Makkan, by agreement
The early years in Makkah, when the believers were mocked in the streets by the men of standing
Ibn al-Jawzī and al-Qurṭubī both record agreement that it is Makkan; Ibn al-Jawzī notes one isolated saying that it is Madinan. The commentators differ only over whether it came down about one man or about a type.
وَهِيَ مَكِّيَّةٌ بِإجْماعِهِمْ قالَ هِبَةُ اللَّهِ المُفَسِّرُ: وقَدْ قِيلَ: إنَّها مَدَنِيَّةٌتَفْسِيرُ سُورَةِ الْهُمَزَةِ مَكِّيَّةٌ بِإِجْمَاعٍ. وَهِيَ تِسْعُ آياتThe same, in other works
- al-BaghawīMaʿālim al-tanzīlAhl al-Sunnah in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
سُورَةُ الْهُمَزَةِ مَكِّيَّةٌ
- al-Suyūṭīal-Durr al-manthūrAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Ibn ʿAbbās: it came down in Makkah. Recorded by Ibn Mardawayh.
أخْرَجَ ابْنُ مَرْدُويَهَ عَنِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ قالَ: أنْزَلَ ﴿ويْلٌ لِكُلِّ هُمَزَةٍ﴾ بِمَكَّةَ
A report he gathers; its chain is not graded here.
- al-RāzīMafātīḥ al-ghaybAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
تِسْعُ آياتٍ، مَكِّيَّةٌ
- Abū al-SuʿūdIrshād al-ʿaql al-salīmMāturīdī in creedḤanafī in fiqh→
Makkan.
مَكِّيَّةٌ وآيُها تِسْعٌ
Each line of English says what the Arabic beneath it says.
What was happening
The first Muslims in Makkah were, many of them, poor, young, enslaved or without a clan to protect them. The men who opposed the Prophet ﷺ were the opposite of all that, and one of their weapons cost them nothing: ridicule. A wink as a believer walked past; a remark for the others to laugh at; a story told once he had gone.
The commentators name the men it was said to be about, and the list is itself a picture of the opposition: al-Akhnas ibn Sharīq, in the report from Ibn ʿAbbās; al-ʿĀṣ ibn Wāʾil; al-Walīd ibn al-Mughīrah; Umayyah ibn Khalaf, who tortured Bilāl.◇ Others, Mujāhid among them, said it was not sent down about anyone in particular but about everyone of this description — and the wording supports them: “every” slanderer.
What ties the two halves of his character together is the fourth ayah’s diagnosis. He gathers wealth and counts it over because he thinks it will make him permanent. A man who believes that has nothing to fear from anyone, and so he says what he likes about them.
- Related, not gradedRelated by the commentators without a graded chain; not established as authentic.
What came down about what
One man, or every such man
Ibn al-Jawzī sets out the difference. Those who say it came down about a particular person name, among others, al-Akhnas ibn Sharīq — the report of Abū Ṣāliḥ from Ibn ʿAbbās — and al-ʿĀṣ ibn Wāʾil. Those who say it is general take it as it reads; and that, al-Qurṭubī says, is the saying of the majority. “It is not about anyone in particular,” said Mujāhid, “but about everyone of whom this is the description.”
Ibn al-Jawzī, Zād al-Masīr, at the head of the surah; al-Qurṭubī, on its first ayah.
Related, not gradedRelated by the commentators without a graded chain; not established as authentic.
واخْتَلَفَ المُفَسِّرُونَ هَلْ نَزَلَتْ في حَقِّ شَخْصٍ بِعَيْنِهِ، أمْ نَزَلَتْ عامَّةً؟ عَلى قَوْلَيْنِ. أحَدُهُما: نَزَلَتْ في حَقِّ شَخْصٍ بِعَيْنِهِ. ثُمَّ فِيهِ سِتَّةُ أقْوالٍ. أحَدُها: الأخْنَسُ بْنُ شَرِيقٍ، رَواهُ أبُو صالِحٍ عَنِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍوعيد المتعالين الساخرين بالدين وأهله.
A threat to those who look down on the religion and its people, and mock them.
The surah’s aim, as al-Mukhtaṣar fī al-Tafsīr states it
- Slander and mockery
- Hoarding wealth
- The Fire
Its aims, as Ibn ʿĀshūr sets them out
فغرض هذه السورة وعيد جماعة من المشركين جعلوا همز المسلمين ولمزهم ضربا من ضروب أذاهم طمعا في أن يلجئهم الملل من أصناف الأذى، إلى الانصراف عن الإسلام والرجوع إلى الشرك.
From its first ayah to its last
- 1–33 ayat · 36% of the surahRead from ayah 1 →
The man
Woe to every slanderer and backbiter, who has gathered wealth and counted it, thinking that his wealth will make him live for ever.
- 4–96 ayat · 64% of the surahRead from ayah 4 →
His end
No — he will be flung into the Crusher. And what will make you know what the Crusher is? The fire of Allah, kindled, which rises over the hearts — the place where the contempt began. It is closed in upon them, in columns stretched out.
The division into passages is a reading aid, written for this page; it is not part of the muṣḥaf. Each passage is drawn as long as its words are.
The sound each ayah closes on
Read aloud, every ayah closes on a sound — its fāṣilah — and the closes answer one another for a stretch, then turn. Each sound this surah closes on is a line of the staff below, and the surah is the gold line stepping along them, an ayah at a time: where it steps to another line, the rhyme turns. The dotted lines are where its passages begin.
All 9 of its ayat close on one sound.
Move along the staff to see what each ayah closes on.
Computed from the text, each ayah as it is said when the reciter stops on it: the last vowel falls away, tanwīn on alif is said as a long ā, and tāʾ marbūṭah as h. Closes the ear hears as one rhyme share a line — -ūn, -īn and -īm; -ān and -ām — and an ayah that is only the opening letters closes on the name of its last letter.
From the Prophet ﷺ and his Companions
No authenticated report specific to this surah is recorded here.
The name it is known by
After the first of the two words it opens with. Humazah and lumazah are both intensive forms: one who makes a habit of wounding people — by word or by gesture, in their presence or their absence. The commentators give several ways of telling the two apart, and all of them are true of the same man.
Its place in the muṣḥaf
Ayat you will hear named
Where this comes from
The figures at the head of the page are counted from the text. The Arabic quotations are taken letter for letter from the copies of the classical works held on this site, and each links to the passage it stands in. The rest was written for Mishkāt from the works below. It is an introduction, not a tafsir: where it matters, read the scholars themselves.
Works quoted on this page
- تفسير البغويMaʿālim al-tanzīlal-Ḥusayn al-Baghawī (d. 516 AH)
- تفسير ابن الجوزيZād al-masīrAbū al-Faraj ibn al-Jawzī (d. 597 AH)
- تفسير القرطبيal-Jāmiʿ li-aḥkām al-QurʾānShams al-Dīn al-Qurṭubī (d. 671 AH)
- تفسير ابن كثيرTafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿaẓīmIsmāʿīl ibn Kathīr (d. 774 AH)
- الدر المنثورal-Durr al-manthūrJalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī (d. 911 AH)
- تفسير الرازيMafātīḥ al-ghaybFakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606 AH)
- تفسير أبي السعودIrshād al-ʿaql al-salīmAbū al-Suʿūd al-ʿImādī (d. 982 AH)
- التحرير والتنويرal-Taḥrīr wa-l-tanwīrMuḥammad al-Ṭāhir ibn ʿĀshūr (d. 1393 AH)
- المختصر في التفسيرal-Mukhtaṣar fī al-tafsīrMarkaz Tafsīr, a committee of scholars
Beside each scholar quoted stand his creed and his school of fiqh, so that he can be read with discernment. The site’s library holds other commentaries as well; the introductions do not draw on them.
al-Qurṭubī is quoted on these pages only for what he transmits: who said a surah is Makkan or Madinan, and what it has been called. On the attributes of Allah his commentary interprets, in places, in the way of the Ashʿarīs rather than the way of the Salaf, and nothing of that is taken from him here.
al-Rāzī and Abū al-Suʿūd are quoted on these pages only for where a surah came down, and Ibn ʿĀshūr only for the aims of the surah. Nothing on the attributes of Allah is taken from them, and no report comes by way of them. Ibn ʿĀshūr’s statement of the aims is not in the site’s copy of his book: it is read from the Shamela typing as OpenITI holds it, with reports and al-Zamakhsharī’s words left out, and it links to its page there.
Every hadith here says where it is recorded and how it is graded. What is in al-Bukhārī or Muslim is marked ṣaḥīḥ. Outside the two, the grading followed is al-Albānī’s; where none of his was found, the scholar who graded it is named. A report known to be weak or fabricated is not given here at all. A report that is ḥasan, or a Companion’s own saying, or related by the commentators without a graded chain, says so beside it. In the account of what was happening, a small sign after a sentence says the same of the report that sentence tells, and a question mark stands where a date or a figure is not certain, or beside a grading — underlined — that has something to say about its own source: rest on it, or touch it, and it gives the reason. What is drawn from the sīrah — the campaigns, the dates, who was present — is history as its scholars transmit it, and is not graded here.
The order of revelation is the one printed at the head of each surah in the Egyptian muṣḥaf, which rests on lists transmitted from Ibn ʿAbbās and Jābir ibn Zayd. It places a surah by where it began. Many surahs came down in parts, over years, and the scholars treat the list as a guide, not a certainty.