to do so. It has also been said that the qualification concerns security and fear: that is, “You will surely enter it in safety”; as for entering itself, there is no doubt about that. Another view is: “You will surely enter, all or some of you,” because He knew that some of them would die. The qualification thus concerns the fact that not all of them would enter.

The answer is that the proponents of all these views have fallen into the very difficulty they sought to escape, while also departing from the meaning conveyed by the Quran. They have thus distorted its meaning without gaining anything thereby. As for the interpretation, “Allah commanded you to do so,” He, glorified be He, already knew whether He would command them or not. His knowledge that He would command them to enter it is just like His knowledge that they would enter. They have therefore attached the qualification to something the wording does not indicate, although Allah’s knowledge encompasses both what is explicitly stated and what is implicit.

The same applies to their security and fear: He knows whether they will enter in safety or in fear. He stated that they would enter in safety, knowing that they would indeed enter in safety. Neither matter, then, involved any doubt on Allah’s part, nor indeed on the part of His Messenger.

As for the view, “All or some of them,” the answer is that what is made conditional upon His will is the entry of those intended by the wording. If He intended all of them, then all of them must enter it. If the majority were intended, then it is their entry that is made conditional upon His will. What He did not intend cannot be made conditional by in (“if”); rather, what is made conditional by in is what will occur. This was a promise whose fulfilment was certain. Thus, when ʿUmar said to the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, in the year of al-Hudaybiyyah:

“Did you not tell us that we would come to the House and circumambulate it?”

He replied, “Yes. But did I tell you that you would come to it this year?”

He said, “No.”

He replied, “You will certainly come to it and circumambulate it.”

If it is asked, “Why did He not make the other promises in the Quran conditional in this way?” the answer is: Because this verse was revealed after the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and his Companions had returned