Al-Fath: (18) "Allah was certainly pleased..."

"Allah the Exalted was certainly pleased with the believers when they pledged allegiance to you under the tree." They were the people of al-Hudaybiyyah, except for Jadd ibn Qays, for he was a hypocrite and did not pledge allegiance.

The origin of this pledge—called the "Pledge of Ridwan" (Pledge of Good Pleasure) because of Allah the Exalted's statement regarding it: "Allah the Exalted was certainly pleased," etc.—is that when the Prophet (may Allah the Exalted bless him and grant him peace) arrived at al-Hudaybiyyah, he sent Khirash (with a kha marked with a dot and an open ra) ibn Umayyah al-Khuza'i as a messenger to the people of Makkah. He had him mounted on a camel of his known as "al-Tha'lab," to inform them that he had come for Umrah and did not intend to fight. When he came to them and spoke to them, they hamstrung his camel and intended to kill him, but the Ahabish (tribal confederates) prevented them, and they let him go until he returned to the Messenger (may Allah the Exalted bless him and grant him peace). He then called for Umar (may Allah the Exalted be pleased with him) to send him. Umar said: "O Messenger of Allah, the people have recognized my enmity toward them and my harshness against them; I do not feel secure, and there is no one in Makkah from the tribe of Adi who would be angry on my behalf if I were harmed. So send Uthman ibn Affan, for his kin are there, they love him, and he will convey what you intend." The Messenger of Allah (may Allah the Exalted bless him and grant him peace) called Uthman and sent him to the Quraish, saying: "Inform them that we have not come for battle, but have come as pilgrims; and invite them to Islam." He (peace and blessings be upon him) commanded him to go to believing men and women in Makkah, give them glad tidings of the conquest, and inform them that Allah the Exalted would soon manifest His religion in Makkah. Uthman (may Allah the Exalted be pleased with him) went to the Quraish, and Aban ibn Sa'id ibn al-As met him, descended from his mount, carried him upon it, and granted him protection. He came to the Quraish and informed them; they said to him: "If you wish, you may circumambulate the House (the Kaaba), but as for your entry upon us, there is no way." Uthman (may Allah the Exalted be pleased with him) replied: "I would not circumambulate it until the Messenger of Allah (may Allah the Exalted bless him and grant him peace) circumambulates it." They detained him. Word reached the Messenger of Allah (may Allah the Exalted bless him and grant him peace) and the Muslims that Uthman had been killed, so he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: "We shall not depart until we confront the people." His crier called out: "Behold, the Holy Spirit has descended upon the Messenger of Allah (may Allah the Exalted bless him and grant him peace) and commanded him to take the pledge of allegiance." They emerged in the name of Allah the Exalted, and he took their pledge. The Muslims rushed to the Messenger of Allah (may Allah the Exalted bless him and grant him peace) and pledged allegiance to him. Jabir said, as recorded in Sahih Muslim and elsewhere: "We pledged allegiance to him (may Allah the Exalted bless him and grant him peace) that we would not flee, and we did not pledge to him until death." Al-Bukhari recorded from Salamah ibn al-Akwa' who said: "I pledged allegiance to the Messenger of Allah (may Allah the Exalted bless him and grant him peace) under the tree." It was said: "Upon what did you pledge that day?" He said: "Upon death." Muslim recorded from Ma'qil ibn Yasar that he was holding the branches of the tree away from the face of the Messenger of Allah (may Allah the Exalted bless him and grant him peace) while he was taking the pledge from the people. The first to pledge allegiance to the Messenger of Allah (may Allah the Exalted bless him and grant him peace) that day was Aban, who is Wahb ibn Muhassin, the brother of Ukashah ibn Muhassin; it is also said that it was Sinan ibn Abi Sinan. Al-Bayhaqi narrated the first in al-Dala'il from al-Sha'bi, and that he (the man) said to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him): "Extend your hand so that I may pledge to you." The Prophet (may Allah the Exalted bless him and grant him peace) said: "Upon what do you pledge to me?" He replied: "Upon what is in your own soul." In the hadith of Jabir which Muslim recorded, he said: "We pledged to him (peace and blessings be upon him) while Umar (may Allah the Exalted be pleased with him) was holding his hand." Perhaps this was not at the very start of the pledge; otherwise, in Sahih al-Bukhari, it is recorded from Nafi' that Umar (may Allah the Exalted be pleased with him) sent his son Abdullah on the day of al-Hudaybiyyah to get a horse of his that was with a man of the Ansar, in order to fight upon it, while the Messenger of Allah (may Allah the Exalted bless him and grant him peace) was taking the pledge under the tree, and Umar did not know of it. Abdullah pledged allegiance, then went to the horse, and brought it to Umar, while Umar (may Allah the Exalted be pleased with him) was arming himself for battle. He informed him that the Messenger of Allah (may Allah the Exalted bless him and grant him peace) was taking the pledge under the tree, so he set off and went with him until he pledged allegiance to the Messenger of Allah (may Allah the Exalted bless him and grant him peace).

It is authenticated that he (may Allah the Exalted bless him and grant him peace) struck his right hand upon his other hand and said: "This is the pledge of Uthman." When the polytheists heard of the pledge, they became afraid and sent back Uthman (may Allah the Exalted be pleased with him) and a group of Muslims. The number of the believers was one thousand four hundred, according to the most correct opinion among the majority of scholars of hadith, and al-Bukhari narrated it from Jabir. It is also narrated from Sa'id ibn Qatadah who said: "I said to Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib: 'It has reached me that Jabir ibn Abdullah used to say: They were fourteen hundred.' Sa'id said to me: 'Jabir narrated to me that they were fifteen hundred, those who pledged allegiance to the Messenger of Allah (may Allah the Exalted bless him and grant him peace).'" Abu Dawud also followed this account. It is also narrated from Abdullah ibn Awfa who said: "The Companions of the tree were thirteen hundred." With Abu Shaybah, from the hadith of Salamah ibn al-Akwa', they were seventeen hundred. Musa ibn Uqbah asserted they were sixteen hundred. Ibn Sa'id reported that they were one thousand five hundred and twenty. The variations are reconciled by suggesting they are based on whether one counts everyone, or excludes the minors, the followers, or the middle-ranked, or similar reasons. As for the statement of Ibn Ishaq that they were seven hundred, no one agreed with him, because he derived it from the statement of Jabir: "A camel is slaughtered on behalf of ten," and they had slaughtered seventy camels. This does not indicate that they had not slaughtered other than the camels, especially since some of them, like Abu Qatadah, had not entered into ihram at all. The tree was an samurah (acacia) tree, and it is well-known that people would come to it and pray there. When that reached Umar (may Allah the Exalted be pleased with him), he ordered it to be cut down out of fear of fitnah (temptation) regarding it, due to the proximity of the Era of Ignorance and the possibility of worshipping other than Allah the Exalted. In the two Sahihs, from the hadith of Tariq ibn Abd al-Rahman, it is said: "I set out for Hajj and passed by a people praying. I said: 'What is this mosque?' They said: 'This is the tree where the Messenger of Allah (may Allah the Exalted bless him and grant him peace) took the Pledge of Ridwan.' I came to Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib and informed him, and he said: 'My father narrated to me that he was among those who pledged allegiance to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) under the tree.' He said: 'When the following year came, we forgot it and could not find it.' Then Sa'id said: 'The Companions of Muhammad (may Allah the Exalted bless him and grant him peace) did not know it, but you knew it; so which of you is more knowledgeable?'"

"Ridwan" (pleasure) is the opposite of wrath. It is sometimes used with 'an (from) and bi (with), and is sometimes transitive by itself. When used with 'an, it only enters upon the object (the person), not the meaning, but with consideration of an action issuing from that person which necessitates pleasure. The instance in the verse is of this category; the meaning necessitating pleasure in it is the pledging of allegiance. When mentioned with the object using bi (e.g., raditu 'an Zayd bi-ihsanihi—I was pleased with Zayd for his kindness), the ba is for causality; it is also possible for it to be a connecting particle. It is explicitly causal when contrasted, like sakhittu 'alayhi bi-isa'atihi (I was wrathful with him for his evil). When used with the ba (e.g., raditu bi-hi), it must enter upon the meaning, unless it enters upon the essence as a precursor to the meaning to be more emphatic, as you say: "I am pleased with Allah the Exalted as my Lord and Judge." When it is transitive by itself, it may enter upon the essence, such as raditu Zaydan (I was pleased with Zayd), even if it is with consideration of the meaning, signaling that the entirety of him is pleasing due to that trait; there is hyperbole in this. It may also enter upon the meaning, such as "so-and-so's authority." The first is more frequent in usage. When used with the lam (e.g., raditu laka al-tijarah—I have approved the trade for you), it becomes transitive by itself. There is figurative speech here: either by making "pleasure" a metaphor for istihmad (seeking praise), or because you have made his being "pleasing to him" the equivalent of his being "pleasing to you," as a hyperbole that he is inherently pleasing and praiseworthy, and that you choose for him what you choose for yourself. This is more emphatic.

Furthermore, regarding the Truth, the Exalted is His Majesty, it is impossible for attributes to be newly acquired. They say: because He, Glory be to Him, has no attribute that comes into being following an affair at all. For them, it is a metaphor: either from the names of attributes if interpreted as His "will to reward them with the reward of one who is pleased with those under his authority," or from the names of actions if interpreted as "the rewarding itself." Likewise, if istihmad is intended. In al-Bahr, it is stated that the factor governing idha (when) in the verse is radiya (was pleased), and it is here in the sense of "manifesting favors upon them," so it is an attribute of action, not an attribute of essence, so that it is restricted by time. You know that the predecessors do not interpret such things figuratively; they affirm them for Him, the Exalted, in a manner befitting Him, Glory be to Him, and they divert the "coming into being" necessitated by the restriction of time to "relational connection." Furthermore, restricting the pleasure to the time of the pledge of allegiance suggests its causality for it; thus, there is no need to make idha (when) for causality, and the expression is to summon the image of the pledge of allegiance. His statement, the Exalted: "under the tree," is either related to "they pledge allegiance to you" or to an elided term, serving as a state (hal) for its object. In restricting it to that, there is an indication of the magnitude of that pledge and that it was not out of fear of him (peace and blessings be upon him), and therefore it necessitated the pleasure of Allah the Exalted, which nothing equals and which follows what could hardly come to mind. It suffices for what resulted from that what Ahmad recorded from Jabir and Muslim from Umm Bishr from him, from the Prophet (may Allah the Exalted bless him and grant him peace), who said: "No one who pledged allegiance under the tree shall enter the Fire." He (peace and blessings be upon him) said that in the presence of Hafsa, and she said: "Yes, O Messenger of Allah," so he rebuked her. She said: "And there is none of you except that he will come to it," so he (peace and blessings be upon him) said: "Allah the Exalted has said: 'Then We will save those who feared Allah and will leave the wrongdoers within it, on their knees.'"

It is authenticated through the narration of the two Shaykhs and others regarding those believers, from the hadith of Jabir, that he (may Allah the Exalted bless him and grant him peace) said to them: "You are the best of the people of the earth." It is therefore appropriate for everyone who claims Islam to show them reverence and to be pleased with them; even if it were otherwise, it would not harm them after the pleasure of Allah the Exalted with them. Uthman is among them; in fact, the hand of the Messenger of Allah (may Allah the Exalted bless him and grant him peace) was, for him (may Allah the Exalted be pleased with him), as Anas said, "better than their hands for themselves."

"Allah knew what was in their hearts" (i.e., of sincerity and purity in their pledge). Something similar is narrated from Qatadah, Ibn Jurayj, and al-Farra. Al-Tabari and Mundhir ibn Sa'id said: "It means faith and its soundness, love of the religion, and eagerness for it." It is said: "It means their distress and sense of pride against being soft-hearted toward the polytheists and their truce." Abu Hayyan favored this, and the first (sincerity/faith) is better in my view.

It (the sentence) is a conjunction to "pledge allegiance to you," as you have known that it means "they pledged allegiance to you." It is permitted to be a conjunction to "was pleased" by interpreting it as "He showed His knowledge," so it becomes caused by the pleasure and resulting from it.

"And He sent down tranquility upon them" (i.e., calmness, security, and tranquility of the soul, and strengthening their hearts with encouragement). It is also said: "through peace," but that is not as strong. The apparent meaning is that it is a conjunction to "He knew." In al-Irshad, it is stated that it is a conjunction to "Allah the Exalted was pleased." The apparent meaning of Abu Hayyan's words is the first. Since he favored the interpretation of "what was in their hearts" as you have heard just now, it means that the tranquility here is the settling of their hearts and their submission to accepting the command of Allah the Exalted. Muqatil said: "Allah knew what was in their hearts of dislike for the pledge, because they were to fight alongside him (peace and blessings be upon him) until death; so He sent down tranquility upon them until they pledged allegiance." Sakinah (tranquility) is interpreted as the submission of their hearts and the removal of the burden of the pledge from them. I swear by my life that this man did not recognize the right of the Companions (may Allah the Exalted be pleased with them) and interpreted the words of Allah the Exalted contrary to their apparent meaning.

"And He rewarded them with a near conquest."

Ibn Abbas, Ikrimah, Qatadah, Ibn Abi Layla, and others said: "It is the conquest of Khaybar, which was after their return from al-Hudaybiyyah." Al-Hasan said: "It is the conquest of Hajar," and the intended meaning is Hajar of Bahrain. It was a conquest in his time (peace and blessings be upon him), as evidenced by his letter to Amr ibn Hazm regarding alms and blood money. In Sahih al-Bukhari, it is mentioned that he (may Allah the Exalted bless him and grant him peace) made a peace treaty with the people of Bahrain and took the jizya from the Magians of Hajar. Conquest does not necessitate previous battle, as you have known from what preceded in its interpretation. Thus, the statement of al-Tibi is invalid, in which he objected to al-Hasan by saying: "No one among the scholars mentioned that he (may Allah the Exalted bless him and grant him peace) fought against Hajar." Yes, applying the word "conquest" to such a thing is rare and not common; indeed, it is said that it is a metaphorical meaning for it. It is also said: "It is the conquest of Makkah," and the "nearness" is a relative matter. Al-Hasan and Nuh al-Qari recited wa atahum (and He gave them).