The Daily Revelation

The terms of the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah were, by any conventional military or political reading, a humiliation. The Muslims would not enter Mecca that year. They would turn around and go home. Any Meccan who converted to Islam and fled to Medina would be returned to Mecca. Any Muslim who defected to Mecca would not be returned. The truce would last ten years, during which both sides would refrain from hostilities. When the Prophet dictated the treaty, he agreed to remove the words 'Muhammad, Messenger of God' from the document at the Quraysh's insistence, signing simply as 'Muhammad son of Abdullah.' Ali ibn Abi Talib refused to erase the title. The Prophet erased it himself.

The companions were devastated. They had come in pilgrim garments, their hearts set on the Kaaba, their sacrificial animals ready. Turning back felt like defeat. Umar confronted Abu Bakr: "Did he not tell us we would enter the Sacred Mosque?" Abu Bakr's answer was precise: "He did not say this year."

And then, on the road home, the revelation came: "We have granted you a conspicuous victory" ^48:1. Not a partial victory. Not a moral victory. The Arabic word mubeen means clear, obvious, conspicuous — a victory so evident it cannot be denied. The companions were baffled. Where was the victory? They had not prayed at the Kaaba. They had not entered Mecca. They had signed what looked like a one-sided treaty. How was this triumph?

God's answer unfolds across the next twenty-eight verses, and it is a masterclass in strategic patience. The victory was not military. It was political, spiritual, and demographic. The ten-year truce removed the constant threat of Qurayshi aggression, freeing the Muslims to preach, trade, travel, and convert tribes across Arabia without fear of annihilation. In the two years between Hudaybiyyah and the conquest of Mecca, more people entered Islam than in all the previous eighteen years combined. The treaty opened doors that swords never could.

"That God may forgive you your sin, past and to come, and complete His favors upon you, and guide you in a straight path" ^48:2. The victory was not merely for the community. It was for the Prophet personally — a divine guarantee that his mission would succeed, his sins would be forgiven, and God's favour upon him would be made complete. And then: "And help you with an unwavering support" ^48:3. Three verses in, and God has already listed five consequences of this 'defeat': victory, forgiveness, completed favour, guidance, and unwavering support.

The Quraysh thought they had negotiated from strength. They had negotiated themselves into irrelevance. Within two years, they would violate the treaty by attacking a Muslim-allied tribe, giving the Prophet the legal justification to march on Mecca with ten thousand men. He entered the city he had been exiled from — without a battle, without a siege, without bloodshed — and the Quraysh surrendered en masse. The conquest of Mecca was not born at the gates of the city. It was born at the negotiating table of Hudaybiyyah, in a treaty that looked like surrender and was, in God's own words, a conspicuous victory.

There is a moment at Hudaybiyyah that transcends politics and treaty negotiations — a moment of such spiritual intensity that it earned its own name in Islamic history: Bay'at al-Ridwan, the Pledge of God's Pleasure. It is recorded in verse 48:18, and it contains one of the most extraordinary statements God makes about any group of human beings in the entire Quran.

"God was pleased with the believers, when they pledged allegiance to you under the tree. He knew what was in their hearts, and sent down serenity upon them, and rewarded them with an imminent conquest" ^48:18.

Unpack this verse carefully. God was pleased. The Arabic radiya is not casual approval. It is the deepest form of divine satisfaction — the same word used to describe the ultimate reward of paradise: "God is pleased with them and they are pleased with Him" (5:119, 98:8). At Hudaybiyyah, before any victory, before the conquest of Mecca, before the surah was even revealed, God declared His pleasure with a group of specific, living, named human beings standing beneath a specific tree in a specific desert.

And the basis for that pleasure was not their actions. It was their hearts. "He knew what was in their hearts." When the rumour reached them that Uthman had been killed, when the believers gathered beneath that acacia tree and placed their hands in the Prophet's hand one by one, pledging to fight to the death if necessary — God was not watching their hands. He was reading their hearts. And what He found there — the sincerity, the willingness to sacrifice everything, the absolute commitment to their Prophet and their faith — pleased Him.

The theological implications are profound. This verse tells us that God's pleasure is not primarily earned through external acts of worship. It is earned through the internal state of the heart at moments of genuine crisis. These men did not end up fighting at Hudaybiyyah. The pledge was never tested by actual battle. But God counted the willingness as if it were the deed. The intention was the act. The readiness was the sacrifice.

Then comes the divine response: "and sent down serenity upon them." The word is sakinah — a term that appears six times in the Quran, always at moments of extreme danger or distress. It appeared when the Prophet hid in the cave during the emigration (9:40). It appeared at the Battle of Hunayn when the believers were routed (9:26). And here, at Hudaybiyyah, when fourteen hundred unarmed pilgrims faced the possibility of massacre, God sent down sakinah. Not reinforcements. Not weapons. Not a strategic advantage. Tranquility. He calmed their hearts before He resolved their crisis.

This is the Quranic model of divine intervention in its purest form. Before God changes the external circumstances, He changes the internal state. Before He grants victory, He grants peace. The serenity came first. The conquest came second. And this tells us something essential about the Islamic understanding of faith under pressure: the first gift God gives the believer in crisis is not a way out, but a way through — the inner calm to endure whatever comes, whether the resolution arrives in this world or the next.

The verse closes with a promise: "and rewarded them with an imminent conquest." The scholars differ on whether this refers to Hudaybiyyah itself, to the conquest of Khaybar shortly after, or to the conquest of Mecca two years later. But the sequence is unmistakable: sincerity of heart, divine pleasure, serenity, then victory. This is the spiritual formula of Al-Fath. And it begins, always, with what is in the heart.

In the entire Quran, the Prophet Muhammad is mentioned by name only four times. His character, his mission, his struggles — all are present on virtually every page, but the explicit naming is strikingly rare. Surah Al-Fath contains one of these four instances, and it is by far the most detailed. Verse 48:29 is not merely a mention. It is a full-length portrait — the most vivid, most comprehensive description of the Prophet and his community anywhere in revelation.

"Muhammad is the Messenger of God. Those with him are stern against the disbelievers, yet compassionate amongst themselves" ^48:29.

The opening is a declaration of identity — simple, direct, and final. Muhammad is the Messenger of God. Not a poet. Not a madman. Not a political revolutionary. The Messenger of God. This is what the Quraysh refused to write on the treaty document at Hudaybiyyah, forcing the Prophet to sign as 'Muhammad son of Abdullah.' God's response is to inscribe the full title in eternal scripture. The Quraysh could erase it from parchment. They could not erase it from the Quran.

Then comes the dual portrait of the believers: stern against the disbelievers, compassionate amongst themselves. This is not a contradiction. It is a balance. The Arabic ashidda'u (stern, fierce) and ruhama'u (merciful, compassionate) describe the same people in different contexts. The Quran's ideal believer is not universally soft or universally hard. They are both — calibrated to the situation. Firmness where truth is at stake, tenderness where brotherhood requires it.

The verse then shifts from character to worship: "You see them kneeling, prostrating, seeking blessings from God and approval." This is not private devotion described in the abstract. This is visible, observable worship — the kind that marks a community. "Their marks are on their faces from the effects of prostration." The believers do not merely pray. They pray so much, so intensely, so regularly that the physical evidence is written on their foreheads. Their worship has become a form of identification.

And then comes one of the Quran's most extraordinary literary passages — a simile that spans two scriptures and one agricultural metaphor: "Such is their description in the Torah, and their description in the Gospel: like a plant that sprouts, becomes strong, grows thick, and rests on its stem, impressing the farmers" ^48:29.

The believers are compared to a plant. Not a fully grown tree. Not a fortress. A seed that germinates, pushes through the soil, thickens its stem, stands upright, and ultimately impresses even the experienced farmers who watch it grow. This is the Quran's metaphor for the Muslim community itself — and it is placed at the end of a surah about apparent defeat. At Hudaybiyyah, the community was the sprout. Small, vulnerable, still growing. But God could already see the full plant. The stem that would thicken. The growth that would impress the world.

The verse concludes with purpose: "Through them He enrages the disbelievers." The very existence of this community, its worship, its compassion, its steadfastness, its growth — these are not merely spiritual achievements. They are provocations. The believers enrage the enemies of God not by attacking them, but by existing. By praying. By being compassionate to one another. By growing despite every attempt to uproot them. The deepest revenge of the community at Hudaybiyyah was not the eventual conquest of Mecca. It was becoming the plant that could not be stopped.

There is a verse in Surah Al-Fath that receives less attention than the Pledge of the Tree or the portrait of Muhammad, but which may contain the deepest psychological insight in the entire surah. It is verse 48:24: "It is He who withheld their hands from you, and your hands from them, in the valley of Mecca, after giving you advantage over them. God is Observer of what you do."

Read it carefully. God did not only restrain the Quraysh from attacking the Muslims. He restrained the Muslims from attacking the Quraysh. Both armies were held back. Both sets of hands were withheld. And the extraordinary detail is the timing: after giving you advantage over them. The Muslims had the upper hand. They could have fought. They could have won. And God stopped them.

This is the most radical redefinition of victory in the surah. A conspicuous victory is not always the battle won. Sometimes it is the battle prevented. Sometimes the greatest triumph is the fight you had every right to start and chose — or were divinely guided — not to.

The preceding verses explain why. Verse 48:25 reveals that within Mecca there were "faithful men and faithful women, whom you did not know" — secret believers, Muslims living quietly among the Quraysh, whose identities were unknown to the advancing army. Had battle erupted, "you were about to hurt them, and became guilty of an unintentional crime." The restraint was not weakness. It was protection — of believers the army did not even know existed.

This is divine intelligence in the most literal sense. God possessed information the Muslims did not. He could see the secret believers hidden among the enemy. He could calculate the cost of a battle that no human general could fully account for. And His strategic decision — restraint, treaty, withdrawal — was based on a battlefield map that only omniscience could draw.

Then verse 48:26 draws the psychological contrast: "Those who disbelieved filled their hearts with rage — the rage of the days of ignorance. But God sent His serenity down upon His Messenger, and upon the believers, and imposed on them the words of righteousness — of which they were most worthy and deserving."

Two armies. Two psychological states. The Quraysh filled with hamiyyat al-jahiliyyah — the tribal rage of pre-Islamic Arabia, the hot-blooded fury that refuses to negotiate, that would rather die than concede, that treats compromise as shame. And the believers, filled with sakinah — serenity, calm, the ability to walk away from a fight they could have won because God told them to.

The Quran is presenting restraint as a higher form of courage than combat. The Quraysh could not restrain themselves — their rage controlled them. The believers could — because God's serenity controlled them instead. At Hudaybiyyah, the real test was not whether the Muslims were brave enough to fight. It was whether they were disciplined enough not to. And God called the discipline, not the battle, the conspicuous victory.

This has implications far beyond the sixth century. Every person faces moments where they have the advantage, where they could strike, where they would be justified in responding with force — and something tells them to hold back. Al-Fath teaches that the restraint is not passivity. It is not cowardice. It is the highest form of strategic wisdom, available only to those whose hearts God has filled with serenity instead of rage.

The surah that begins by redefining the present ends by confirming the future. In verse 48:27, God addresses the Prophet's dream directly — the very vision that had set this entire journey in motion — and declares it fulfilled before the physical fulfillment has even occurred: "God has fulfilled His Messenger's vision in truth: 'You will enter the Sacred Mosque, God willing, in security, heads shaven, or hair cut short, not fearing. He knew what you did not know, and has granted besides that an imminent victory.'"

The believers are on the road back from Mecca when they hear this verse. They have just turned around. They have just signed the treaty that prevented them from entering the Sacred Mosque. And now God tells them: the dream was true. You will enter. The pilgrimage you were denied today is guaranteed tomorrow. And there will be more than pilgrimage — there will be victory.

This is prophetic time at its most disorienting. For the believers walking back to Medina with unsacrificed animals and unshaven heads, the dream seemed broken. God says: it is already fulfilled. Not 'it will be fulfilled.' Sadaqa — He has fulfilled. Past tense. In divine accounting, the promise made is the promise kept. The delay is irrelevant. The outcome was never in doubt.

And the closing verses expand the scope beyond Hudaybiyyah, beyond Mecca, beyond Arabia entirely: "It is He who sent His Messenger with the guidance and the religion of truth, to make it prevail over all religions. God suffices as Witness" ^48:28. This is not a local prediction. This is a global declaration. The religion of truth will prevail. Not through the treaty of Hudaybiyyah alone, not through the conquest of Mecca alone, but through a process that God has set in motion and that no human obstruction can ultimately stop.

The surah opened with a victory no one could see. It closes with a future no one could imagine. Fourteen hundred pilgrims turned away at the border of their own holy city — and God tells them they will inherit not just Mecca but the entire world. The plant is still a sprout. But God has already seen the harvest.

One year after Hudaybiyyah, the Muslims returned and performed the pilgrimage exactly as the dream had shown — heads shaven, hair cut short, in security, not fearing. Two years after that, they conquered Mecca without bloodshed. The dream came true. The victory came true. And the religion, fourteen centuries later, has 1.8 billion adherents across every continent on earth. God suffices as Witness.

Not everyone marched to Hudaybiyyah. The surah devotes significant attention to those who stayed behind — the Desert-Arabs (al-A'rab) who made excuses and refused to join the pilgrimage — and the contrast between their behaviour and the behaviour of those who went is one of the most psychologically penetrating sections of the chapter.

"The Desert-Arabs who remained behind will say to you, 'Our belongings and our families have preoccupied us, so ask forgiveness for us.' They say with their tongues what is not in their hearts" ^48:11. The diagnosis is surgical. These are not people who had legitimate obligations. They are people whose fear outweighed their faith, and who dressed that fear in the language of family duty. God sees through the excuse instantly: they say with their tongues what is not in their hearts.

The next verse is even more devastating: "But you thought that the Messenger and the believers will never return to their families, and this seemed fine to your hearts; and you harbored evil thoughts, and were uncivilized people" ^48:12. They did not stay behind because they were busy. They stayed behind because they expected the Muslims to be slaughtered. They had already written off the Prophet and his companions. Their absence was not negligence — it was a calculated bet that Islam's march to Mecca would be its last.

When the Muslims returned alive, with a treaty and divine revelation, the deserters immediately tried to reattach themselves. "Those who lagged behind will say when you depart to collect the gains, 'Let us follow you.' They want to change the Word of God" ^48:15. They missed the sacrifice but wanted the spoils. They avoided the risk but demanded the reward. God's response is blunt: you will not follow.

The Quran then offers these same people a second chance — but it comes with a test: "Say to the Desert-Arabs who lagged behind, 'You will be called against a people of great might; you will fight them, unless they submit. If you obey, God will give you a fine reward'" ^48:16. The opportunity for redemption exists, but it is not free. Those who missed Hudaybiyyah will be asked to prove themselves in a future confrontation that will demand real courage, not just words.

And tucked between the warnings, a verse of extraordinary mercy: "There is no blame on the blind, nor any blame on the lame, nor any blame on the sick" ^48:17. Those with genuine physical incapacity are exempt. The Quran distinguishes between those who could not go and those who would not go. The blind man who wanted to march but could not is blameless. The healthy man who could march but chose his camels over his Prophet is condemned. Intention, again, is everything.