Entering Mecca’s Grand Mosque (al-Masjid al-Haram)
 In the sixth year after the Prophet was forced to migrate
from Mecca to Medina, he saw himself visiting Mecca and performing pilgrimage in
a vision mentioned in the Quran:
“Certainly has God showed to His Messenger the vision (i.e.
dream) in truth. You will surely enter al-Haram mosque, if God wills,
in safety, with your heads shaved and [hair] shortened,
not fearing [anyone]. He knew what you did not know and has arranged before that
a conquest near [at hand].” (Quran 48:27)
God made three promises:
(a) Muhammad would enter into Mecca’s Grand Mosque.
(b) Muhammad would enter in a state of
security.
(c) Muhammad and his companions would get
to perform pilgrimage and fulfill its rituals.
Ignoring the hostility of Meccans, Prophet
Muhammad gathered his companions and embarked on a peaceful journey to Mecca. But the Meccans continued to be hostile and he was forced to return to Medina. The vision remained unfulfilled; however, an important treaty was signed between
the Prophet and the Meccans, which would prove of great significance. It is due
to this treaty that Muhammad performed a peaceful pilgrimage with his
companions the very next year. The vision had found its fulfillment.
The Quranic Prophecy; ‘The Unbelievers Will Lose’
Muslims were subject to severe persecution in Mecca at the hand of pagans. At one time they were boycotted for three years, and the perpetual
shortage of food sometimes bordered on famine.
Any talk of victory was unimaginable. Despite all odds, God prophesized in Mecca:
“[The pagans’] assembly will be defeated, and they
shall turn their backs [in flight]!.” (Quran 54:45)
The Arabic verb yuhzamu is preceded by sa
(an Arabic prefix denoting the future tense), making it a distinct prophecy
awaiting fulfillment in future. And so it was in the holy month of Ramadan,
two years after the Prophet’s migration from Mecca to Medina that the Meccans
were defeated in the Battle of Badr and forced to retreat.
Umar, the second caliph of the Muslims after the Prophet, used to say that they
did not know how the Quranic prophecy would be fulfilled until they themselves
witnessed it coming true at the famous battle of Badr! (Saheeh Al-Bukhari)
The Quranic Prophecy; ‘Believers Will Get Political
Authority’
Despite severe
oppression at the hands of Meccans, Muslims were given good news from God:
“God has promised those who have believed among you
and done righteous deeds that He will surely grant them succession [to
authority] upon the earth just as He granted it to those before them and that
He will surely establish [therein] their religion which He has preferred for
them and that He will surely substitute for them, after their fear, security,
[for] they worship Me, not associating anything with Me. But whoever
disbelieves after that - then those are the defiantly disobedient.” (Quran
24:55)
How such a promise from Almighty God would be
fulfilled to the oppressed, brutalized Muslims in Mecca was impossible to
imagine at the time it was made. It was fulfilled, nevertheless. Indeed, God
made Muslims secure and gave them political sway in a matter of years.
“And Our word [decree] has already preceded for Our slaves,
the messengers, [that] indeed, they would be those given victory.” (Quran
37:171-172)
At first, the Muslims established their own
state, by the invitation of the people of Medina, when God commanded they
migrate there from Mecca. Then, within the lifetime of the Prophet, that state
expanded to hold sway over the whole of the Arabian Peninsula, from the Gulf of
Aqaba and the Arabian Gulf to the Arabian Sea in the south, including the place
from whence the Muslims had been driven out (Mecca itself). This decree was
ongoing, for the expansion of the Muslim political and religious dominion did
not stop at the Arabian Peninsula. History gives a living testimony that the
Muslims addressed by these verses ruled the lands of the former Persian and
Roman empires, an expansion that amazed and won admiration of world historians.
In the words of Encyclopedia Britannica:
“Within
12 years after Muhammad’s death, the armies of Islam took possession of Syria, Iraq, Persia, Armenia, Egypt, and Cyrenaica (in modern Libya).”
The Quran’s Prophecy Regarding the Hypocrites and the
Tribe of Banu Nadhir
God says in the Quran:
“Surely, if they are expelled, never will they
(hypocrites) go out with them, and if they are attacked, they will never help
them. And if they do help them, they (hypocrites) will turn their backs, so
they will not be victorious.” (Quran 59:12)
Pickthall
(For) indeed if they are driven out they go not
out with them, and indeed if they are attacked they help them not, and indeed
if they had helped them they would have turned and fled, and then they would
not have been victorious.
“Have you not observed how those who are hypocrites, tell
their brothers (i.e. associates) among
the People of the Scripture who disbelieved, ‘If you are expelled, we will
surely also leave with you, and we will never anyone against you; and if you
are attacked (i.e. by the Muslim militia),
we will surely aid you.’ But God bears witness that they are liars. If they (i.e. the Jews) are expelled, they (i.e. the hypocrites) will not leave with
them, and if they are fought, they will not aid them. And [even] if they were
to aid them, they will surely turn their backs; then they will not be aided.” (Quran
59:11-12)
The prophecy was fulfilled when the Banu Nadhir
were expelled in August 625 CE from Medina; the hypocrites did not accompany
them or come to their aid.
The Quranic Prophecies concerning Future
Confrontations
“They will not harm you except for [some] annoyance. And
if they fight you, they will show you their backs (i.e., flee); then they will not be aided.” (Quran 3:111)
“And if those (Meccans) who disbelieve were to fight
you, they would certainly turn their backs (i.e.,
flee). Then they would not find a protector or a helper.” (Quran 48:22)
Historically, after these verses were revealed,
the unbelievers in the Arabian Peninsula were never able to withstand the Muslims
again.
We see from the prophecies discussed in these
articles that the claim many detractors of Muhammad’s Prophethood are utterly
unfounded. They have based their criticism on the challenge to show that what
Muhammad, may the mercy and blessings of God be upon him, foretold, if anything,
and what came true of his foretelling.
Demonstrably, he did prophesize, with God’s guidance, and demonstrably, what
he was directed to tell us did actually occur. Therefore, by the criterion of
the detractors, Muhammad was the Messenger of God, and the last of the prophets
to be sent, by both his statements in the Sunnah (narrations from his life) and
the word of the Quran.
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