What does the saying of Allaah: {That Allaah may forgive for you what preceded of your sin and what will follow...} (48.2) mean?

All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, is His slave and Messenger.

Allaah Says (what means): {That Allaah may forgive for you what preceded of your sin [i.e. errors] and what will follow and complete His favor upon you and guide you to a straight path.} [Quran 48:2].

The summary of what the interpreters of the Quran mentioned about the interpretation of this verse is that Allaah had forgiven for His Prophet  all of his sins; the ones that he committed before and the ones he might commit in his future life before death, and He promised him to complete His Favors upon him by removing Shirk [polytheism] and making the Word of the Truth high, and completing the good characteristics of the souls and purifying them with ‘Eemaan and good deeds until good becomes widespread by the spread of the religion of Islam. Subsequently, righteousness would become a conduct of the people to an extent that they would follow the example of each other concerning this conduct. Indeed, this coincides with the Conquest of Makkah and the people entering the religion of Allaah in multitudes.

However, it should be noted that the conquest that is mentioned at the beginning of Chapter 48 – by which the Chapter was named – does not refer to the Conquest of Makkah; rather, it refers to the Al-Hudaybiyyah Treaty.

Finally, the following question might arise here: Are the Prophets infallible or not? The answer to this question can be found in Fataawa 85367 and 6901.

Allaah Knows best.