A Second Explanation of the Above Postscript1

In addition to corroborating the predictions about the Unseen at the end of Sura al-Fath, the verse, “All … are in the company of those on whom is the grace of God – of the  Prophets,  the  Veracious,  the Witnesses,  and  the  Righteous: how goodly a company are these!”(4:69) elucidates what is meant by the people of the Straight Path and the verse “the path of those  whom  you have blessed”(1:7) and describes the luminous, large, familiar, attractive caravan  travelling the lengthy road leading to eternity.  It  vigorously urges  the  believers and  the  intelligent  to  join,  follow,  and accompany it. In addition to its explicit meaning, like the verses at the end of Sura al- Fath, this verse indicates through allusive and figurative meanings – called in rhetoric a’arid al-kalam2  and mustatba’at al-tarakib3  – the four Rightly-Guided Caliphs and

Hasan (May God be pleased with him), the fifth Caliph. It gives news of the Unseen in several respects, as follows:

Just as the above verse states through its explicit meaning that the caravan of the Prophets, the group of the Veracious, the community of the Martyrs and Witnesses, the  category  of   the   Righteous,  and  the  class  of  the  generation  following  the Companions are  the  people  of the  Straight  Path  and  those  among mankind  who receive elevated divine bounties, and are ‘the doers of good;’ so too it indicates in a manner predicting the Unseen  that the best and most excellent of those groups are found in the World of Islam, like this: it points to the heirs of the Prophets who follow on in succession through the mystery of the  legacy of the Messenger of the End of Time’s (UWBP) prophethood, and to the caravan of  the Veracious who follow on from the source of veracity of the Strictly Veracious One, and  to the convoy of the Martyrs,  who  are bound  through the rank of martyrdom  to  three of  the Rightly- Guided Caliphs, and to the community of the Righteous, who are tied to it through the mystery of “And  those  who  believe  and  do  good  works,”(2:82,  etc.)  and  to  the categories of the generation following

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1   My brothers have written down both explanations, since they found them useful. Otherwise one of them would have been sufficient.

2   See, Ibn Manzur, Lisan al-’Arab, vii, 183; Qurtubi, al-Jami‘ bi-Ahkam al-Qur’an, x, 191, 199.

3   See, Ibn Hajar, Fath al-Bari, i, 406; al-Munawi, al-Ta‘arif, i, 32, 55; al-Hamawi, al-Adhanat al- Adab, ii, 194.