That day the believers will rejoice

To grasp the significance of this ayah, one needs to know its historical background.

For centuries, the two sides of a great rivalry that shaped the ancient world had faced each other: the Persian Empire in the east and the Roman Empire in the west.

The Romans had adopted Christianity through a process that began roughly three centuries before this revelation was sent down, and Jerusalem had become one of the empire’s holiest cities. In 70 CE, before it had accepted Christianity, the Roman Empire had largely razed Jerusalem to the ground. But the city was later rebuilt and, under Emperor Hadrian, reorganized as a Roman colony and given the name “Aelia Capitolina.”

While this city held immense spiritual and political importance for the Christian Romans, the Jews had long since lost their control over Jerusalem. Especially from Hadrian’s time onward, their entry into the city had been severely restricted, while Jewish communities continued to live in other parts of Palestine.

The lands these two empires competed over contained the most important transit and trade routes of the ancient world: Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine and the surrounding regions. For centuries they had fought, especially for control of the frontier regions, and had launched countless campaigns against each other.

But in the war that began in 602 and continued into the early years of the Prophet’s mission, the Persians launched a sweeping campaign that plunged the Eastern Roman Empire into one of the most severe military crises in its history.

The Persians advanced into vast areas of Anatolia, dealt the Roman armies heavy defeats and captured Jerusalem in 614. As the empire’s eastern lines of defense collapsed one after another, the Persian advance became a growing threat to the capital, Constantinople, as well.

This was no ordinary back-and-forth struggle for power; it was a crushing and humiliating blow that deeply shook the power and prestige of the Eastern Roman Empire.

News of these events reached Arabia as well, for Arabia lay right at the edge of this great geopolitical struggle. The Quraysh, for their part, saw the Romans’ defeat as an opportunity to mock the early Muslims.

They interpreted the defeat of the Christian Romans, who were “People of the Book,” by the Zoroastrian Persians as a sign of superiority for their own beliefs. The Persians did not share the faith of the idolaters of Makkah; but the Quraysh saw the defeat of the Romans, who believed in a revealed scripture, as a pretext they could use against the Muslims.

Mocking the early Muslims, they claimed that the Romans, who like them believed in prophets and holy scriptures, had suffered a heavy defeat, whereas the Persians had prevailed. In their view, this outcome showed the superiority of their own position over the faith the Muslims represented.

The early Muslim community, on the other hand, saw the Romans as religiously closer to themselves. For the Christians, just like them, believed in revelation from Allah, in prophets and in holy scriptures. Although there were differences of belief between them, this shared heritage of prophethood and divine revelation made the Muslims feel a closeness to the Romans.

In those early years, the Muslims held out hope that Christians and Jews would accept the Qur’an as a confirmation of the revelations previously sent to them. Indeed, in later years some people of Madinah who were familiar with the tradition of prophethood and revelation embraced Islam. Their familiarity with the concept of prophethood, gained through the Jewish communities of Madinah, was one of the factors that helped them understand the message of Islam.

That is why the Romans’ heavy defeat caused great sorrow among the early Muslims. The idolaters of Makkah, too, seized on this as an opportunity to mock the Muslims and tried to deepen their sorrow even further.

Allah responded to all of this not merely with words of consolation, but with a miracle placed within the very words of revelation.

The comeback would take place ‎فِى بِضۡعِ سِنِينَ‎ (within a few years).

The Arabic word ‎بِضۡع‎ specifically denotes a range between three and nine. It is not a vague estimate, but an expression that defines a specific time frame.

When Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him) heard this revelation, he went to some of the Quraysh leaders and offered to make a wager that the Romans would indeed make a comeback, for at that stage betting had not yet been prohibited. One of the disbelievers accepted the wager and proposed three years as the time limit.

The Prophet (peace be upon him) advised Abu Bakr to renegotiate the terms: the expression ‎بِضۡع‎ covered a period of up to nine years, so he told him to raise the stake and extend the time limit. The stake was then raised to a hundred camels, and the time limit to nine years.

What happened nine years later? In one of the most striking reversals in the military history of antiquity, the Romans defeated the Persians.

Precisely within the time frame the Qur’an had stated, and at a moment when no one, not even the Romans themselves, could have foreseen such a change, the statement in this ayah was fulfilled completely.

But this ayah holds something even more extraordinary than a military prediction. The ayah says:

Absolute authority over all events, past and future, belongs to Him.

What appears to be the rise and fall of empires is, in reality, always under His command.

Then comes the part that is awe-inspiring in its own right:

On the day the Romans are victorious, the hearts of the believers will be filled with joy.

Why would the believers feel such great joy at a military victory won by the Romans?

Over the nine years that had passed, the Muslim community would already have come into direct contact with Christians and Jews, and would also have experienced the disappointment of seeing that the great majority of them would not accept Islam. So the shared sense of solidarity between them must have long since weakened. What, then, is the source of such great joy?

Because in that same year (at the very moment the Romans defeated the Persians), the Muslims won the Battle of Badr. Allah was giving the glad tidings of the victory at Badr nine years in advance.

The Companions who heard this ayah perhaps did not fully grasp what that great day of joy would be like. They thought it was only glad tidings of Rome’s comeback.

But when that moment came, they realized: this was what Allah had meant — the joy of Badr.

Such is the word of Allah.