al-Fatḥ 48:29

Muḥammadun rasūlu'llāh; wa'lladhīna maʿahū ashiddāʾu ʿalā'l-kuffāri ruḥamāʾu baynahum; tarāhum rukkaʿan sujjadan yabtaghūna faḍlan mina'llāhi wa riḍwānā; sīmāhum fī wujūhihim min athari's-sujūd; dhālika mathaluhum fi't-Tawrāh; wa mathaluhum fi'l-Injīli ka-zarʿin akhraja shaṭʾahū fa-āzarahū fa'staghlaẓa fa'stawā ʿalā sūqihī yuʿjibu'z-zurrāʿa li-yaghīẓa bihimu'l-kuffār; waʿada'llāhu'lladhīna āmanū wa ʿamilū'ṣ-ṣāliḥāti minhum maghfiratan wa ajran ʿaẓīmā

"Muḥammad is the Messenger of God. Those who are with him are firm against the disbelievers, merciful among themselves. You see them bowing, prostrating, seeking bounty from God and good pleasure. Their mark is on their faces from the trace of prostration. That is their likeness in the Torah. And their likeness in the Gospel is like a crop that puts out its shoot, then strengthens it, then grows thick, and then stands up straight upon its stalk, delighting the sowers — so that through them He may enrage the disbelievers. God has promised those of them who believe and do good works forgiveness and a great reward."

The sūra closes with the portrait of a community. And the portrait has two layers: first a moral and practical description (the first half), then a simile of growth (the second half).

Because the verse is long I shall proceed piece by piece.

The name "Muḥammad" occurs in four places in the Qurʾān: Āl ʿImrān 3/144, al-Aḥzāb 33/40, Muḥammad 47/2, and here.

And all four are part of a statement, not of an address. When the Qurʾān speaks to the Prophet it almost always uses patterns of attribute — "O Prophet", "O you wrapped in your cloak"; when it names him it does so in the third person, inside a sentence that states something.

There is disagreement about the parsing of the sentence, and it must be recorded:

Both readings are found in classical exegesis; I impose no preference. The difference in sense is small: on the first an affirmation of the messengership stands as a separate sentence, on the second the description flows as a single whole.

The construction is striking. The verse does not say "his Companions", "his community", "those who believe in him". It says "those who are with him".

مَعَ — the adverb of accompaniment. This word was treated at al-Ḥadīd (57/4, wa huwa maʿakum), and it was recorded there that maʿiyya is used for more than physical side-by-sideness.

Two readings are possible here, and both are found in classical exegesis:

The two do not conflict. And the sentence at the end of the verse ("those of them who believe and do good works") shows that the description is attached to an attribute.

Two adjectives, two particles. And the particles say more than the adjectives.

أَشِدَّاء — the plural of shadīd. Root ش-د-د: to bind, to tighten, to make firm. The shadda of Arabic grammar (the mark that doubles a letter) is from the same root — the mark that "tightens" the letter.

At the centre of the root there is not harshness but firmness. Shadd is the tying of a knot fast. The Qurʾān uses this: "and strengthen my back through him" (Ṭāhā 20/31 — ushdud bihī azrī).

رُحَمَاء — the plural of raḥīm. Root ر-ح-م: the same root as raḥim (the womb); its analysis was made at al-Fātiḥa.

A point to note: raḥīm is among the names of God. Here it is used of human beings, in a plural pattern. The Qurʾān does this elsewhere too: "…towards the believers he is raʾūf and raḥīm" (al-Tawba 9/128) — there too the same two names are used of a human being.

Now let us look at the particles — this is the finest point of the verse:

عَلَى runs one way; upon someone, against someone. بَيْنَ is reciprocal; between two parties.

The verse, that is, describes two different kinds of relation: the one a stance, the other a bond.

Here, per the method (Method), I am obliged to enter an explicit note.

One. The verse looks at a position, not at an identity. The root of the word al-kuffār was analysed at al-Baqara: ك-ف-ر — to cover. And it was recorded there that the word is used within the same Qurʾān in the sense of "farmer" (al-Ḥadīd, 57/20). The word states an attribute: one who covers, who closes over the truth. Whoever carries that attribute is included in it; it is not the name of an ethnic, national or religious group.

Two. The word itself frames no command of behaviour in this verse. The verse is a description, not a command. The sentence does not say "be firm"; it says "they are so". Grammatically it is a statement.

Three. And the Qurʾān itself blocks the turning of this description into a general ruling of enmity:

"God does not forbid you from being good to those who have not fought you over religion and have not driven you from your homes, or from dealing justly with them. God loves those who deal justly." (al-Mumtaḥina 60/8)

This verse was cited at al-Ḥashr for the same purpose, and it holds here too.

Four. And this sūra itself is the plainest proof. The event the sūra recounts is an event in which a treaty was made with the other side. The same sūra records the mutual withholding of hands as a favour (24); it makes the unknown people inside the other side a ground (25). This sūra, that is, is the strongest text standing in the way of any reading that turns the attribute of "firmness" into a programme of conflict.

I record this as my own reading: looked at in terms of the root's sense, the adjective ashiddāʾ states a firmness — not bending easily, not losing one's position. And the verse balances that firmness with a mercy in the same sentence. In describing a community the Qurʾān gives the two sides together; to take one and leave the other is to cut the sentence in half.

تَرَىٰ — "you see". The address is singular, and this is the same pattern as lan tajida ("you will not find") in verse 23 of the sūra: any person who looks.

رُكَّع and سُجَّد — the plurals of rākiʿ and sājid, on the فُعَّل pattern. In Arabic this pattern is used for plurals stating a state: those engaged in an act at that moment.

رَكَعَ — root ر-ك-ع: to bend, to bow. The concrete use of the word: the bending of an old man's back. سَجَدَ — root س-ج-د: to bow down, to lower oneself, to submit. In Arabic sajada'n-nakhl — the palm tree bent under the weight of its fruit.

And the word order: there is no conjunction between the two. Rukkaʿan sujjadan — "bowing, prostrating". In Arabic a sequence without a conjunction states that the two things form a single picture: one uninterrupted movement.

This construction occurs in one other place in the Qurʾān, in exactly the same wording:

"…for the poor emigrants who were driven from their homes and their possessions, seeking bounty from God and good pleasure, and helping God and His Messenger…" (al-Ḥashr 59/8)

This construction was treated at al-Ḥashr: it was recorded there that faḍl carries the sense "what is over and above, what is added on top of what is deserved", and that the word answers both to material gain and to divine favour.

What the two verses have in common is striking: both describe a community, and both put at the centre of the description not what they have but what they are seeking.

اِبْتِغَاء — root ب-غ-ي: to seek, to want, to go after. Form VIII conveys an effort in the seeking.

The verb is in the imperfect: yabtaghūn — "they seek", continually. What is described is not something found but a search still under way.

رِضْوَان — root ر-ض-و, treated at verse 18: an intensive verbal noun, a great good pleasure. And it was recorded at al-Ḥadīd: the Qurʾān most often sets riḍwān last, even above forgiveness.

A link within the sūra: in verse 18 raḍiya'llāh — God was pleased. Here yabtaghūna… riḍwānā — they seek good pleasure. The sūra names the good pleasure once as given and once as being sought.

سِيمَا — a mark, a token, a sign on the face.

The lexicographers differ over the root of the word, and this was recorded at al-Raḥmān: some attach it to the root و-س-م (to brand; it became sīmā by a transposition of letters), others to the root س-و-م. I do not speak with certainty.

The word was treated at al-Baqara on verse 2/273, and what was recorded there is decisive here:

"One who does not know would take them for rich because of their restraint. You will know them by their mark. They do not beg of people insistently." (al-Baqara 2/273)

The note entered there was this: "recognising them calls not for an enquiry but for attention." And, more importantly: the people described in that verse were people who do not display themselves — those who do not ask, who are taken for rich because of their restraint.

This is the ground needed for reading the sīmā here. In one of the two clearest places where the Qurʾān uses this word, the bearers of the mark are people unaware that they carry it.

A third use was treated at al-Raḥmān: "The guilty are known by their marks" (al-Raḥmān 55/41). The word works in both directions.

What this expression points to has been debated in classical exegesis. I transmit the disagreement as it stands:

In the classical commentaries the first and second views are widely worked out. I impose no preference.

But two notes must be entered, and they are independent of the debate.

One. The wording of the verse does not say "a callus on the forehead". Sīmā means "sign", and fī wujūhihim is "on their faces" — not the forehead but the face. The face is where the whole of a person's expression shows.

Two — and this is more important: in the logic of the word itself, a sīmā is something another person reads, not something its bearer puts on show. When the verse at al-Baqara 2/273 says "you will know them by their mark", those people were not trying to carry a mark; the mark was their state showing through.

I record this as my own reading: producing a sign in order to display it stops the sign being a sign. This is something the Qurʾān warns of openly elsewhere — the criticism of worship performed for show (treated at al-Māʿūn). The sentence of the verse is a statement of fact: there is such a trace in them. It is not a recommendation: it does not say "acquire such a trace".

مَثَل — root م-ث-ل: to resemble, to be the equal of a thing. Mithāl, timthāl, tamthīl, mumāthil. In Arabic the word means both "simile" and "description, portrayal".

There is disagreement about the parsing of the sentence, and it affects the sense:

Both readings have been defended in classical exegesis. I impose no preference. The first reading appears to agree better with the marks of pause and is widely preferred; but this is not binding.

A note. The verse does not say which passages in the texts now in hand these descriptions correspond to, and I make no such matching. A matching of that kind would require a separate discussion about the history of the texts we have, and that is not the subject of this commentary. I record what the verse says and no more: the description of this community is found in the earlier books as well.

And now we come to the last and most visual part of the sūra.

زَرْع — root ز-ر-ع. And this choice of word settles the whole sense of the simile.

The root was analysed at al-Wāqiʿa (56/63-64), and the distinction drawn there is decisive here:

It was recorded there that Sūrat al-Wāqiʿa hands over the human share in full (mā taḥruthūn — "what you sow"), and then draws the line: "Is it you who make it grow, or are We the ones who make it grow?" The sowing is yours; the growing is not.

And this verse chooses exactly that word for its simile: zarʿ.

I record this as my own reading, not as a transmitted report: the simile is built with the word that names the work the human being does not do. The growth of a community, that is, is likened not to the act of sowing but to the act of coming up. This agrees with the stance the sūra has kept from the beginning: in the first verse the fatḥ was not ascribed to any human being, in the fourth the sakīna was sent down, in the twenty-fourth the hands were held back. The last simile looks from the same place.

And there is this too: the verse also uses the word zurrāʿ (sowers) in the same sentence — the human share is not written off, it is simply positioned as the party that watches the growing.

The simile is built with four verbs, and all four are joined to one another by the conjunction فَ (fāʾ). In Arabic this conjunction conveys succession and swift transition: no sooner has one finished than the next comes.

Let us now open the four one by one.

Root: ش-ط-أ. Shaṭʾ is the new shoot that comes out at the side of the crop's main stem. Sister shoots springing from beside a grain, from the base of the first shoot.

A relative of the word is striking: شَاطِئ (shāṭiʾ) — the bank, the edge, the shore. It occurs in the Qurʾān: "from the right bank of the valley…" (al-Qaṣaṣ 28/30).

The shared idea is "edge": shāṭiʾ is the edge of water, and shaṭʾ the shoot that comes out at the edge of the plant.

I record this connection made by the lexicographers as an observation, not as a settled etymological ruling.

And the meaning of the image is this: the shoot comes out from the side. It is not the continuation of the main stem but something new springing from its base. One grain is sown, and more than one shoot appears around it.

I record this as my own reading: the first stage of the simile is a multiplying, and the multiplying happens at the side. This is the closest agricultural counterpart to a picture that begins with one person and spreads. At the head of the verse there is a name — Muḥammadun rasūlu'llāh — and immediately after it comes "those who are with him".

Root: أ-ز-ر. The sense of the root: strength, power, the loins, the back.

• إِزَار (izār) — the cloth tied about the waist, a waist-wrapper. It is known in Turkish as izar.
• أَزْر (azr) — strength, power, the strength of the back.

The Qurʾān uses this word in a prayer, and that place lights up this verse:

"And appoint for me a helper from my family: my brother Aaron (Hārūn). Strengthen my back through him, and make him a partner in my task." (Ṭāhā 20/29-32 — ushdud bihī azrī)

The same root, the same idea: strengthening someone's back, someone's loins.

And the subject of the verb here is striking. Fa-āzarahū — "it strengthened it". Who strengthens whom?

In the classical explanations there are two readings:

The first reading is the more widely transmitted, and it agrees with agricultural observation: sister shoots widen the root system and hold the plant up.

I record this as my own reading: on the first reading the picture that emerges is this — the one who comes later strengthens the one who came first. This agrees with verse 16 of the sūra: there a door was opened to those who would join later.

Root: غ-ل-ظ. Its sense: to be thick, coarse, hard. Ghalīẓ — thick, dense.

In Form X (istaghlaẓa): "it grew thick, it took on thickness". The function of this form here is to state a passage into a state.

The Qurʾān uses the root figuratively too, and there the sense becomes plain: "They have taken from you a solemn covenant" (al-Nisāʾ 4/21 — mīthāqan ghalīẓā); the same construction occurs at al-Aḥzāb 33/7.

The root, then, conveys not "coarseness" but a firmness that amounts to unbreakability. For a word given to be ghalīẓ is for it to be impossible to undo.

The meaning of the image: the slender shoot has now thickened past the point of breaking. This is the most critical stage of the simile — for the most fragile moment in a plant's life is the passage from shoot to stalk.

اِسْتَوَىٰ — root س-و-ي: to be even, to be level, to straighten up, to be complete. This root was taken up at al-Ḥadīd (57/4, istiwāʾ); a note of tanzīh was entered there because it was used of God. Here the word is entirely in its concrete sense and is speaking of a plant; that debate has no bearing on this place.

The sense of the word here: to be upright, to stand balanced by its own weight.

سُوق — the plural of سَاق (sāq). Root س-و-ق: to drive, to urge on. Sāq — leg, trunk, stalk.

• The Qurʾān uses sāq of the human leg: "…she bared her legs" (al-Naml 27/44); "leg is wound about leg" (al-Qiyāma 75/29).
• From the same root comes سُوق (market) — the place to which goods are driven, or where feet walk.

That the plural is used is meaningful: ʿalā sūqihī — "upon its stalks", not the singular. Not one stalk but several; all the shoots that came out at the first stage are now standing upright.

Let us look at the simile as a whole.

`` seed → shoot → support → thickening → standing upright (at the side) (mutual) (durability) (independence) ``

I record this as my own reading and do not present it as a transmitted report:

One. The process is by stages. A fāʾ has been set between the four verbs — succession. No stage is skipped. The growth of a community is recounted not as something that happens at a stroke but as a process with phases.

Two. And the process cannot be reversed. A stalk that has thickened does not become a shoot again. The simile says that past a certain point the fragility is over.

Three. And this agrees with the name of the sūra. Fatḥ is "opening"; and the splitting of a seed is an opening too. It was recorded for the word falāḥ at al-Baqara: "to break through an obstacle, to crack the husk, to come to the point of bearing." The sūra begins with an opening and ends with a growing.

Four. And in the simile nothing is destroyed. A text that could be read as a sūra of war builds an agricultural scene in its last sentence. Growth, not destruction; putting down roots, not fighting.

زُرَّاع — the plural of zāriʿ: sowers, farmers.

And something happens here that must be recorded.

It was treated at al-Ḥadīd (57/20): there the same scene — a plant delighting the farmer — is recounted, and the word used for the farmers is كُفَّار. Because the root ك-ف-ر means "to cover", and the farmer is the one who covers the seed with soil.

In this verse, however, the farmers are called zurrāʿ. And the reason comes immediately after:

yuʿjibu'z-زُرَّاعَ li-yaghīẓa bihimu'l-كُفَّارَ

There are two words in the one sentence: zurrāʿ (sowers) and kuffār (the disbelievers). Had kuffār been used for the farmers too, the same word would have occurred twice in one sentence in two different senses.

I record this as my own reading, not as a transmitted report: here the Qurʾān chooses another word for the farmer, and the sentence does not become confused. This is an instance showing that the choice of word is made according to context. I do not present it as a claim of miracle; the choice of word in the two verses is a datum that can be verified.

أَعْجَبَ — root ع-ج-ب: to be astonished, to wonder; and to please. From the same root ʿajīb, taʿajjub, and — note — ʿujb (self-admiration). The root names "the reaction to something unexpected".

غَيْظ — root غ-ي-ظ: anger seething within, fury. The lexicographers record this difference between ghayẓ and ghaḍab: ghaḍab is anger that shows outwardly, while ghayẓ is anger held in, seething within. I transmit this distinction as a tendency; there is no firm agreement.

And now another frame of the sūra closes.

Both words name a state that seethes within. The sūra names the inward state of the other side once in the twenty-sixth verse and once again in the twenty-ninth — and what the two words have in common is that both are words of heat.

And in both places what is set against it is the same: in the twenty-sixth verse sakīna (settling), in the twenty-ninth the silent growing of a crop.

I record this as my own reading: the sūra closes by describing the two sides at two different temperatures. On one side a seething, on the other a growing. And the growing does not produce the seething on purpose; the verse says li-yaghīẓa (so that they may be enraged), but the cause of the anger is not a provocation, it is simply the growing itself.

This needs to be limited by a note: whether the particle lām here conveys causation or outcome is the same question we discussed at the second verse. On the reading of outcome the sentence becomes: "and in the end this enrages them." I impose no preference.

The sūra's last sentence. And it closes the sūra's frame.

The sūra opens with forgiveness and closes with forgiveness. At the opening to a single person, at the close to a community.

This is the most striking structural feature of the sūra, and I record it as my own reading: a sūra of "fatḥ" is framed at both its ends by a declaration of forgiveness. Not by victory but by covering over. This is the same pattern we saw in Sūrat al-Naṣr — there too what was asked after the victory was the seeking of forgiveness.

There is a min in the sentence: alladhīna āmanū wa ʿamilū'ṣ-ṣāliḥāti مِنْهُمْ.

The function of this particle has been debated in classical exegesis, and the disagreement must be recorded:

I impose no preference in this commentary. In Arabic the particle min serves both functions, and which it is in this verse cannot be settled with certainty from the context.

And this must be recorded plainly: this grammatical question has been used through history in disputes between schools. This commentary does not enter that dispute and issues no ruling for either side. Both readings are possible in the language, and the matter is no more than the function of a particle.

What can be recorded independently of the dispute is this: the sentence attaches the promise to an attribute — āmanū wa ʿamilū'ṣ-ṣāliḥāt, "to believe and to do good works". Whichever reading is taken, what the promise is attached to is not an identity but an attribute. This is the stance the sūra has kept from the beginning (13, 16).

The expression ajran ʿaẓīmā occurs twice in the sūra: 10 and 29. And in verse 16 there was ajran ḥasanā.

In the tenth verse the reward was promised to the one who keeps his word. Here, to the one who believes and does good works. The sūra closes with works the ledger it opened with an undertaking.

Read from beginning to end, the sūra shows several weaves. I record them separately.