الفتوحات
al-Futūḥāt
The moral and material victories granted to Muhammad (peace be upon him) and his early followers, and so the conversion of whole populations to Islam.
What it means
Al-futūḥāt is the plural of fatḥ, an opening or victory granted by God. It names the series of victories that came to Muhammad (peace be upon him) and the early community, beginning with the opening of Mecca and extending to Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Persia and further. The word covers both the military outcome and the spread of the faith. The unit of meaning is thus the victory as God’s gift, whatever its field.
Faruqi’s definition goes further than the common sense of “the conquests”. He includes the moral victories, and the entry of whole populations into Islam, as part of what the term means. The Quran gives the pattern: “When the help of God and the victory come, and you see people entering the religion of God in crowds” (110:1–2). The book of Ibn ʿArabī called al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya uses the same word for another kind of opening, the spiritual. The meaning is therefore wider than the English word “conquests” allows.
Often misunderstood as
Rendered “the Islamic conquests”, which reduces the term to military expansion; it also covers the moral victories and the entry of peoples into Islam.
Term and Arabic as listed in Ismail al Faruqi, Toward Islamic English (International Institute of Islamic Thought, 1995), p. 42, listed as AL FUTŪḤĀT. The definition is restated here.