Surah Al-Fath, Ayah 12

The Fabricated Excuse offered by Those Who lagged behind and did not participate in Al-Hudaybiyyah

Allah informs His Messenger of the excuses that the bedouins who lagged behind would offer him, those bedouins who preferred to remain in their homes and possessions and did not join the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. They offered an excuse for lagging behind, as that of being busy -- in their homes and with their wealth! They asked the Messenger of Allah ﷺ to invoke Allah to forgive them, not because they had faith in the Prophet and his invocation, but to show off and pretend. This is why Allah the Exalted said about them,

يَقُولُونَ بِأَلْسِنَتِهِمْ مَّا لَيْسَ فِى قُلُوبِهِمْ قُلْ فَمَن يَمْلِكُ لَكُمْ مِّنَ اللَّهِ شَيْئاً إِنْ أَرَادَ بِكُمْ ضَرّاً أَوْ أَرَادَ بِكُمْ نَفْعاً

Related Considerations

Reference in this passage is to those Bedouin tribes who were invited by Allah's Messenger ﷺ to join the party of 1400 Muslims who were marching to Hudaibiyah but on one pretext or another, they requested to be excused. This was narrated in part [ 1] of the story of Hudaibiyah. According to some versions, some of those people later repented and became sincere Muslims.

The real work of the Prophet is to be an exponent of the truth (‘shaahid’, as translated by Shah Waliullah). He should clearly show who will be entitled to God’s Grace and who will deserve punishment from God in the eternal life after death. The rising of such a ‘shaahid’ or witness of Truth poses the greatest trial for his addressees. They have to hear God’s voice in the voice of a human being. They have to see a representative of God in the shape of human being. While giving their hand into the hands of a man, they have to think that they are giving their hand into the hands of God. For those who prove to have this superior insight, God has great rewards in store, but to those who fail in this test, God will mete out the most severe punishment.