the Companions, who represented the mystery of “Say: If you do love God, follow me: God  will love you and forgive you your sins; for God is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful”(3:31) and were in the company of the Companions and the Rightly-Guided Caliphs. So too, through its allusive meaning, it gives news through the epithet “and the Veracious” that Abu Bakr the Veracious would succeed to the Noble Messenger’s (Upon whom be blessings and peace) position after him, and would be Caliph, famous among the Muslim community with the title Strictly Veracious, and be the chief of the caravan of “the Veracious.” With the phrase “the Martyrs” it foretells the martyrdom of three of the Rightly-Guided Caliphs, and that after the Veracious there would three martyr Caliphs. Because “Martyrs (Shuhada’)” is plural and the  lowest number [in Arabic grammar] of the plural is three. That means, ‘Umar, ‘Uthman, and ‘Ali (May God be pleased  with them) would lead Islam after the Veracious One and would suffer martyrdom. And it occurred exactly as predicted.

Also, it is giving news through the phrase “the Righteous” that people like the

People of the Bench who performed good works, acts of worship, and feared God, and are commended in the Torah, would be numerous in the future. While the phrase “How  goodly  a   company  are  these!”  praises  the  generation  that  followed  the Companions and accompanied them in learning and good works. And in addition to showing that to  accompany  those four groups on the road to eternity is good and commendable, it indicates the importance of Hasan’s brief period as Caliph, as was confirmed by the Messenger’s (UWBP) prophecies: “The Caliphate after me will last thirty years,”4  and, “This my grandson Hasan is master of men, by means of whom God will reconcile two great groups,”5  thus quelling dispute and conflict. In this way it indicates that Hasan would be a fifth Caliph  succeeding the four Rightly-Guided Caliphs. While through a device called in rhetoric mustatba^a\t al-tara\kêb, it alludes to the fifth Caliph’s name with the phrase “How goodly  (hasuna) a company are these!”

There are many further mysteries like these allusive predictions, but since they are outside our purpose, that door has not been answered for now. Numerous verses of the All-Wise Qur’an give news of the Unseen in many respects. This sort of the Qur’an’s predictions about the Unseen number thousands.

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4   al-Munawi, Fayd al-Qadir, iii, 509; Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr, al-Tamhid, viii, 67. See also, Tirmidhi, Fitan, 48; Musnad, v, 220, 221; al-‘Albani, Sahih Jami‘ al-Saghir, no: 3336.

5   Bukhari, Fitan, 20; Sulh, 9, Fada’il Ashab al-Nabi, 22, Manaqib, 25; Darimi, Sunna, 12;

Tirmidhi, Manaqib, 25; Nasa’i, Jum‘a, 27; Musnad, v, 38, 44, 49, 51.