“Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and those with him”
(Abū Bakr)
“are stern against the disbelievers”
(Umar)
“merciful among themselves”
(Uthmān)
“You see them bowing and prostrating”
(Alī).
They assign these attributes to different persons and identify the referents (1) as these four.
The verse explicitly refutes both claims, for it plainly states that all these attributes belong to a group whose members possess all of them, and that they are many, not one. There is no doubt that the four are the best among them, and each of the four possesses all these qualities, although some qualities are more pronounced in one than in another.
Stranger still is the claim of some ignorant (2) exegetes that:
“By the fig and the olive; by Mount Sinai; and by this secure city”
[Surah al-Tīn: 1–3]
refer to those four. This contradicts both reason and revelation. Rather, Allah swore by the three places where He revealed His three Books—the Torah, the Gospel, and the Quran—and from which Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad came forth. As stated in the Torah:
“Allah came from Mount Sinai, shone forth from Seir, and revealed Himself from the mountains of Paran (3).”
The fig and the olive, then, signify the land in which the Messiah was sent. A land is often named after what grows there. Thus, one says, “So-and-so went out to the vineyard, the olive grove, and the pomegranate orchard,” meaning the land in which those things are found. Since the land encompasses them, the whole is referred to by one of its parts.
Mount Sinai is where Allah spoke to Moses, while this secure city is Mecca, the Mother of Cities, where Muhammad—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—was sent.