on the contextual indicators, this victory (fatḥ) is the triumph God granted His Prophet in the Treaty of Ḥudaybiyyah.
This is because of the following: all of what we shall see in the verses extolling the favor God has shown to the Prophet and the faithful—those praising them and expressing God’s satisfaction with the pledge of allegiance (bayʿah) and the promise of worldly rewards both in the short and long term, not to mention the promise of paradise in the Hereafter—and the blame laid upon the Bedouins who refused to accompany God’s Messenger when he called upon them, as well as the blame laid upon the idolaters for barring the Prophet and those with him, and the blame laid upon the hypocrites; and God’s affirmation of the Prophet’s vision and His own prophecy and He assigned besides that a victory near at hand (), which is almost plain in its meaning. All of these meanings are connected with the Prophet setting off to perform the pilgrimage to Mecca, which ultimately led to the Treaty of Ḥudaybiyyah.
It is obvious why this treaty is a clear victory given by God to His Prophet when we ponder on the tone of this sūrah’s verses that give the account of it. The setting off of the Prophet and the faithful on this mission was extremely dangerous, and many did not expect them to return from it, as God alludes to in the verse Rather you thought that the Messenger and the faithful would not ever return to their folk (). The idolaters, at whose head were the leaders of the Quraysh and their followers, were very powerful and implacably hostile to the Prophet and the faithful. For the last two years, nothing had been between these two groups except the sword, and they had only ever met on the battlefield in battles such as those of Uḥud, Badr and Aḥzāb. On this occasion only a small band accompanied the Prophet—one thousand four hundred in all—and they had no power against the mass of idolaters while the latter were on their home territory.
And yet, in spite of all this, God reversed the situation so that it went in favor of the Prophet and the faithful and against the idolaters. The idolaters agreed to something that no one could have ever hoped for, namely they asked the Prophet to sign a treating agreeing to a cessation of hostilities for ten years, with the guarantee that each of the two groups would respect the security of the other’s followers and whoever joins them. Moreover, it was agreed that the Prophet would withdraw to Medina this year and return to Mecca next year, and the Quraysh agreed to give him unfettered access to the Sanctuary and the Kaʿbah for three days.
This is one of the clearest victories that God granted to His Prophet, and it was one of the immediate causes for the conquest of Mecca in the eighth year of the Hijrah, for a large number of idolaters had come to believe in Islam during the two years between the treaty and the conquest of Mecca. Khaybar and the area around it was captured at the beginning of the seventh year, and this strengthened the Muslims. In this time, Islam spread visibly, its followers became numerous, their renown spread far and wide, and they were active in many lands. When the Prophet set out to take Mecca, he was in an army of ten or twelve thousand men, while at the treaty of Ḥudaybiyyah he had only one thousand four hundred according to most accounts.
It is said that the real meaning of “victory” (fatḥ) is the conquest of Mecca, so when God says Indeed We have inaugurated for you a clear victory, this means “We have decreed for you the conquest of Mecca.” However the context of the verse does not support such a reading.
And it is said that it actually refers to the conquest of Khaybar and it means—assuming that this sūrah was revealed when the Prophet returned from Ḥudaybiyyah to Medina—“We have decreed for you the conquest of Khaybar.” However, such a reading runs into the same problems as the one above.
And it is said that this refers to a moral victory (fatḥ maʿnawī), namely that the victory over the enemies by openly making the pilgrimage, the wonders and miracles which raised the word of truth over falsehood, and the triumph of Islam over all religions. Even if this reading is not in itself problematic, the flow of the verses does not match with it.
لِيَغْفِرَ لَكَ اللَّهُ مَا تَقَدَّمَ مِنْ ذَنْبِكَ وَمَا تَأَخَّرَ وَيُتِمَّ نِعْمَتَهُ عَلَيْكَ وَيَهْدِيَكَ صِرَاطًا مُسْتَقِيمًا ٢ وَيَنْصُرَكَ اللَّهُ نَصْرًا عَزِيزًا ٣
(48:2–3) That God may cover by removing (lī yaghfira lak allāhu) what is past of the evil consequence that they had against you (dhanbika) and what is to come, and that He may perfect His blessing upon you and guide you on a straight path, and God will help you with a mighty help.
According to the apparent meaning of the text, that (li) signifies that what follows explains the wisdom behind this victory. So it appears that the purpose of this clear victory is to forgive what has passed of your dhanb (lit. “sin”) and what is to come. However, there is obviously no connection between victory and the forgiveness of dhanb (“sin”), nor is there any intelligible sense in making forgiveness the reason for it.
In order to avoid this problem, some have said that the lām in li yaghfira is actually the lām of swearing an oath (lām al-qasam), such that the real construction of the Arabic is li yaghfiranna but the nūn of emphasis was omitted. The fatḥah was left at the end of the word (rather than a ḍammah) to signify this omitted suffix. However this is completely wrong, and there is no corroborating evidence for this sort of construction in classical Arabic.
The same applies to the claim employed by some to avoid this problem, namely: “The wisdom for this victory is forgiveness as a whole and everything associated with it, such as the completion of God’s blessings, guidance and assistance. Therefore, there is no contradiction entailed by the fact that some of this—namely forgiveness of sins—does not feature as a direct reason for the victory.” This is a foolish statement that does not solve anything. If the forgiveness of dhanb (“sin”) is not a reason, whether in whole or part, for the victory, nor has any kind of connection whatsoever to anything associated with it, then God would not mention it as a reason for it, whether by itself or with anything else!
In short, this semantic problem is the best indicator that the meaning of sin (dhanb) in this verse is not the commonly-understood meaning, namely disobeying the command of one’s master, nor does forgive (maghfirah) mean what it is commonly understood to mean, namely to forgo punishing someone for the aforementioned disobedience. The original meaning of dhanb in Arabic, according to what we can glean from its usage, is an action that has any kind of evil consequences. Meanwhile, maghfirah signifies the covering of something. As for the two commonly-understood meanings that come to our minds when we hear these words today, meaning disobeying one’s master and forgoing the punishment of disobedience, these meanings originate in the religious usage (ʿurf al-mutasharriʿīn) of these terms.
The Prophet rose up to call people to the truth and resist faithlessness and idolatry before the Hijrah, and he continued on this path, fighting countless battles with the faithless and the idolaters, after the Hijrah. All of this had a negative effect on the idolaters and the faithless, and they would have never forgiven him for that so long as they had power and strength; they would never forget the passing away of their religion and the destruction of their way of life, nor the killing of their leaders in battle. Not unless they quenched the rancor in their hearts by taking revenge on him, wiping out his name and destroying everything he worked for. But God granted him this victory, which is the capture of Mecca and the victory of Ḥudaybiyyah which led to it. This deprived them of their power and extinguished their fires, and therefore it deprived them of their means against him which was a dhanb (in the sense of “evil consequence”) and protected him from them.
So the meaning of dhanb—and God knows best—is the evil consequences that resulted from his invitation to the faithless and the idolaters; it was an evil consequence that they had against him. This is exactly like when Moses told his Lord: Also they have a charge (dhanb) against me, and I fear they will kill me (62:14). So what is past of your dhanb means that which was from him in Mecca before the Hijrah, while what is to come is what came from him after the Hijrah. God’s forgiveness of this dhanb is to cover it by removing its evil consequences, depriving them of their power and destroying their foundations. This reading is supported by the phrases: …and that He may perfect His blessing upon you… () and and God will help you with a mighty help ().
And commentators have other schools of thought with regards to this verse, including:
Those who say that dhanb (“sin”) refers to actual sins committed by the Prophet; so what is past of your dhanb (“sin”) and what is to come refers to that which occurred before he was made a prophet and afterwards. And it is said: It refers to that which came before the victory and that which came after.
However, this reading is based on the assumption that sins can be ascribed to the Prophets and this is contrary to what is unequivocally stated by the Qur’an, the Sunnah, and human reason about the infallibility (ʿiṣmah) of the Prophets. And we have already discussed this in the second part of this work and elsewhere.
Moreover, even if we accept this reading, it still does not explain the connection between the victory and forgiveness.
Another view is that forgiveness for what is past of your dhanb (“sin”) and what is to come means the sins he commits. What is to come constitutes a promise to forgive whatever future sins he commits, or else one could object that forgiveness for something that has not happened yet is meaningless.
However, in addition to what we have already said concerning the previous view, the problem here is that promising to forgive his future sins before they happen entails the lifting of all moral duties from him. And this is rebutted by God’s explicit statements in many verses. For example: Indeed We have sent down the Book to you with the truth; so worship God, putting exclusive faith in Him. () and …and I have been commanded to be the first of those who submit (). And there are many other verses like these whose context means that they cannot be restricted to one situation only.
Bear in mind that the category “sins” includes such things as idolatry (shirk), ascribing falsehoods to God, deriding God’s signs, causing corruption in the earth, and violating what God has sanctified. Now, if we say that God has forgiven all of his future sins, this includes these sins. It makes no sense for God to send a servant to establish His religion firmly and reform the world and then, once He has assisted him, granted him victory and made him triumphant, permit him to violate His commands, destroy what He has built, and corrupt what He has reformed by forgiving every sin he will commit and absolving him for whatever lies he might speak about God, when his purpose is to convey God’s message and God has said: Had he faked any sayings in Our name, We would have surely seized him by the right hand and then cut off his aorta… ().
Another opinion is the claim by some that forging what is past of your dhanb (“sin”) means forgiving the sins of his forefathers, Adam and Eve, because of his blessings, and what is to come means forgiving the sins of his community because of his supplication. However, the same criticisms apply here also.
Another opinion still is that the verse has an implicit meaning, in spite of the context suggesting otherwise, namely: “So that God may forgive your sins, past and present, if you had any sins.” However, this reading goes against the apparent meaning of the text without any evidence.
Yet another opinion is that this statement is uttered in magnification while observing a pleasant form of address, meaning: “God forgives you” as when God says: May God excuse you! Why did you grant them leave…? () However, when using this kind of address, it is normally phrased in the form of a supplication, as we see in the example given.
Another opinion is that when the word dhanb (“sin”) is applied to the Prophet, it not doing what is most appropriate (tark al-awlā) or contravening pragmatic directives (awāmir irshādyyah) rather than disobeying one’s master. And based on their different degrees of proximity to the divine, the Prophets are held to account for not doing what is most appropriate in the same way that others are held to account for everyday sins. It is famously said: “The good deeds of the righteous are the sins of those brought near” (ḥasanāt al-abrār sayyiʾāt al-muqarrabīn).
Still another opinion which a number of our colleagues have preferred is that forgiving what is past of your dhanb (“sin”) and what is to come means forgiving the sins of his community, both past and future, through his intercession (shafāʿah). And the reason why the sin is ascribed to him is because of his connection to his community which is the cause of this forgiveness.
Both this interpretation and the one before it are safe from the general objections we have raised above, but they still do not address the lack of an obvious connection between victory and forgiveness.
The opinion of Sharīf al-Murtaḍā is that the Arabic word dhanb is a verbal noun (maṣdar) and a verbal noun can be attributed to either the subject (fāʿil) or object (mafʿūl) of the action. In this case it has been attributed to the object of its action and it means “what is past of their sin towards you by expelling you from Mecca and barring you from the Holy Sanctuary” in which case forgiveness means to expunge and abrogate the rules of his enemies amongst the idolaters. In other words, “God will expunge that from you and blot out its disgrace with the victory He will grant you [victory] over Mecca when you enter it in future.”
From one angle this reading is close to what we have presented above, and it would not be problematic save for the fact it goes against the apparent meaning of the verse slightly.
In the words that God may forgive you which follow the words Indeed We have inaugurated for you a clear victory, there is a transition from speech in the first-person plural to the third-person. Perhaps the reason for this is that the over-arching theme of this sūrah is God enumerating the blessings which He has bestowed upon His prophet and the faithful by granting them victory, sending down tranquillity and giving them His assistance, as well as everything else He promises them here. In this case, it is most appropriate for the tone of the sūrah to be in the third-person. This is so God is mentioned by name and His assistance is ascribed directly to Him and contrasts the fact that the Prophet and the faithful worship Him alone while the idolaters do not worship Him but worship their false deities instead, seeking their assistance. But their deities will not assist them.
As for speaking in the first-person plural in the first verse, this alludes to God’s majesty. This is appropriate to the mention of victory in that verse. The same is true of the words Indeed We have sent you as a witness… ().
…and that He may perfect His blessing upon you…: It is said: Meaning to perfect it for you in this world by giving you supremacy over your enemies, elevating your cause and establishing your religion, and in the Hereafter by raising your level. And it is said: Meaning to perfect it for you by giving you victories over Khaybar, Mecca, and Ṭāʾif.
…and guide you on a straight path…: It is said: To steady you upon the path which takes the one who walks upon it to paradise. And it is said: Meaning He will guide you to the upright path in promulgating the divine laws and applying God’s limits.
…and God will help you with a mighty help: It is said: A mighty help means one which will drive back every obstinate tyrant and disobedient rebel. God did this for His Prophet by making his religion the mightiest religion, and his authority the greatest authority. And it is said: A mighty help means a kind of help which is extremely rare, and God provided this to His Prophet, as is obvious when you compare his condition at the outset of his mission to his condition in its final days.
When we ponder on the tone of these two verses in light of the meaning we discussed for the words Indeed We have inaugurated for you a clear victory, that God may forgive you what is past of your sin and what is to come…, it would seem to suggest that when God says and that He may perfect His blessing upon you He means He will prepare the ground to perfect the word of truth and purify the environment in order to grant him a mighty help. This is after removing the impediments to this by effacing the negative consequences of the Prophet’s mission before and after the Hijrah.
…and guide you on a straight path means that once He has purified the environment for his Prophet, He will guide him to a course of action that will achieve his goals. This refers to the path the Prophet followed after his return from Ḥudaybiyyah, when he conquered Khaybar and the authority of Islam spread throughout the different regions of the Arabian Peninsula, culminating in the conquest of Mecca and Ṭāʾif.
…and God will help you with a mighty help means He will grant him the kind of manifest assistance, the like of which is rarely or never witnessed. This promise was realized when He gave him victory over Mecca and Ṭāʾif and Islam spread across the lands of the Arabian Peninsula; idolatry was uprooted, the Jews were subdued and the Christians of the Peninsula submitted to him, as did the Zoroastrians who inhabited it. God completed people’s religion for them, perfected His blessing upon them and chose for them Islam as their religion.
هُوَ الَّذِي أَنْزَلَ السَّكِينَةَ فِي قُلُوبِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ لِيَزْدَادُوا إِيمَانًا مَعَ إِيمَانِهِمْ ۗ وَلِلَّهِ جُنُودُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ ۚ وَكَانَ اللَّهُ عَلِيمًا حَكِيمًا ٤
(48:4) It is He who sent down composure into the hearts of the faithful that they might enhance their faith. To God belong the hosts of the heavens and the earth and God is almighty, all-wise.
The apparent meaning of composure (sakīnah) is a calm steady tranquillity of the soul towards that in which it has believed. Hence why God explains the reason for sending it down as that they might enhance their faith. We have already discussed the concept of composure in our commentary on the verse the Ark will come to you, bearing tranquillity from your Lord () in the second part of this work. There, we said this refers to the spirit of faith which God mentions in the verse and strengthened them with a spirit from Him ().
It is said: Composure is mercy (raḥmah). And: It is intellect (ʿaql). And also: Gravity and virtuousness for God and His Messenger. And: Inclining to that which the Prophet has brought. And furthermore: An angel that dwells within the believer’s heart. And it is said: Something with a head like that of a cat. But none of these opinions we have mentioned have the slightest evidence for these claims.
When God says He sends down composure into the hearts of the faithful, this means He creates it in their hearts while it had not been there previously. The Qur’an often uses “sending down” (inzāl) to express the idea of creation or origination, such as when God says and He has sent down for you eight mates of the cattle (), and when He says and We sent down iron (); and There is not a thing but that its sources are with Us, and We do not send it down except in a known measure. (). And the Qur’an only describes the act of creation and origination as a “sending down” to allude to the loftiness of its source.
It is said: The meaning of “sending down” is “to make still” (iskān) and “to settle” (iqrār) based on their saying: “He set down in such a place” meaning that he set down his mount there and dismounted. However this sense of the word is not found in God’s speech despite the frequency with which He uses it. Perhaps the reason why some choose this meaning is because the word is made transitive in the present verse by the preposition into (fī)—sent down composure into the hearts of the faithful—but the central concern we observe in this discourse is that the composure becomes connected to their hearts in which a way that it abides in them, just as we observe that its connection is one of descending upon them from high above in the verses so He sent down composure on them () and God sent down His composure upon His Messenger and upon the faithful ().
Enhancing faith means strengthening it; faith (īmān) in something means having knowledge (ʿilm) of it and adhering (iltizām) to the practical implications of this. Obviously both knowledge and adherence can become stronger or weaker by themselves, so faith—which is knowledge accompanied by adherence—can also become stronger or weaker.
So this verse means that it is God who put steadfastness and tranquillity, which is the corollary of one of the levels of the spirit, in hearts of the faithful, in order to strengthen the faith that they had before He sent down this composure. Thus the faith becomes more complete than it was before.
Discourse
The discussion “A Discussion on Faith and its Enhancement” appears here in the printed volume. Read it in the Al-Mizan App.
Commentary continues:
To God belong the hosts of the heavens and the earth: A host (jund) refers to a heavy mass of people united in working towards a common purpose. This is why it is used to describe soldiers amassed by order of their commander. The context indicates that the hosts of the heavens and the earth refers to the immediate causes (asbāb) that exist in the world, of both the visible creation and the invisible creation. These are the intermediaries interposed between God and between the object of the Divine Will; they always obey Him and never disobey Him.
Bringing this sentence (To God belong…) after It is He who sent down composure… shows that all the causes and means that exist are in His hands; He can make whatever He wishes reach whatever He wishes, and there is nothing that can resist Him when He does. Here, this power is attributed to enhancing the faith of the faithful by sending down composure upon their hearts.
…and God is almighty, all-wise: This means that God is supremely powerful, such that nothing can overcome Him, and adept at what He does; He does nothing save what His wisdom decrees. This sentence expounds the rationale for the sentence before it (To God belong the hosts…), and the sentence before it expounds the rationale for It is He who sent down composure…. It is as if to say: He sent down composure for this reason, and this is because He possesses all the hosts and means, which is because He is absolutely powerful and absolutely wise.
لِيُدْخِلَ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ وَالْمُؤْمِنَاتِ جَنَّاتٍ تَجْرِي مِنْ تَحْتِهَا الْأَنْهَارُ خَالِدِينَ فِيهَا وَيُكَفِّرَ عَنْهُمْ سَيِّئَاتِهِمْ ۚ وَكَانَ ذَٰلِكَ عِنْدَ اللَّهِ فَوْزًا عَظِيمًا ٥
(48:5) That He may admit (li yudkhila) the faithful, men and women, into gardens with streams running in them, to remain therein, and that He may absolve them of their misdeeds. That is a great success with God.
This verse expounds yet another rationale for the one before it (It is He who sent down composure…) in meaning, just as His words …that they might enhance their faith… expounded it with regards to words. As if to say: “The faithful have been singled out for receiving composure to the exclusion of all others. This is to enhance their faith, the reality of which is that these persons will enter paradise while those others will be punished.” With this in mind, the phrase That He may admit… is in permutation or an explanatory conjunction with the above phrase, …that they might enhance their faith.
Concerning the object of the lām in that He may admit… (li yudkhila) there are other opinions. For instance, one reading says it is Indeed We have inaugurated… (), another says it is that they might enhance… (), while another still says that it is everything that has come so far. And there are other readings too which we have not seen fit to mention.
Mentioning the faithful men and women together in the verse is the dispel the notion that paradise and the absolution of misdeeds are only for the menfolk because the verse occurs in the context of jihād, and jihād and victory usually are accomplished by the hands of men. Hence women are specifically mentioned here to dispel this notion, as was said.
Then to remain therein and that He may absolve them of their misdeeds refers to both the faithful men and women.
That is a great success with God—meaning that this is true happiness in which there is no doubt because it is with God and God speaks the truth.
وَيُعَذِّبَ الْمُنَافِقِينَ وَالْمُنَافِقَاتِ وَالْمُشْرِكِينَ وَالْمُشْرِكَاتِ الظَّانِّينَ بِاللَّهِ ظَنَّ السَّوْءِ ۚ عَلَيْهِمْ دَائِرَةُ السَّوْءِ ۖ وَغَضِبَ اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِمْ وَلَعَنَهُمْ وَأَعَدَّ لَهُمْ جَهَنَّمَ ۖ وَسَاءَتْ مَصِيرًا ٦
(48:6) And punish the hypocrites, men and women, and the polytheists, men and women, who entertain a bad opinion of God. For them shall be an adverse turn of fortune: God is wrathful with them and He has cursed them, and prepared for them hell, and it is an evil destination.
This is connected to the beginning of the previous verse, That He may admit… and the reason why God mentions the hypocrites before the polytheists is because the former are more harmful to the Muslims than the latter and their punishment is more severe, as God says: Indeed the hypocrites will be in the lowest reach of the Fire ().
…who entertain a bad opinion of God: They hold a bad opinion of God because they believe that He will not assist His Messenger. It is said: a bad opinion of God includes that and all other negative opinions about God, such as idolatry and disbelief.
For them shall be an adverse turn of fortune…: This is either an invocation against them or an edict against them, meaning they will suffer an adverse turn of fortune which will afflict whoever it afflicts with death and destruction.
God is wrathful with them and He has cursed them…: This is connected to His saying For them shall be an adverse turn…—and it is an evil destination expounds the evilness of their destination in contrast to That is a great success with God, which expounds the pleasant destination for the people of faith.
وَلِلَّهِ جُنُودُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ ۚ وَكَانَ اللَّهُ عَزِيزًا حَكِيمًا ٧
(48:7) To God belong the hosts of the heavens and the earth, and God is all-mighty, all-wise.
This has the same meaning as we discussed above, and it appears to explain the rationale of both the verses it follows—From That He may admit the faithful, men and women… to …and prepared for them hell…—in the same way as we explained above for the verse “It is He who sent down composure into the hearts of the faithful….”
It is also said: The meaning of this verse is to threaten them by reminding them that they are within the grasp of His power and He will exact retribution upon them. However, the first explanation is closer to the apparent meaning of the text.
Examining Narrations
- In Tafsīr al-Qummī, concerning the verse Indeed We have inaugurated for you a clear victory, it is narrated from Ibn Abī ʿUmayr, from Ibn Sinān, from Abū ʿAbd Allāh [Imām al-Ṣādiq]:
The occasion for this verse’s revelation and this great victory was that God had commanded His Messenger in a dream to enter the Holy Sanctuary, perform circumambulation, and shave with those who shave. So he told His Companions and bid them to set off, so they set off.
And when they reached Dhū al-Ḥulayfah, they put on the iḥrām for ʿUmrah and drove forth the sacrificial camels—and God’s Messenger drove forth sixty-six camels—and they put on their iḥrām and began chanting labbayk for ʿUmrah. And those of them who drove forth sacrificial animals drove forth camels with and without covers.
When word of this reached the Quraysh, they dispatched Khālid b. al-Walīd with two hundred horsemen to ambush God’s Messenger. He encountered him in the mountains. At one point, the time came for ẓuhr prayers. Bilāl recited the adhān and God’s Messenger prayed with the people. Khālid said: “If we attack them while they are praying, we will have them because they will not break their prayers. Another prayer will be coming soon that is dearer to them than the lights of their eyes. When they begin their prayers, we will launch our attack!” It was then that Gabriel came down to God’s Messenger with the prayer of fear in the verse When you are among them, leading them in prayers… ().
Then, when it was the second day, God’s Messenger set down at Ḥudaybiyyah, and he had been summoning the Bedouins he met on his route to come with them, but none had followed him. They had said: “Do Muḥammad and his companions hope to enter the Sanctuary while the Quraysh will surely attack them in the streets and slaughter them? Surely Muḥammad and his companions will never return to Medina!”
- In Majmaʿ al-Bayān, Ibn ʿAbbās says:
God’s Messenger set off towards Mecca. When he reached Ḥudaybiyyah, his camel stopped. He struck it but it would not move forward; then it knelt down. His companions said: “What an obstinate camel!” He said: “This is not her habit. She has been restrained by He who restrained the Elephant (ḥabasahā ḥābis al-fīl)!”
The Prophet called ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb to send him to Mecca, to ask them to let him enter Mecca, remove his iḥrām and slaughter his sacrificial animal. He said: “O Messenger of God! I have no friends there and I fear that the Quraysh will kill me because of my great hostility towards them. But I will tell you who is nobler than me: ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān!”
He said: “Spoken truly.”
So God’s Messenger called ʿUthmān and sent him to Abū Sufyān and the leaders of the Quraysh to inform them that he had not come to make war but rather had come to visit the Kaʿbah and pay his respects to its sanctity. But the Quraysh detained ʿUthmān there, and word reached God’s Messenger that ʿUthmān had been killed, so he said: “We will not leave until we fight them.” So he called the people to pledge allegiance; the Prophet stood under a tree and rested against it, and the people pledged allegiance to fight the idolaters and not to flee. ʿAbd Allāh b. Mughfil said: “I stood above the head of God’s Messenger on that day and held a branch of the umbrella thorn tree above his head while he received the pledge of allegiance from people. He did not have them pledge to die, only to not run away.”
Al-Zuhrī, ʿUrwah b. al-Zubayr, and Miswar b. Makhramah say:
God’s Messenger set out from Medina with a little over a thousand over his companions until they reached Dhū al-Ḥulayfah. There, God’s Messenger adorned and marked the sacrificial animals and put on his iḥrām for ʿUmrah. Ahead of him, he sent a scout from the Khuzāʿah to inform him of the movements of the Quraysh.
God’s Messenger travelled until they reached Ghadīr al-Ashṭāṭ close to ʿAsfān. There, the scout from the Khuzāʿah tribe told him: “I left Kaʿb b. Luʾayy and ʿĀmir b. Luʾayy, and they had amassed a large contingent of Ethiopians against you. They will fight you and bar you from the Sanctuary.” He responded: “Keep going.” So they continued until they reached a fork in the road when the Prophet said: “Khālid b. al-Walīd is in Ghamīm with a vanguard of cavalry from the Quraysh. So take the right-hand route.”
Then they continued until they reached Thunayyah. There, the Prophet’s camel knelt and he said: “Qaswāʾ is not being stubborn; rather, she has been restrained by He who restrained the Elephant (ḥabasahā ḥābis al-fīl)!” Then he said: “No, by God! They do not ask me the way in which they might magnify the things God has sanctified except that I give it to them!” Then he struck her and she got up with him.
Then he turned aside until they reached the farthest part of Ḥudaybiyyah at a basin with little water that people would only sip from.
While they were in this condition, Badīl b. Warqāʾ al-Khuzāʿī came to them—in a band of the Khuzāʿah—and they were faithful friends from the people of Tihāmah who advised God’s Messenger. He said: “I left Kaʿb b. Luʾayy and ʿĀmir b. Luʾayy—and they have foals and dams with them—and they will fight you and block your way to the Sanctuary.”
God’s Messenger said: “We have not come to fight anyone. We have come to perform ʿUmrah. War has exhausted the Quraysh and harmed them. If they wish, I will give them respite and they will not prevent me from preaching to the people. Then, if they wish to enter what the people have entered, they can, or else they have at least rested. But if they refuse, then by God I will fight them for this cause of mine, until I am killed or until God sees through His affair!”
Badīl told him: “I will convey your words to them.”
So they went until they came to the Quraysh and said: “We have come to you from this person, and he says such-and-such.”
ʿUrwah b. Masʿūd al-Thaqafī stood up and said: “He has offered you a sensible proposal. You should accept it! Let me go to him.”
They said: “Go to him.”
He went to the Prophet and spoke to him, and God’s Messenger told him the likes of what he told to Badīl. Then ʿUrwah said: “O Muḥammad, do you want to wipe out your own people? Have you ever heard of an Arab striking at his root before you? And if not, by God I see nobles, and I see mongrels worthy of fleeing and leaving you.”
Abū Bakr said to him: “Suck on the clitoris of Lāt! Shall we flee from him and leave him?”
He asked: “Who is that?”
They said: “Abū Bakr.”
He said: “By He in whose hand is my soul, were it not for the fact that you did me a favor which I have not repaid, I would have answered you.”
He began speaking to the Prophet, and whenever he addressed him, he seized his beard, while Mughīrah b. Shuʿbah stood above the head of the Prophet holding a sword and wearing a mail coif. Every time ʿUrwah reached to grab the beard of the Prophet, Mughīrah hit his hand with the lower-end of his scabbard and said: “Take your hand away from the beard of God’s Messenger or else you won’t be getting it back!”
He asked: “Who is that?”
Mughīrah replied, “Mughīrah bin Shuʿbah!”
ʿUrwah said: “O treason! Am I not trying to rectify your treachery?”
[He said this because] Mughīrah b. Shuʿbah had travelled with a group of people in the days before Islam, before killing them, taking their money and becoming a Muslim. When this happened, the Prophet had said: “As for your submission, we accept it. As for the money, it is the money of treachery and we have no need of it.”
Then ʿUrwah began to observe the companions of the Prophet, how they would hasten to do whatever the Prophet bid them; whenever he performed ablutions they would fight one another to bring him water; when they spoke to him they would lower their voices and they would not meet his gaze out of reverence for him.
So ʿUrwah went back to his comrades and said: “O people! By God I have met kings—Caesar, Khusraw and the Negus—but by God I have never seen a king revered by his comrades as Muḥammad’s companions revere him! If he bids them do something, they hasten to it. If he performs ablutions, they fight one another for the water he used. When they speak to him, they lower their voices and they do not look sharply at him out of respect. He has offered you a sensible proposal, so accept it!”
A man from the Kinānah tribe said: “Let me go to him!” And they said: “Go to him!”
So when he came into view, God’s Messenger said: “This is so-and-so, and he is from a people who respect the sacrificial animals. So send them!” So they sent them and met him with a group of people chanting the slogans of pilgrimage. When he saw that, he said: “Glory to God! These people should not be barred from the Sanctuary!”
Then a man called Mukarriz b. Ḥafṣ stood up and said: “Let me go to him!” And they said: “Go to him!”
When he came into view, the Prophet said: “This is Mukarriz, and he is a profligate man.”
So while he was speaking to the Prophet, Suhayl b. ʿAmr came and the Prophet said: “Your affair has become easy for you!” So he said: “Write a treaty between us and you.”
God’s Messenger called for ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib and told him: “Write In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful….”
Suhayl interjected: “Who is this Compassionate One (al-Raḥmān)? I do not know him! Write ‘In your name, O God!’”
The Muslims said: “By God we will not write anything besides In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful.”
The Prophet said: “Write In your name, O God. This is what Muḥammad the Messenger of God decrees….”
Suhayl interrupted: “By God, if we thought you were God’s Messenger, we would not have prevented you from entering the Sanctuary, nor would we have fought you. Instead, write: ‘Muḥammad son of ʿAbd Allāh.’”
The Prophet said: “I am the Messenger of God, even if you don’t believe me.” He turned to ʿAlī and said: “Erase ‘the Messenger of God.’”
ʿAlī said: “O Messenger of God! My hand will not move to erase prophecy from your name.”
So the Messenger of God took it and erased it, then said: “Write what Muḥammad son of ʿAbd Allāh decrees with Suhayl b. ʿAmr…. They have agreed to suspend hostilities for ten years, in which people will be safe and will not fight one another, and that any of Muḥammad’s followers who perform the Ḥajj or ʿUmrah pilgrimages to Mecca to seek God’s grace will be safe in their persons and properties, and whoever of the Quraysh come to Medina on their way to Egypt or Syria will be safe in their persons and properties also. This marks a fresh start between us, with no treachery or theft. Also, whoever wishes to enter the confederacy and alliance of Muḥammad may do so, and whoever wishes to enter the confederacy and alliance of the Quraysh may do so.”
So the Khuzāʿah tribe jumped up and said: “We are in the confederacy of Muḥammad!”
Then the Banu Bakr jumped up and said: “We are in the confederacy of the Quraysh!”
Then God’s Messenger: “And also that you will allow us to perform our rites at the Sanctuary.”
Suhayl replied: “By God, lest the Arabs say we were coerced that shall be next year.” So it was written. Suhayl continued: “On condition that no man of ours comes to you, even if he follows your religion, save that you return him to us. And whoever of yours comes to us, we do not have to return him to you.”
So the Muslims said: “Glory to God! How shall we give the idolaters someone who has come to us as a Muslim?”
God’s Messenger said: “Whoever from us goes to them, God has made him distant. But whoever of them comes to us, we shall return him to them. And if God sees Islam in his heart, He will make a way out for him.”
Suhayl said: “On condition that you depart from us this year, so you will not enter Mecca while we are there. Next year, we will vacate Mecca for you so that you may enter it with your companions and remain there three days. You may not enter it with weapons save for your swords in their scabbards and your mounts. And also that these sacrificial animals will remain where we have detained them, you will not send them forth to us.” Then he said: “We will drive forth and you will return back.”
While this was happening, Abū Jandal, the son of Suhayl b. ʿAmr, came shuffling in his shackles, having escaped from the rear of Mecca, and threw himself amongst the Muslims. Suhayl said: “This, O Muḥamad, is the first thing required of you under our treaty—that you return him!”
The Prophet said: “We have not sealed the treaty yet.”
He said: “By God, then I will never make a deal with you!”
The Prophet said: “Then allow me to look after him.”
Suhayl said: “I will not put him in your care.”
“Of course you can.”
“I will not.”
Mukarriz said: “No, he is under our care already!”
Abū Jandal b. Suhayl said: “O Muslims, shall I go back to the idolaters when I have come as a Muslim? Do you not see what has happened to me?”
And they had punished him most severely.
ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb said:
By God I have not doubted since I become a Muslim except on that day. For I went to the Prophet and said: “Are you not God’s Prophet?”
He said: “Of course.”
“Are we not upon truth and our enemies upon falsehood?”
“Of course.”
“Then why are we dishonoring our religion?”
“I am the Messenger of God, I will not disobey Him while He is my helper!”
“But didn’t you tell us that we will come to the Sanctuary and circumambulate it?”
“Yes. But did I tell you it would be this year?”
“No.”
“So you will come and circumambulate it.”
Then God’s Messenger slaughtered his sacrificial animal and called for his razor to shave his head. Then there came some believing women, and God sent down the verse O you who have faith! When faithful women come to you as immigrants, test them ().
Muḥammad b. Isḥāq b. Yassār says: Buraydah b. Sufyān narrated to me from Muḥammad b. Kaʿb:
The scribe of God’s Messenger during this treaty was ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib. God’s Messenger told him: “Write: ‘This is what Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allah agreed upon with Suhayl b. ʿUrwah…’” but he hesitated and refused to write anything except “Muḥammad, the Messenger of God.” So God’s Messenger told him: “You will be in the same situation one day and you will be forced to accede.” So he wrote what they said.
Then God’s Messenger returned to Medina and a man from the Quraysh called Abū Baṣīr came, and he was a Muslim. But the Quraysh sent two men in pursuit of him and they said: “You signed the treaty with us!” So he gave him to the two of them and they went with him until they reached Dhū al-Ḥulayfah, where they sat and ate some dates they had. Abū Baṣīr told one of the men: “That’s a very good sword you have there, bring it out!”
The man replied: “Yes, it’s very good. I’ve used it time and again.”
Abū Baṣīr said: “Let me see!”
Abū Baṣīr snatched the sword from him and struck him with it until he was dead. The other mad fled until he reached Medina and entered the Mosque racing. When God’s Messenger saw him, he said: “This one has seen a fright!”
When he reached the Prophet, the man said: “By God, he killed my companion, and I am a dead man!”
Then Abū Baṣīr came and said: “O Messenger of God! God discharged your duty and you returned me to them. Then God saved me from them!”
The Prophet said: “Woe to his mother. He would have started a war if he had anyone with him.”
When Abū Baṣir heard this, he realized that he would still return him to them. So he fled until he reached the shores of the sea.
Abū Jandal b. Suhayl also escaped them and joined up with Abū Baṣīr. No man who had embraced Islam fled from the Quraysh save that he joined Abū Baṣīr, until a band of men had formed around him…. By God, they did not hear of a single camel of the Quraysh setting off for Syria save that they ambushed it and plundered its wealth! So the Quraysh sent word to the Prophet, adjuring him for the sake of God and their kinship to him to send word to these men that any of them who came to him would be granted safety. Whereat the Prophet sent word to Abū Baṣīr and his band and they came to him.
- In his Tafsīr, al-Qummī narrates a lengthy tradition whose beginning we quoted at the beginning of the discussion:
After the treaty had been written, God’s Messenger told his companions: “Sacrifice your offerings and shave your heads.” But they refused and said: “How shall we sacrifice and shave while we have not circumambulated the House or run between Safa and Marwa?” The Prophet became distressed and complained about this to Umm Salamah, who told him: “O Messenger of God, you sacrifice and shave yourself!” So God’s Messenger sacrificed his animal and shaved his head, and the people sacrificed—some with certainty, some with hesitation and others with doubt.
Author’s comments: And this is narrated in other narrations from both Shiʿi and Sunni sources. This is what Ṭabrisī narrates, summarized to an extent, from what Bukhārī, Abū Dāwūd, and Nasāʾī narrate from Marwān and Miswar.
- In al-Durr al-Manthūr, Bayhaqī relates from ʿUrwah:
God’s Messenger was returning to Medina from Ḥudaybiyyah when one of his companions said: “By God this is not a victory. We were barred from the House and our offerings were barred too. God’s Messenger was detained at Ḥudaybiyyah and he sent back two Muslims who had come out [to join us]!”
Word of this reached God’s Messenger and he replied: “A wicked statement. This is the greatest victory! The idolaters had settled on expelling you from their land by force, demanding the issue from you and desiring you to go back, and they detested you, but God gave you victory over them and brought you back safe and successful, assured of [divine] reward. This is the greatest victory!
“Have you forgotten the Day of Uḥud when you ran for the hills oblivious to anyone else while I was calling you from behind? Are you forgetting the Day of the Confederates when they came from above and below, and how your eyes rolled back in your heads and your hearts leapt into your throats? And you hold such negative thoughts about God?”
The Muslims said: “God and His Messenger have spoken the truth. This is the greatest victory! By God, O Prophet of God, we did not think of this as you did. You are indeed more knowledgeable about God and these matters than we are!” So God sent down Sūrah al-Fatḥ.
Author’s comments: There are many accounts of Ḥudaybiyyah that have been narrated; we have mentioned only a selection of them.
- In his Tafsīr, al-Qummī narrates with a chain of narrators going back to ʿUmar b. Yazīd Bayyāʿ al-Sābirī:
I asked Abū ʿAbd Allāh [Imām al-Ṣādiq] about God’s saying in His Book: that God may forgive you what is past of your sin and what is to come (). He told me: “The Prophet never sinned. He did not even think of sinning. But God burdened him with the sins of his followers (shīʿah), then forgave them.”
- In ʿUyūn, in the sitting (majlis) of al-Riḍā with al-Maʾmūn, Ibn al-Jahm narrates:
I attended the majlis of al-Maʾmūn and al-Riḍā was with him. al-Maʾmūn said to him: “O Son of the Messenger of God, do you not say that the Prophets are infallible?”
He said: “Yes.”
“So tell me what you say about God’s words: that God may forgive you what is past of your sin (dhanb) and what is to come.”
Al-Riḍā said: “No one was more at fault (dhanb) than God’s Messenger in the eyes of the Meccan idolaters. This is because they used to worship three hundred and sixty deities besides God, so when he brought them the call to devote themselves exclusively to God (ikhlāṣ), this was a terrible thing. They said: ‘Will you replace all the gods with just one? This is an incredible thing!’ So they went off saying: ‘Go and hold fast to your gods. This is a thing designed! We have not heard of such a thing among the people of latter days! This is nothing but a fabrication!’ But when God granted His Prophet victory over Mecca, He said: ‘O Muḥammad! Indeed We have inaugurated for you a clear victory that God may forgive what is past of your sin and what is to come in the eyes of the idolaters of Mecca because of your calling [people] to Divine Unity in what is past and what is to come.’ This is because some of the idolaters of Mecca had submitted, while others had departed. Those who remained could not deny Divine Unity when people called them to it, so in this regard his fault was forgiven in their eyes as he had triumphed over them.”
Whereat al-Maʾmūn said: “How wondrous, O Abū al-Ḥasan!”
- In Tafsīr al-ʿAyyāshī, it is narrated from Manṣūr b. Ḥāzim that Abū ʿAbd Allāh [Imām al-Ṣādiq] said:
God’s Messenger did not stop repeating the verse Say, “Indeed, should I disobey my Lord, I fear the punishment of a tremendous day” () until Sūrah al-Fatḥ was revealed. Then he did not return to that speech.
Author’s comments: This meaning has also been narrated in Sunni sources. However, the tradition is not without its issues because it assumes that the meaning of “sin” (dhanb) in the verse is an act of disobeying God that would contravene infallibility.
- And in al-Kāfī, it is narrated from Jamīl:
I asked Abū ʿAbd Allāh [Imām al-Ṣādiq] about God’s saying: It is He who sent down composure into the hearts of the faithful ().
He said: “It is faith (īmān). God says: that they might enhance their faith ().”
Author’s comments: The apparent meaning of the narration is that he took God’s words that they might enhance their faith to be an exposition of composure (sakīnah), and there are other narrations with this meaning too.
- In the same source, with a chain going back to Abū ʿAmr al-Zubayrī:
I asked [Imām al-Ṣādiq]: “O learned one, tell me which deeds are best in the eyes of God?”
He [Imām al-Ṣādiq] said: “Something without which God will not accept anything!”
I said: “What is it?”
He said: “Faith in God whom there is no god besides is the highest of deeds in degree, the most noble in rank and the loftiest in its share [of reward].”
“Would you tell me about faith? Is it words or deeds?”
“Faith in its entirety is deeds (al-īmān ʿamal kulluh), and words are a part of those deeds, as God has enjoined in His Book whose light is clear and whose authority is firm. The Book testifies to this and calls people to it.”
“May I be your ransom! Describe it to me that I might understand it.”
“Faith is conditions, levels and attributes. Some faith is utterly complete, while some is plainly lacking, and there is some which is preponderant [that is, it is more complete than lacking].”
“Can faith really be complete or lacking or increased?”
“Yes!”
“How is that so?”
“Because God enjoined faith upon the limbs of the son of Adam, divided it between them and separated it amongst them. So there is not a single one of his limbs except that it has been entrusted with some faith that is other than the faith that has been entrusted to its companion. Then, whoever meets God safeguarding his limbs and with each limb fulfilling what God hath enjoined upon it, then he will meet God having completed his faith and He will be one of the inhabitants of paradise. But whoever betrays this trust in any of them, or exceeds the bounds set down by God therein, then he will meet God lacking in faith.”
“I understand a person’s faith being complete or lacking, but where does its increase come from?”
“From God’s saying: Whenever a surah is sent down, there are some of them who say, ‘Which of you did it increase in faith?’ As for those who have faith, it increases them in faith, and they rejoice. But as for those in whose heart is a sickness, it only adds defilement to their defilement, and they die while they are faithless. () And His saying: We relate to you their account in truth. They were indeed youths who had faith in their Lord, and We had enhanced them in guidance ().
“If it had all been the same, then there could have been no increase or decrease and no one would have been superior to anyone else; its blessing would be equal for all and all people would be equal, so no one would be superior to anyone else. But it is through the completeness of their faith that the faithful enter paradise, and by the enhancement of faith that the faithful occupy different ranks of superiority in God’s eyes, while it is through lack of faith that the lax enter hellfire.”
This can also be translated as “tranquility”. [Pub.] ↩︎
This is an allusion to the story of Abraha and the army of the Elephant. [Trans.] ↩︎
As will become clear, Imām al-Riḍā is using dhanb here in the sense of “evil consequence” as Ṭabāṭabāʾī has explained in his main commentary on the verse. [Trans.] ↩︎