Surah Al-Fath, Ayah 9

Qualities of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ

Allah the Exalted says to His Prophet, Muhammad ﷺ,

إِنَّآ أَرْسَلْنَـكَ شَاهِداً

(Verily, We have sent you as a witness,) of the creation,

وَمُبَشِّراً

(as a bearer of glad tidings,) to the believers,

وَنَذِيرًا

(and as a warner.) to the disbelievers. We explained these meanings in the Tafsir of Surat Al-Ahzab. Allah said,

لِّتُؤْمِنُواْ بِاللَّهِ وَرَسُولِهِ وَتُعَزِّرُوهُ

(In order that you may believe in Allah and His Messenger, and that you Tu`azziruh) or you honor him, according to `Abdullah bin `Abbas and several others,

وَتُوَقِّرُوهُ

(and Tuwaqqiruh), where Tawqir means, respect, honor and high regard,

Injunctions and Related Considerations

In the preceding verses, Allah referred to the favours he bestowed generously upon the Holy Prophet ﷺ and his Ummah, especially upon those who participated in the pledge of Ridwan. The Bestower of the favours is Allah and the medium is the Holy Prophet ﷺ . Therefore, in the current set of verses, the right of the Holy Prophet ﷺ and the obligation of the Ummah to honour and revere him is entrenched. First, three attributes of the Holy Prophet ﷺ are referred to: shahid, mubashshir, nadhir. Shahid means 'witness' and its sense here is the same as that of shahid which occurs in [ 4:41].

Here tranquillity (sakinah) means not becoming irritated despite provocation. At Hudaybiyyah the opponents of Islam tried to goad Muslims in different ways into taking such action as would provide them with sufficient justification for aggression. But the Muslims for their part tolerated every attempt at provocation. Right to the end, they were firm on the policy of overlooking and ignoring such attempts. Had God desired it, He could have subdued the forces of falsehood by means of His direct power and granted dominance to the Truth. Then, why is it that God created Hudaybiyyah Treaty-like conditions and made the Faithful undertake this journey? The purpose was to enhance the Faith by testing the Faithful. If a man curbs his urge to take revenge and enters into a treaty with an arrogant people simply because that is required by the task of disseminating the Truth, he does so by a conscientious decision. In so doing he makes his mind rule his heart. In this way, he increases his Faith-consciousness. He makes himself the recipient of such divine emotions as cannot be achieved in any other way. The advantage of this is that the people of Paradise and the people of Hell are separated in the process.