“Mecca shall not be invaded after today …”

He said this regarding Mecca, while he was in it after its conquest; whereas he said the other statement concerning the polytheists who had retreated from the Trench, while he was in Medina. Both reports are authentic, praise be to Allah. They differ only in how clearly their intended meaning is conveyed, for this one perplexed some scholars, as Imam Abu Ja‘far al-Tahawi explained in Mushkil al-Athar (2/227–229).

Thus, the meaning of its first clause is: “Quraysh—the inhabitants of Mecca at that time—will not revert to disbelief such that they are fought on account of their disbelief,” just as he said later in it: “Nor shall a Qurayshite be killed …” That is, none of them will apostatize and then be executed.

As for the hadith under this heading, it is as al-Hafiz said in Fath al-Bari:

“A sign of prophethood: he, peace and blessings be upon him, set out to perform ‘umrah in the following year, but Quraysh prevented him from reaching the House. A truce was then concluded between them, until they violated it; this became the cause of the conquest of Mecca, and the matter came to pass exactly as he, peace and blessings be upon him, had said.”

Note: Al-Hafiz, in the biography of al-Harith in al-Isabah, attributed the hadith concerning the invasion of Mecca, narrated by al-Harith ibn al-Barsa’, to al-Tirmidhi and Ibn Hibban, and stated that they both graded it authentic. I believe that his attribution to Ibn Hibban can only have been an error, since what naturally comes to mind is that he meant Sahih Ibn Hibban. Yet we have not found it in its arrangement entitled al-Ihsan, by Emir ‘Ala’ al-Din al-Farisi, nor in the arrangement of its supplementary reports known as Mawarid al-Zam'an, by al-Hafiz al-Haythami. Al-Harith has only one hadith in al-Ihsan, concerning a sinful false oath; it appears in al-Ihsan (7/303–304), and in al-Mawarid as no. 1189. Had this hadith been in Sahih Ibn Hibban, al-Haythami would have included it in Mawarid al-Zam'an, Allah willing.

To clarify the matter, I say: What I have said about al-Mawarid is merely by way of supporting illustration, not