Madinan, by agreement
On the road back from al-Ḥudaybiyah, at night — Dhū l-Qaʿdah, the sixth year of the Hijrah
It is Madinan by agreement — meaning after the Hijrah; the place it actually came down was on the road. Al-Qurṭubī relates from al-Miswar ibn Makhramah and Marwān that it was sent down between Makkah and Madinah, concerning al-Ḥudaybiyah, from its beginning to its end. That was in Dhū l-Qaʿdah of the sixth year.
سُورَةُ الفَتْحِ وَهِيَ مَدَنِيَّةٌ كُلُّها بِإجْماعِهِمْسُورَةُ الْفَتْحِ مَدَنِيَّةٌ بِإِجْمَاعٍ، وَهِيَ تِسْعٌ وَعِشْرُونَ آيَةً. وَنَزَلَتْ لَيْلًا بَيْنَ مَكَّةَ وَالْمَدِينَةَ فِي شَأْنِ الْحُدَيْبِيَةِThe same, in other works
- al-BaghawīMaʿālim al-tanzīlAhl al-Sunnah in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Madinan.
سُورَةُ الْفَتْحِ مَدَنِيَّةٌ
- al-Suyūṭīal-Durr al-manthūrAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Ibn ʿAbbās: it came down in Madinah. Recorded by Ibn al-Ḍurays, al-Naḥḥās, Ibn Mardawayh and al-Bayhaqī.
أخْرَجَ ابْنُ الضُّرَيْسِ والنَّحّاسُ، وابْنُ مَرْدُويَهْ، والبَيْهَقِيُّ عَنِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ قالَ: نَزَلَتْ سُورَةُ الفَتْحِ بِالمَدِينَةِ
A report he gathers; its chain is not graded here.
- al-ShawkānīFatḥ al-qadīr→
Madinan.
هي مَدَنِيَّةٌ
- al-RāzīMafātīḥ al-ghaybAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Madinan.
وهِيَ عِشْرُونَ وتِسْعُ آياتٍ مَدَنِيَّةٍ
- Abū al-SuʿūdIrshād al-ʿaql al-salīmMāturīdī in creedḤanafī in fiqh→
Madinan.
سُورَةُ الفَتْحِ مَدَنِيَّةٌ ونَزَلَتْ في مَرْجِعِ رَسُولِ اللَّهِ ﷺ مِنَ الحُدَيْبِيَةِ وآياتُها تِسْعٌ وعِشْرُونَ
Each line of English says what the Arabic beneath it says.
What was happening
In the sixth year the Prophet ﷺ saw in a dream that he and his Companions entered the Sacred Mosque in safety. He set out for the lesser pilgrimage with some fourteen hundred men, in pilgrim dress, driving the animals for sacrifice, carrying no arms but swords in their sheaths. Quraysh swore that he would never enter, and sent their cavalry to bar the road. He turned aside and halted at al-Ḥudaybiyah, on the edge of the sacred territory.
Envoys went back and forth. He sent ʿUthmān into Makkah; then word came that ʿUthmān had been killed. The Prophet ﷺ sat beneath a tree and the Companions pledged themselves to him, one by one — that they would not flee. That is the Pledge of Good Pleasure, and the surah says of it: “Allah was well pleased with the believers when they pledged allegiance to you under the tree.” The report was false. ʿUthmān returned, and Quraysh sent Suhayl ibn ʿAmr to make terms.
The terms were hard to hear. The Muslims would go home without reaching the House, and return the following year for three days. There would be peace for ten years. Any man of Quraysh who came to Muḥammad without his guardian’s leave would be sent back; any Muslim who went over to Quraysh would not. Before the ink was dry, Suhayl’s own son, Abū Jandal, staggered into the camp in chains, and was returned. ʿUmar went to the Prophet ﷺ: “Are we not upon the truth, and they upon falsehood? Then why should we accept humiliation in our religion?” He answered: “I am the Messenger of Allah, and I will not disobey Him, and He is my helper.”
They sacrificed where they stood, and turned for Madinah. On the way the surah came. Its first words settled the matter, and events proved them. With the roads open and the fighting stopped, people could meet and listen; al-Zuhrī said that in the two years that followed, as many entered Islam as had done in all the years before, or more. The fourteen hundred of al-Ḥudaybiyah were ten thousand at the conquest of Makkah.
What came down about what
“Dearer to me than all the sun rises upon”
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ was travelling by night with ʿUmar at his side. ʿUmar asked him something and he did not reply — three times — and ʿUmar rode ahead, afraid that Qurʾan would come down about him. Then he heard someone calling him, and came back. The Prophet ﷺ said: “Tonight a surah has been sent down to me that is dearer to me than everything on which the sun rises.” Then he recited: “We have given you a clear victory.”
ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb: al-Bukhārī (4177).
Ṣaḥīḥ
“And what is there for us?”
Anas said of “We have given you a clear victory”: it is al-Ḥudaybiyah. His Companions said: “Congratulations, and may it bring you joy. But what is there for us?” So Allah sent down: “That He may admit the believing men and the believing women to gardens beneath which rivers flow.”
Anas ibn Mālik: al-Bukhārī (4172) and Muslim (1786).
Ṣaḥīḥ
Under the tree
Jābir said: “On the day of al-Ḥudaybiyah we were one thousand four hundred, and the Prophet ﷺ said to us: ‘You are the best of the people of the earth.’” And he ﷺ said: “None of those who pledged allegiance under the tree will enter the Fire.”
Jābir ibn ʿAbd Allāh: al-Bukhārī (4154) and Muslim (1856, 2496).
Ṣaḥīḥ
The truce at al-Ḥudaybiyah
Al-Miswar ibn Makhramah and Marwān tell it. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ set out in the year of al-Ḥudaybiyah, and at the pass from which the road drops down towards Makkah his camel knelt. The people urged her on and she would not rise, and they said: “Al-Qaṣwāʾ has turned stubborn.” He ﷺ said: “Al-Qaṣwāʾ has not turned stubborn, and that is not her nature. He who held back the elephant has held her back.” Then he said: “By Him in whose hand is my soul, they will not ask of me any course in which they honour what Allah has made sacred, but I shall grant it to them.” He urged her and she sprang up, and he turned aside and halted at the far edge of al-Ḥudaybiyah.
There was only a shallow pool there, which the people soon drained, and they complained to him of thirst. He drew an arrow from his quiver and told them to set it in the place, and it went on welling up for them until they had all drunk their fill. Budayl ibn Warqāʾ of Khuzāʿah came with word that Quraysh were camped at the waters of al-Ḥudaybiyah and meant to fight him and bar him from the House. He ﷺ said: “We have not come to fight anyone; we have come to make the ʿumrah. War has worn Quraysh down and done them harm. If they wish, I will grant them a term of truce, and they leave the way open between me and the people. If I prevail, they may enter what the people have entered, if they wish; and if not, they will have had their rest. And if they refuse — by Him in whose hand is my soul, I shall fight them for this cause of mine until my neck is severed; and Allah will carry out His command.”
ʿUrwah ibn Masʿūd came next to speak for Quraysh, and watched the Companions as he talked. He went back and said: “My people, I have been received by kings — by Caesar, by Chosroes, by the Negus — and by Allah, I have never seen a king whose companions honour him as the companions of Muḥammad honour Muḥammad. When he commands them, they race to do it. When he makes his ablution, they almost fight over the water. When he speaks, they lower their voices before him; and they do not look him full in the face, out of reverence for him. He has offered you a sound course. Accept it.”
Then Suhayl ibn ʿAmr came, and said: “Come, write a document between us and you.” The Prophet ﷺ called the scribe and said: “In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Bestower of mercy.” Suhayl said: “As for ‘the Most Merciful’, by Allah, I do not know what that is. Write: In Your name, O Allah, as you used to write.” The Muslims said: “By Allah, we will write nothing but ‘In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Bestower of mercy.’” The Prophet ﷺ said: “Write: In Your name, O Allah.” Then he said: “This is what Muḥammad, the Messenger of Allah, has agreed.” Suhayl said: “By Allah, if we knew that you were the Messenger of Allah, we would not have barred you from the House or fought you. Write: Muḥammad son of ʿAbd Allāh.” He ﷺ said: “By Allah, I am the Messenger of Allah, even if you call me a liar. Write: Muḥammad son of ʿAbd Allāh.”
They would not have him reach the House that year — “the Arabs shall not say that we gave way under pressure” — but the next. And Suhayl said: “And that no man of ours comes to you, even if he is of your religion, but you send him back to us.” The Muslims said: “Glory be to Allah! How can he be sent back to the idolaters when he has come as a Muslim?” While they were at this, Abū Jandal, Suhayl’s own son, came stumbling in his chains, having got out by the lower part of Makkah, and threw himself among the Muslims. Suhayl said: “This, Muḥammad, is the first on whom I hold you to it.” He ﷺ said: “We have not yet finished the document.” — “Then, by Allah, I will never make peace with you on anything.” — “Then grant him to me.” — “I will not.” Abū Jandal cried out: “Muslims, am I to be sent back to the idolaters when I have come as a Muslim? Do you not see what I have suffered?” He had been tortured severely for the sake of Allah.
ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb said: “I went to the Prophet of Allah ﷺ and said: Are you not truly the Prophet of Allah? He said: ‘I am.’ I said: Are we not in the right, and our enemy in the wrong? He said: ‘We are.’ I said: Then why should we accept what is low in our religion? He said: ‘I am the Messenger of Allah, and I do not disobey Him, and He is my helper.’ I said: Did you not tell us that we would come to the House and go around it? He said: ‘I did. Did I tell you that we would come to it this year?’ I said: No. He said: ‘Then you will come to it, and you will go around it.’” He took the same questions to Abū Bakr and was given the same answers, word for word, and with them: “Man, he is the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. He does not disobey his Lord, and He is his helper. So hold fast to his stirrup; for by Allah, he is in the right.”
When the document was done, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said to his Companions: “Rise, make your sacrifices, and then shave your heads.” By Allah, not a man of them rose, though he said it three times. He went in to Umm Salamah and told her what he had met with from the people. She said: “Prophet of Allah, do you wish it done? Go out, and do not speak a word to any of them until you have sacrificed your animals and called your barber to shave you.” He went out and did so. When they saw it, they rose and sacrificed, and began shaving one another, until they were near to killing one another for grief.
Back in Madinah, a man of Quraysh named Abū Baṣīr came to him as a Muslim, and two men were sent to fetch him: “The pledge you gave us.” He handed him over. On the road Abū Baṣīr got hold of the sword of one of them and killed him, and the other fled to Madinah. Abū Baṣīr followed: “Prophet of Allah, Allah has discharged your obligation. You returned me to them, and then Allah delivered me from them.” He ﷺ said: “Woe to his mother — a kindler of war, if only he had men with him!” Hearing that, he knew he would be sent back, and went out to the seashore. Abū Jandal slipped away and joined him there, and then every man of Quraysh who accepted Islam, until they were a band; and no caravan of Quraysh set out for Syria but they waylaid it. So Quraysh sent to the Prophet ﷺ, imploring him by Allah and by kinship to send for them: whoever came to him after that would be safe. And Allah sent down: “It is He who withheld their hands from you and your hands from them in the valley of Makkah…” as far as “the fierce pride of the days of ignorance.” Their pride was that they would not acknowledge that he was the Prophet of Allah, nor “In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Bestower of mercy”; and that they stood between him and the House.
Al-Miswar ibn Makhramah and Marwān ibn al-Ḥakam: al-Bukhārī (2731, 2732).
Ṣaḥīḥ
ذكر الوعد الإلهي بالفتح والتمكين لنبيِّه وللمؤمنين الصادقين في نصرة الدين.
To recall the divine promise of victory and establishment to His Prophet and to the believers who are true in supporting the religion.
The surah’s aim, as al-Mukhtaṣar fī al-Tafsīr states it
- Al-Ḥudaybiyah as victory
- The Pledge of Good Pleasure
- Tranquillity sent into the hearts
- Those who stayed behind
- The true vision
- The Companions described
Its aims, as Ibn ʿĀshūr sets them out
تضمنت هذه السورة بشارة المؤمنين بحسن عاقبة صلح الحديبية وأنه نصر وفتح فنزلت به السكينة في قلوب المسلمين وأزال حزنهم من صدهم عن الاعتمار بالبيت وكان المسلمون عدة لا تغلب من قلة فرأوا أنهم عادوا كالخائبين فأعلمهم الله بأن العاقبة لهم، وأن دائرة السوء على المشركين والمنافقين. والتنويه بكرامة النبيء صلى الله عليه وسلم عند ربه ووعده بنصر متعاقب. والثناء على المؤمنين الذين عزروه وبايعوه، وأن الله قدم مثلهم في التوراة وفي الإنجيل.
From its first ayah to its last
- 1–77 ayat · 16% of the surahRead from ayah 1 →
The victory, and what it brings
We have given you a clear victory, that Allah may forgive you what went before of your sin and what comes after, complete His favour upon you, guide you on a straight path, and help you with a mighty help. It is He who sent down tranquillity into the hearts of the believers, that they might add faith to their faith. He will admit the believing men and women to gardens — and punish the hypocrites and the idolaters, men and women, who think ill of Allah.
- 8–103 ayat · 7% of the surahRead from ayah 8 →
The pledge
We have sent you as a witness, a bringer of good news and a warner, that you may believe in Allah and His Messenger, and honour him and revere him, and glorify Allah morning and evening. Those who pledge allegiance to you are pledging allegiance to Allah: the hand of Allah is over their hands. Whoever breaks it, breaks it against himself; whoever fulfils what he has pledged to Allah, He will give him a great reward.
- 11–177 ayat · 30% of the surahRead from ayah 11 →
Those who stayed behind
The desert Arabs who stayed behind will say to you, “Our property and our families kept us busy, so ask forgiveness for us.” They say with their tongues what is not in their hearts. You thought the Messenger and the believers would never return to their families. When you set out to take spoils they will say, “Let us follow you.” Say: you will be called against a people of great might. There is no blame on the blind, the lame or the sick.
- 18–214 ayat · 10% of the surahRead from ayah 18 →
Under the tree
Allah was well pleased with the believers when they pledged allegiance to you under the tree. He knew what was in their hearts, so He sent down tranquillity upon them and rewarded them with a victory near at hand, and many spoils that they will take. He has hastened this for you, and held back the hands of people from you.
- 22–265 ayat · 20% of the surahRead from ayah 22 →
Why there was no battle
Had those who disbelieve fought you, they would have turned their backs. It is He who held back their hands from you and your hands from them in the valley of Makkah. They are the ones who disbelieved and barred you from the Sacred Mosque, and the offering kept from reaching its place. Had it not been for believing men and believing women whom you did not know, whom you might have trampled — when the disbelievers put into their hearts the fierce pride of the Age of Ignorance, Allah sent down His tranquillity on His Messenger and the believers, and made them hold to the word of mindfulness.
- 27–282 ayat · 8% of the surahRead from ayah 27 →
The vision will come true
Allah has made true to His Messenger the vision, in all truth: you shall enter the Sacred Mosque, if Allah wills, in security, your heads shaved and your hair cut short, without fear. It is He who sent His Messenger with guidance and the religion of truth, to make it prevail over all religion.
- 291 ayah · 10% of the surahRead from ayah 29 →
Those who are with him
Muḥammad is the Messenger of Allah. Those with him are firm against the disbelievers and merciful among themselves. You see them bowing and prostrating, seeking bounty from Allah and His 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: a seed that puts out its shoot, then strengthens it, so that it grows stout and stands firm on its stem, delighting the sowers.
The division into passages is a reading aid, written for this page; it is not part of the muṣḥaf. Each passage is drawn as long as its words are.
The sound each ayah closes on
Read aloud, every ayah closes on a sound — its fāṣilah — and the closes answer one another for a stretch, then turn. Each sound this surah closes on is a line of the staff below, and the surah is the gold line stepping along them, an ayah at a time: where it steps to another line, the rhyme turns. The dotted lines are where its passages begin.
All 29 of its ayat close on one sound.
Move along the staff to see what each ayah closes on.
Computed from the text, each ayah as it is said when the reciter stops on it: the last vowel falls away, tanwīn on alif is said as a long ā, and tāʾ marbūṭah as h. Closes the ear hears as one rhyme share a line — -ūn, -īn and -īm; -ān and -ām — and an ayah that is only the opening letters closes on the name of its last letter.
From the Prophet ﷺ and his Companions
لَقَدْ أُنْزِلَتْ عَلَيَّ اللَّيْلَةَ سُورَةٌ لَهِيَ أَحَبُّ إِلَيَّ مِمَّا طَلَعَتْ عَلَيْهِ الشَّمْسُ
“Tonight a surah has been sent down to me that is dearer to me than everything on which the sun rises.” Then he recited: “We have given you a clear victory.”“I saw the Messenger of Allah ﷺ on the day of the conquest of Makkah, on his she-camel, reciting Sūrat al-Fatḥ in a quavering, resonant voice.”Al-Barāʾ said: “You count the Victory as the conquest of Makkah — and the conquest of Makkah was a victory. But we count the Victory as the Pledge of Good Pleasure, on the day of al-Ḥudaybiyah.”The name it is known by
From its first ayah. Fatḥ is an opening: of a city, or of a way that had been closed. ʿAbd Allāh ibn Mughaffal calls the surah by this name when he describes the Prophet ﷺ reciting it on his camel (al-Bukhārī 4281).
Its place in the muṣḥaf
Ayat you will hear named
Where this comes from
The figures at the head of the page are counted from the text. The Arabic quotations are taken letter for letter from the copies of the classical works held on this site, and each links to the passage it stands in. The rest was written for Mishkāt from the works below. It is an introduction, not a tafsir: where it matters, read the scholars themselves.
Works quoted on this page
- تفسير البغويMaʿālim al-tanzīlal-Ḥusayn al-Baghawī (d. 516 AH)
- تفسير ابن الجوزيZād al-masīrAbū al-Faraj ibn al-Jawzī (d. 597 AH)
- تفسير القرطبيal-Jāmiʿ li-aḥkām al-QurʾānShams al-Dīn al-Qurṭubī (d. 671 AH)
- تفسير ابن كثيرTafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿaẓīmIsmāʿīl ibn Kathīr (d. 774 AH)
- الدر المنثورal-Durr al-manthūrJalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī (d. 911 AH)
- فتح القدير للشوكانيFatḥ al-qadīrMuḥammad al-Shawkānī (d. 1250 AH)
- تفسير الرازيMafātīḥ al-ghaybFakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606 AH)
- تفسير أبي السعودIrshād al-ʿaql al-salīmAbū al-Suʿūd al-ʿImādī (d. 982 AH)
- التحرير والتنويرal-Taḥrīr wa-l-tanwīrMuḥammad al-Ṭāhir ibn ʿĀshūr (d. 1393 AH)
- المختصر في التفسيرal-Mukhtaṣar fī al-tafsīrMarkaz Tafsīr, a committee of scholars
Beside each scholar quoted stand his creed and his school of fiqh, so that he can be read with discernment. The site’s library holds other commentaries as well; the introductions do not draw on them.
al-Qurṭubī is quoted on these pages only for what he transmits: who said a surah is Makkan or Madinan, and what it has been called. On the attributes of Allah his commentary interprets, in places, in the way of the Ashʿarīs rather than the way of the Salaf, and nothing of that is taken from him here.
al-Rāzī and Abū al-Suʿūd are quoted on these pages only for where a surah came down, and Ibn ʿĀshūr only for the aims of the surah. Nothing on the attributes of Allah is taken from them, and no report comes by way of them. Ibn ʿĀshūr’s statement of the aims is not in the site’s copy of his book: it is read from the Shamela typing as OpenITI holds it, with reports and al-Zamakhsharī’s words left out, and it links to its page there.
Every hadith here says where it is recorded and how it is graded. What is in al-Bukhārī or Muslim is marked ṣaḥīḥ. Outside the two, the grading followed is al-Albānī’s; where none of his was found, the scholar who graded it is named. A report known to be weak or fabricated is not given here at all. A report that is ḥasan, or a Companion’s own saying, or related by the commentators without a graded chain, says so beside it. In the account of what was happening, a small sign after a sentence says the same of the report that sentence tells, and a question mark stands where a date or a figure is not certain, or beside a grading — underlined — that has something to say about its own source: rest on it, or touch it, and it gives the reason. What is drawn from the sīrah — the campaigns, the dates, who was present — is history as its scholars transmit it, and is not graded here.
Also drawn on
- Ibn Isḥāq’s account, from al-Zuhrī, as the commentators relay it
- Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī and Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim
The order of revelation is the one printed at the head of each surah in the Egyptian muṣḥaf, which rests on lists transmitted from Ibn ʿAbbās and Jābir ibn Zayd. It places a surah by where it began. Many surahs came down in parts, over years, and the scholars treat the list as a guide, not a certainty.