Surat an-Nasr: The Nearing End

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

The Conquest of Mecca was the fall of the central nerve of Arabia. The tribes who had stood aside to see who would win now had their answer: if Allāh, who once saved Mecca from the People of the Elephant, let this man take it, he must be a prophet. He had fought barely a tenth of the Arabs; the rest came of their own accord, and from the Conquest until his death delegations arrived every few days, the Year of Delegations, fulfilling وَرَأَيْتَ النَّاسَ يَدْخُلُونَ فِي دِينِ اللَّهِ أَفْوَاجًا, "you see the people entering the religion of Allāh in crowds." Paganism was erased from an entire peninsula in under fifteen years.

❧The Meaning ʿUmar Learned

Later, in his caliphate, ʿUmar admitted the young Ibn ʿAbbās to his council of elders and one day tested them on Sūrat al-Naṣr, إِذَا جَاءَ نَصْرُ اللَّهِ وَالْفَتْح (110). Some said only that Allāh commands gratitude for victory. But Ibn ʿAbbās said: it tells the Prophet ﷺ that with Mecca conquered, his time on earth was near its end, "so glorify your Lord and seek His forgiveness" was preparation to meet Allāh. ʿUmar said, "I know of the sūrah only what you have said." So the pinnacle was also the first announcement of the farewell; barely two years later the Prophet ﷺ passed away. If he, the best of creation, was told to increase in istighfār to meet his Lord, what of us?