The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 1) — Page 254
CH. 2 AL-BAQARAH PT. 2 كَمَا اَرْسَلْنَا فِيكُمْ رَسُولًا مِنْكُمْ يَتْلُوا Even as “We have sent to. 152 you a Messenger from among عَلَيْكُمْ ابْتِنَا وَيُزَكِّيْكُمْ وَيُعَلِّمُكُمُ yourselves who recites Our الكتب وَالْحِكْمَةَ وَيُعَلِّمُكُم مَّا لَمْ Signs to you, and purifies you, and teaches you the Book and "See 2:130. argument in favour of the commandment relating to the conquest of Mecca. God means to say that, with the taking of Mecca, God's favour on the Muslims would begin to be perfected; for it would mean the subjugation of all Arabia and the influx of thousands of men into the fold of Islam. The result amply justified the prophecy; for the conquest of Mecca was rapidly followed by the conversion to Islam of thousands of Arabs. Most of the Arabs, at heart victims of the beauty of Islam, had deferred their acceptance of the new faith till the issue of the struggle between Muslims and Meccans had been finally settled, and now they virtually came forward in "troops" to join it. Another reason why the conquest of Mecca was followed by a general influx of Arabs into Islam was that although the Arabs followed no revealed Book, yet the prophecy of Abraham that Mecca would not be conquered by the followers of any false Prophet, and any people attempting it would meet with destruction was well known to them. They had only recently seen a remarkable illustration of the fulfilment of this prophecy in the miraculous destruction of the Abyssinian invader Abraha and his 254 powerful army. Thus when Mecca fell into the hands of the Holy Prophet, they were at once convinced of his truth and thousands of them hastened to embrace Islam. In this and the preceding verses (vv. 145 and 150), the command to turn to the Ka'bah has been mentioned thrice. This is not a repetition; for the first command, i. e. in v. 145, pertains to the change of the Qiblah, while the second and the third, i. e. in vv. 150 and 151, refer to the conquest of Mecca. But here, too, there is truly speaking no repetition, for the command about the conquest of Mecca contained in each of these two verses serves a different purpose. In v. 150 Muslims are asked to turn their attention to the conquest of Mecca because God wished them to do so. So they were duty bound to carry it out undeterred by any fear of failure; whereas in the verse under comment, i. e. v. 151, the benefits which were to accrue to Muslims on their carrying out the command relating to the conquest of Mecca have been mentioned. Those benefits briefly are: (1) refutation of the objections and criticism of the enemy; (2) conversion to Islam of hundreds of thousands of Arabs, including the kith and kin of the Muslims; and (3) enlargement of the political power of Islam.