al-Fatḥ 48:24

Wa huwa'lladhī kaffa aydiyahum ʿankum wa aydiyakum ʿanhum bi-baṭni Makkata min baʿdi an aẓfarakum ʿalayhim; wa kāna'llāhu bimā taʿmalūna baṣīrā

"It is He who held back their hands from you, and your hands from them, in the heart of Mecca, after He had given you the upper hand over them. God sees what you do."

At the centre of the verse there is an exact symmetry:

`` aydiya-HUM ʿan-KUM — their hands from you aydiya-KUM ʿan-HUM — your hands from them ``

The same verb (kaffa), two objects, pronouns crossing each other. And the same thing is done to both sides.

This is one of the most striking sentences in the sūra, and for this reason: the ceasefire is not recounted as a one-sided favour. One side is not being protected; both sides are being stopped.

I record this as my own reading: the verse could have said "We protected you from them" — indeed in verse 20 it had said just that, in one direction (kaffa aydiya'n-nāsi ʿankum). The construction chosen here runs both ways. And this means that the stopping of the fighting is not presented as the gain of one side only. The stopping of the fighting is an outcome for both.

أَظْفَرَ — root ظ-ف-ر. The concrete sense of the root: the nail. ظُفْر (ẓufr) — nail, claw.

From this ẓafar is born: to take a thing in the claw, to seize it. In Turkish the borrowed word zafer means simply "victory", and the image in its root has been lost entirely.

And now the distinction made at the head of the sūra falls exactly into place. It was recorded at the first verse: though Arabic had words such as ghalaba and ẓafar for military superiority, the Qurʾān chose the word fatḥ (opening).

And here the root ẓafar occurs exactly once in the sūra, exactly here — and it states no "winning"; it states a superiority that was not used.

The logic of the sentence is this: the superiority was there, but it was not used; and its not being used is not a weakness but a decision — the subject of the verb is God.

This is the most concrete expression of the sūra's understanding of fatḥ. A fatḥ is not the closing of the claw but the opening of the door. The verse records that where both were possible at the same time, the second was chosen.

A note: which event the "being given the upper hand" points to is recounted in different ways in the reports — the beginning of a skirmish, a position obtained against one group. The details are disputed, and the Qurʾān does not narrate the event; I do not present them as certain knowledge.

بَطْن — root ب-ط-ن: belly, interior. The analysis of the root was made at al-Ḥadīd (in the context of the name al-Bāṭin), and a note of tanzīh was entered there. Here the word is entirely in its concrete sense: the inner part of a place, its hollow.

Baṭn is used in geography for the floor of a valley, the low ground between two rises.

مَكَّة — and a note. This word occurs only here in the Qurʾān. It is known that the city is also named once in the Qurʾān in the form بَكَّة (Bakka): "The first House established for people is the one at Bakka" (Āl ʿImrān 3/96).

The relation between the two names has been debated among the lexicographers: some say they are two names for the same place, others that Bakka answers to the narrow area in which the Kaʿba stands while Makka answers to the whole city. I do not speak with certainty; this is a disagreement among lexicographers.

And this must be recorded: a single place name occurs in the sūra, and it occurs as the name of the place where a fight stopped.

بَصِير — root ب-ص-ر: to see; and baṣīra — inward sight, discernment. From the same root baṣar (the eye, sight), ibṣār, tabaṣṣur, mubṣir (seeing, giving light).

In the eleventh verse the same pattern closed with khabīr: wa kāna'llāhu bimā taʿmalūna خَبِيرًا. Here it is baṣīr.

Two names, two blocks, two distinct questions. What was recounted in the eleventh verse was an inward mismatch; what is recounted here is a behaviour that actually took place — the lowering of hands. The names are chosen to fit their subjects.

I record this as an observation about the word order.