The Most High said concerning the hypocrites:
“Had they gone forth with you, they would only have increased your confusion and hastened about among you, seeking to sow discord among you.”
This foretells the sins they would commit before they committed them.
The Most High also said:
“Say to those Bedouins who remained behind, ‘You will be called to face a people of great military might; you will fight them, or they will submit.’”
This foretells that someone would call them to wage jihad against those people. His calling them is itself one of the acts of Allah’s servants. There are many such examples in the Quran. Indeed, even individual created beings—angels, prophets, and others—can have knowledge of the future acts of Allah’s servants. How, then, could the Lord of all worlds lack such knowledge?
The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, foretold future acts of his nation and others, in accounts too numerous to recount at length. For example, he foretold that through his son al-Hasan, Allah would reconcile two great groups of Muslims; that a renegade faction would break away at a time of division among the Muslims and would be killed by whichever of the two factions was closer to the truth; that some people would turn back on their heels after him; and that the caliphate upon the prophetic way would last thirty years and then become kingship.
He also declared that no one upon the mountain was other than a prophet, a man of unwavering truthfulness, or a martyr—and most of those present did indeed become martyrs. On the day of Badr, he foretold the deaths of the leading men of Quraysh before they were killed. He foretold the emergence of the Dajjāl, the descent of Jesus, peace be upon him, at the white minaret east of Damascus, and Jesus’ killing him at the gate of Ludd. He also foretold the emergence of Gog and Magog, and the emergence of the Khārijites, concerning whom he said:
“From the stock of this man will emerge people whose prayer will make any one of you regard his own prayer as insignificant, and his fasting