al-Fatḥ 48:28

Huwa'lladhī arsala rasūlahū bi'l-hudā wa dīni'l-ḥaqqi li-yuẓhirahū ʿalā'd-dīni kullih; wa kafā bi'llāhi shahīdā

"It is He who sent His Messenger with guidance and the religion of truth — so that He may make it prevail over all religion. And God suffices as a witness."

It was recorded at the fourth verse: this pattern occurs three times in the sūra (4, 24, 28), and each time it restricts something to God.

And the third, at the end of the sūra, sets up the widest frame. The sūra opened with an event, analysed an event, and at its close names the whole within which the event stands.

This sentence occurs in three places in the Qurʾān, in almost exactly the same wording:

The difference at the close is striking, and it agrees with the tone of this sūra.

In the other two places the sentence closes with a sense of "in spite of an opposition": "however much they dislike it". Here the other side is not touched on at all; the close is a sentence of witness.

I record this as my own reading: this is the stance we have seen throughout the sūra. It was recorded at the first verse: a fatḥ is not an "against" but a "for"; the other side has not been made the subject. One of the sūra's last sentences continues the same stance — a sentence that occurs three times comes, in this sūra precisely, with a close that does not touch on the other side.

Two things: guidance and the religion of truth.

In the classical explanations the distinction is put like this: hudā is the side of knowledge — the showing of the way; dīn is the side of practice — the order walked in on that way.

The root analysis of the word دِين was made at al-Māʿūn (د-ي-ن: debt, submission, receiving what is due, a working order) and recalled at al-Naṣr. I do not repeat it.

دِينِ ٱلْحَقِّ — what is decisive in the construction is that the religion is ascribed to truth. It was recorded for the construction dīnu'llāh (the religion of God) in Sūrat al-Naṣr: the owner of the thing being entered is named, and it is not "the religion of the winning side". A similar note applies here: the religion is ascribed not to a community but to the truth.

أَظْهَرَ — root ظ-ه-ر. The concrete sense of the root: the back. Ẓahr — the back. From this two directions are born, and both are found in the Qurʾān:

• To be visible — ẓāhir: what comes out, what shows. (The analysis of this name was made at al-Ḥadīd.)
• To prevail — ẓahara ʿalā: to overcome a thing. The image: laying an opponent on his back, or getting on top of something.

The verb is in Form IV (yuẓhira): "to make visible" or "to make prevail".

Which of the two senses is meant? There is disagreement in classical exegesis:

I impose no preference. But this must be recorded: ʿalā'd-dīni kullih — "over all religion". The construction is singular (al-dīn), not plural. In classical exegesis this is explained in two ways: either as a generic noun covering all religions, or as answering to the concept "religion" itself.

And one further note: this verse does not describe a historical event; it frames a clause of purpose (li-yuẓhira — "so that He may make it…"). Clauses of purpose give no information about the time or the manner of fulfilment.

I do not enter current politics and I draw no contemporary programme from this verse; this is the field Method leaves outside.

كَفَىٰ — root ك-ف-ي: to suffice, to be enough. The pattern is a particular one in Arabic: kafā bi- — "suffices as…". The additional particle بِ is what the grammarians call a reinforcing bāʾ zāʾida.

شَهِيد — root ش-ه-د, treated at the eighth verse: to be present, to see, to report what one has seen.

And here a frame of the sūra closes:

In the eighth verse the first attribute given to the Messenger was shāhid. In the twenty-eighth the same root is used of God. The word that opened the block becomes one of the words that close the sūra.

And this agrees with the sūra's subject. A question of testimony has been worked through the length of the sūra: who saw what, who did not know what, what was in the hearts. At the close, the witness of all this is named.