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XLVIII, 25-28. THE CHAPTER OF VICTORY.
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occurred to you on their account without your knowledge that God may make whomsoever He pleases enter into His mercy. Had they been distinct from one another, we would have tormented those of them who misbelieved with grievous woe.
When those who misbelieved put in their hearts pique-the pique of ignorance1-and God sent down His shechina upon His Apostle and upon the believers, and obliged them to keep to the word of piety, and they were most worthy of it and most suited for it; for God all things doth know.
God truly verified for His Apostle the vision 3 that ye shall verily enter the Sacred Mosque, if God please, in safety with shaven heads or cut hair, ye shall not fear; for He knows what ye know not, and He has set for you, beside that, a victory nigh at hand.
He it is who sent His Apostle with guidance
1 Suhail ibn 'Amr, who concluded the truce with Mohammed at 'Hudâibîyeh, objected to the formula 'In the name of the merciful and compassionate God,' with which the prophet ordered 'Alî to commence the document, and insisted on the heathen formula 'In Thy name, O God!' He also refused to admit the words 'Mohammed, the Apostle of God,' saying, that if they had granted so much they would not have opposed him; the words 'Mohammed the son of Abdallah' were therefore substituted. These objections were so annoying to the Muslims, that it was with difficulty that Mohammed could restrain them from an immediate breach of the peace.
2 The Mohammedan profession of faith, 'There is no god but God, and Mohammed His servant is the Apostle.' Or it may be the initial formula which the unbelieving Meccans rejected.
Mohammed dreamed that he would accomplish the pilgrimage to Mecca with all its rites; the affair at 'Hudâibîyeh disappointed his followers, but in the following year it was fulfilled.
I. e. that of Khâibar.
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