A Promise Made at the Worst Possible Moment An-Nur

This verse was revealed in Mecca, before the migration, when the Muslim community had been boycotted, persecuted, and expelled, surviving as a small persecuted community with no land, no army, and no political structure. At that exact moment, the Quran declared that these people would be granted succession over the earth, as righteous communities had been before them. The promise was specific and public, made in the worst possible circumstances against every visible indicator. Within one generation of the Prophet's death, the Islamic world stretched from the Iberian Peninsula to the borders of India and China. Within a century it was the largest and most advanced civilisation on earth, leading the world in mathematics, medicine, astronomy, and philosophy. The verse did not say 'things will improve.' It said succession upon the earth. That is what occurred.