Victory
IN THE NAME OF GOD, THE MOST GRACIOUS, THE DISPENSER OF GRACE[48:29]
MUHAMMAD is God’s Apostle; and those who are [truly] with him are firm and unyielding towards all deniers of the truth, [yet] full of mercy towards one another. Thou canst see them bowing down, prostrating themselves [in prayer], seeking favour with God and [His] goodly acceptance: their marks are on their faces, traced by prostration.
This is their parable in the Torah as well as their parable in the Gospel: [they are] like a seed that brings forth its shoot, and then He strengthens it, so that it grows stout, and [in the end] stands firm upon its stem, delighting the sowers....
[Thus will God cause the believers to grow in strength,] so that through them He might confound the deniers of the truth. [But] unto such of them as may [yet] attain to faith and do righteous deeds, God has promised forgiveness and a reward supreme.

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* v.29 : This composite gives, I believe, the full meaning of the term ashiddā’ (sing. shadīd) in the above context.
* Lit., “among themselves.” Cf. 5:54 – “humble towards the believers, proud towards all who deny the truth.”
* The infinitive noun sujūd (“prostration”) stands here for the innermost consummation of faith, while its “trace” signifies the spiritual reflection of that faith in the believer’s manner of life and even in his outward aspect. Since the “face” is the most expressive part of man’s personality, it is often used in the Qur’ān in the sense of one’s “whole being.”
* Regarding the significance of the term Injīl (“Gospel”) as used in the Qur’ān, see sūrah 3, note 4.
* Lit., “infuse with wrath.”
* Whereas most of the classical commentators understand the above sentence as alluding to believers in general, Rāzī relates the pronoun in minhum (“of them” or “among them”) explicitly to the deniers of the truth spoken of in the preceding sentence – i.e., to those of them who might yet attain to faith and thus achieve God’s forgiveness: a promise which was fulfilled within a few years after the revelation of this verse, inasmuch as most of the Arabian enemies of the Prophet embraced Islam, and many of them became its torchbearers. But in a wider sense, this divine promise remains open until Resurrection Day (Tabarī), relating to everybody, at all times and in all cultural environments, who might yet attain to the truth and live up to it.