Synthesis: Sūrat al-Fatḥ 27–29

Triangulating Majmaʿ al-Bayān, al-Tibyān, al-Burhān, Tafsīr al-Qummī, al-Mīzān, and the Enlightening Commentary.

What the passage says. God confirms the Prophet's true vision — "you shall enter the Sacred Mosque, God willing, in security" — and set before it "a near victory" (v.27); He sent His Messenger "with guidance and the religion of truth to make it prevail over all religion" (v.28); and seals the sūra with the portrait of the Prophet and those with him — "severe against the disbelievers, merciful among themselves … their mark is the trace of prostration" — likened in the Torah and Gospel to a seed that grows strong, with the promise of forgiveness and great reward to "those of them who believe and do righteous deeds" (v.29).

The true vision (v.27). All sources recount that the Prophet dreamt, before Ḥudaybiyya, of entering the Sacred Mosque; when the Muslims returned without entering, doubt arose (the hypocrites' taunt), and this verse affirmed the vision and its fulfilment the next year in the ʿUmrat al-Qaḍāʾ (Ṭabarsī, Ṭūsī). On "a near victory," the sources split: al-Qummī and al-Burhān read it as Khaybar, while al-Mīzān argues pointedly for the Ḥudaybiyya truce itself, since it alone opened the way to enter the Mosque safely. al-Burhān adds al-Ṣādiq's teaching that "God willing" here signals not doubt but courtesy — the ground for the Shīʿī practice of istithnāʾ when affirming one's faith.

"To make it prevail over all religion" (v.28). Here the eschatological readings surface. Ṭabarsī already notes the view that its completion is "at the rising of al-Mahdī." al-Qummī makes it explicit — "the Imām whom God will make prevail … who will fill the earth with justice … its taʾwīl comes after its tanzīl" — and al-Burhān amplifies with al-Bāqir ("in the rajʿa") and al-Kāẓim ("the religion of truth is the walāya … at the rising of the Qāʾim … by the walāya of ʿAlī"). These are distinctive Imāmī taʾwīls, rendered strictly as-attributed. al-Mīzān keeps to the reading of Tawba 33 (the prevailing of Islam), without the eschatological gloss.

The portrait of the companions (v.29). All read the double description alike — severity outward, mercy inward (al-Mīzān noting the second clause forestalls any inward harshness) — with the "mark of prostration" variously the humility it impresses (near al-Ṣādiq's "wakefulness in prayer"), the dust of the ground, or a resurrection-radiance. The seed-and-shoot parable figures the believers' growth "to enrage the disbelievers." A significant divergence closes the sūra: al-Mīzān insists "min-hum" is partitive — the promise of forgiveness and great reward is conditional on faith and righteous deeds, and so does not blanket-cover every Companion (excluding hidden hypocrites or later apostates) — whereas the "explicative" reading he rejects would extend it to all. al-Qummī and al-Burhān, for their part, note the Prophet's and companions' description was already written with the People of the Book (cf. 2:146); al-Qummī's veiled individual gloss of the "shoot" is rendered as-attributed.