This could only have occurred before the conveyance of the message was complete; during the Farewell Pilgrimage, the message was fully conveyed.

During the Farewell Pilgrimage he said:

“Have I conveyed the message? Have I conveyed it?”

They replied, “Yes.”

He said, “O Allah, bear witness.”

He also said to them:

“O people, I am leaving among you something which, if you hold fast to it, you will never go astray: the Book of Allah. You will be asked about me, so what will you say?”

They replied, “We bear witness that you have conveyed the message, discharged your trust, and given sincere counsel.” He then raised his finger toward the sky and tilted it (1) down toward the ground (2), saying, “O Allah, bear witness! O Allah, bear witness!”

This is the wording of the hadith of Jabir in Sahih Muslim and in other authentic reports (3).

He also said:

“Let the one who is present convey it to the one who is absent, for one to whom it is conveyed may comprehend it better than one who heard it.” (4)

The promised protection would therefore have been in effect at the time (5) of that earlier conveyance. Hence, this verse cannot have been revealed after the Farewell Pilgrimage, because he had already conveyed the message before then, and because at that point he feared no one from whom he needed to be protected (6). Rather, after (7) the Farewell Pilgrimage, the inhabitants of Mecca (8) and Medina, together with all those around the two cities, were Muslims who submitted to him (9); among them there was no