The Qur'an (Oxford World's Classics)

336
The Quran 48: 21
hastened this gain for you. He has held back the hands of hostile
people from you as a sign for the faithful and He will guide you to a
straight path. 21 There are many other gains [to come], over which
you have no power. God has full control over them: God has power
over all things.
22 If the disbelievers had fought against you, they would have
taken flight and found no one to protect or support them: 23 such was
God’s practice in the past and you will find no change in God’s
practices. 24 In the valley of Mecca it was He who held their hands
back from you and your hands back from them after He gave you
the advantage over them a ––God sees all that you do. 25 They were
the ones who disbelieved, who barred you from the Sacred Mosque,
and who prevented the offering from reaching its place of sacrifice. If
there had not been among them, unknown to you, believing men and
women whom you would have trampled underfoot, inadvertently
incurring guilt on their account – God brings whoever He will into
His mercy – if the [believers] had been clearly separated, We would
have inflicted a painful punishment on the disbelievers. 26 While the
disbelievers had fury in their hearts – the fury of ignorance – God
sent His tranquillity down on to His Messenger and the believers
and made binding on them [their] promise to obey God, b for that
was more appropriate and fitting for them. God has full knowledge
of all things.
27 God has truly fulfilled His Messenger’s vision: ‘God willing,
you will most certainly enter the Sacred Mosque in safety, shavenheaded
or with cropped hair, c without fear!’– God knew what you
did not – and He has granted you a speedy triumph. 28 It was He who
sent His Messenger, with guidance and the religion of Truth, for him
to show that it is above all [false] religion. God suffices as a witness:
29 Muhammad is the Messenger of God.
Those who follow him are harsh towards the disbelievers and
compassionate towards each other. You see them kneeling and
prostrating, seeking God’s bounty and His good pleasure: on their
faces they bear the marks of their prostrations. This is how they are
pictured in the Torah and the Gospel: like a seed that puts forth its
a A detachment of eighty Meccan fighters attacked the Prophet’s camp but were
captured. The Prophet released them after the treaty was signed.
b The promise they made under the tree at Hudaybiyya (see verse 18).
c These are some of the final rites of pilgrimage.