Tidings from the Ghayb

The Seventh Flash

The second respect: this Qur’anic verse indicates the following: although the Sahābah accepted the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah because of their small number and weakness, within a short time they would swiftly acquire such growth, splendour, and strength that, by the hand of Divine power, in the field of the earth, they would multiply in a most elevated, powerful, fruitful, and abundant form, in contrast to the short, weak, deficient, and fruitless ears of grain produced by mankind at that time through heedlessness. And they would cause the mighty states to burn with rage arising from envy, jealousy, and rivalry toward them. Indeed, the future displayed this Qur’anic foretelling from the ghayb in a most brilliant manner.

This foretelling also contains a subtle indication: although the Sahābah are praised with important qualities, and although the context would require the promise of the greatest reward, the word:

مَغْفِرَةً

is used. This indicates that, in the future, serious faults would occur among the Sahābah through fitnahs. For forgiveness points to the occurrence of fault. At that time, in the eyes of the Sahābah, the most important thing sought and the highest favour would be forgiveness. And the greatest reward would be that, through pardon, they would not be punished.

Just as the word:

مَغْفِرَةً

shows this subtle indication, it is also connected with the phrase at the beginning of the surah:

لِيَغْفِرَ لَكَ اللّٰهُ مَا تَقَدَّمَ مِنْ ذَنْبِكَ وَمَا تَأَخَّرَ

For just as the beginning of the surah gives the Prophet (saw) the glad tidings of forgiveness—not forgiveness from actual sins, for there is ismah and thus no sin, but in a meaning befitting the station of prophethood—so too its end gives the Sahābah the glad tidings of forgiveness. This adds another subtle grace to the indication.

Thus, of the many aspects of miraculousness in the three aforementioned verses at the end of Surah al-Fath, we have discussed only seven aspects from among the many aspects of its giving news of the ghayb. At the end of The Twenty-Sixth Word, concerning human willpower and qadar, an important flash of miraculousness is indicated in the arrangement of the letters of this final verse.

This final verse looks to the Sahābah through its sentences, just as it looks again to the states of the Sahābah through its qualifying details. And just as its words express the qualities of the Sahābah, so too its letters, and the repetition of the number of those letters within the verse, point to the persons found among the famous ranks of the Sahābah, such as the people of Badr, Uhud, Hunayn, Suffah, and Ridwān. Moreover, through tawāfuq and abjad calculation, which serve as a kind of key to the science of jifr, it expresses many further mysteries.

سُبْحَانَكَ لَا عِلْمَ لَنَٓا اِلَّا مَا عَلَّمْتَنَٓا اِنَّكَ اَنْتَ الْعَلٖيمُ الْحَكٖيمُ