Makkan, by the majority
The early years in Makkah; its closing ayat, on one view, in Madinah
Ibn al-Jawzī gives the majority view as Makkan, with a report from Ibn ʿAbbās and Qatādah that it is Madinan. He also records a third saying that explains the other two: that its first half came down in Makkah about al-ʿĀṣ ibn Wāʾil, and its second half in Madinah about the hypocrite ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ubayy. The surah’s own turn bears this out — its first three ayat describe an open denier, its last four people who pray.
وَفِيها قَوْلانِ. أحَدُهُما: مَكِّيَّةٌ، قالَهُ الجُمْهُورُ. والثّانِي: مَدَنِيَّةٌ، رُوِيَ عَنِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ، وقَتادَةَ. وقالَ هِبَةَ اللَّهِ المُفَسِّرُ: نَزَلَ نِصْفُها بِمَكَّةَ في العاصِ بْنِ وائِلٍ، ونِصْفُها بِالمَدِينَةِ في عَبْدِ اللَّهِ بْنِ أبِي المُنافِقِوَهِيَ مَكِّيَّةٌ فِي قَوْلِ عَطَاءٍ وَجَابِرٍ وَأَحَدِ قولي ابن عباس. وَمَدَنِيَّةٌ فِي قَوْلٍ لَهُ آخَرَ وَهُوَ قَوْلُ قتادة وغيره. وهي سبع آياتThe same, in other works
- al-BaghawīMaʿālim al-tanzīlAhl al-Sunnah in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
سُورَةُ الْمَاعُونِ 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: أُنْزِلَتْ ﴿أرَأيْتَ الَّذِي يُكَذِّبُ﴾ بِمَكَّةَ
A report he gathers; its chain is not graded here.
- al-ShawkānīFatḥ al-qadīr→
Makkan in the saying of ʿAṭāʾ and Jābir, and in one of two reports from Ibn ʿAbbās; Madinan in the saying of Qatādah and others.
هي مَكِّيَّةٌ في قَوْلِ عَطاءٍ، وجابِرٍ، وأحَدِ قَوْلَيِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ، ومَدَنِيَّةٌ في قَوْلِ قَتادَةَ وآخَرِينَ
- al-RāzīMafātīḥ al-ghaybAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
سَبْعُ آياتٍ، مَكِّيَّةٌ
- Abū al-SuʿūdIrshād al-ʿaql al-salīmMāturīdī in creedḤanafī in fiqh→
Makkan, with a difference over it.
مَكِّيَّةٌ مُخْتَلَفٌ فِيها، وآيُها سَبْعٌ
Each line of English says what the Arabic beneath it says.
What was happening
In Makkah, to “deny the dīn” — the Recompense — was the stated position of the men who ran the city. This surah does not debate them. It asks the listener to look at one of them and describes what he does: he shoves the orphan aside, and he does not so much as encourage anyone else to feed the poor. The commentators name several men it was said to be about; the point is that the belief and the behaviour are one thing.◇
Then, without a pause, it turns to people who do pray — and pronounces woe on them too. They are heedless of their prayer: the Companions explained this as letting its time go by. They do it to be seen. And they withhold al-māʿūn, the smallest neighbourly help. That is a description of the hypocrites, who did not exist as a group until Madinah, which is why some of the early scholars placed these ayat there.
Read together, the two halves make a single measure. Faith in the Last Day shows in how a person treats those who can give him nothing back, and in a prayer that is offered when no one is watching.
- Related, not gradedRelated by the commentators without a graded chain; not established as authentic.
بيان أخلاق المكذبين بالدين والآخرة، تحذيرًا للمؤمنين، وتشنيعًا على الكافرين.
To set out the character of those who deny the religion and the next life — as a warning to the believers, and a condemnation of the disbelievers.
The surah’s aim, as al-Mukhtaṣar fī al-Tafsīr states it
- Denial of the Reckoning
- The orphan and the poor
- Prayer
- Showing off
- Small kindnesses
Its aims, as Ibn ʿĀshūr sets them out
من مقاصدها التعجيب من حال من كذبوا بالبعث وتفظيع أعمالهم من الاعتداء على الضعيف واحتقاره والإمساك عن إطعام المسكين، والإعراض عن قواعد الإسلام من الصلاة والزكاة لأنه لا يخطر بباله أن يكون في فعله ذلك ما يجلب له غضب الله وعقابه.
From its first ayah to its last
- 1–33 ayat · 52% of the surahRead from ayah 1 →
The denier
Have you seen the one who denies the Recompense? That is the one who drives away the orphan, and does not urge the feeding of the poor.
- 4–74 ayat · 48% of the surahRead from ayah 4 →
Those who pray, and do not
So woe to those who pray — who are heedless of their prayer, who do it to be seen, and who withhold the smallest kindness.
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 7 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 names it is known by
After its last word: the small things people lend one another without a thought — a bucket, an axe, a cooking pot, salt, water. ʿAlī and Ibn ʿUmar are also reported to have said it means the zakāh.
Its opening word. Ibn al-Jawzī gives this as its other name.
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 الطبريJāmiʿ al-bayānMuḥammad ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī (d. 310 AH)
- 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)
- فتح القدير للشوكانيFatḥ al-qadīrMuḥammad al-Shawkānī (d. 1250 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.