Differed over — Makkan, by the majority
On the majority’s view: the early years in Makkah, after the death of his sons
Ibn al-Jawzī gives the view that it is Makkan as that of Ibn ʿAbbās and the majority, and the view that it is Madinan as that of al-Ḥasan, ʿIkrimah and Qatādah; al-Qurṭubī adds Mujāhid to the second. What keeps the question open is a hadith in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim: Anas says the Prophet ﷺ dozed among them, raised his head smiling, and said, “A surah has just been sent down to me” — and Anas was a boy of Madinah. Those who hold it Makkan point to its occasion, the taunt of the leaders of Quraysh.
وَفِيها قَوْلانِ. أحَدُهُما: مَكِّيَّةٌ، قالَهُ ابْنُ عَبّاسٍ، والجُمْهُورُ. والثّانِي: مَدَنِيَّةٌ، قالَهُ الحَسَنُ، وعِكْرِمَةُ، وقَتادَةُوَهِيَ مَكِّيَّةٌ فِي قَوْلِ ابن عباس والكلبي ومقاتل. ومدنية في قول الحسن وعكرمة ومجاهد وقتادة. وَهِيَ ثَلَاثُ آيَاتٍThe same, in other works
- al-BaghawīMaʿālim al-tanzīlAhl al-Sunnah in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
سُورَةُ الْكَوْثَرِ 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: نَزَلَتْ سُورَةُ ﴿إنّا أعْطَيْناكَ الكَوْثَرَ﴾ بِمَكَّةَ
A report he gathers; its chain is not graded here.
- al-ShawkānīFatḥ al-qadīr→
Makkan in the saying of Ibn ʿAbbās, al-Kalbī and Muqātil; Madinan in the saying of al-Ḥasan, ʿIkrimah, Mujāhid and Qatādah.
هي مَكِّيَّةٌ في قَوْلِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ، والكَلْبِيِّ، ومُقاتِلٍ، ومَدَنِيَّةٌ في قَوْلِ الحَسَنِ، وعِكْرِمَةَ، ومُجاهِدٍ، وقَتادَةَ
- al-RāzīMafātīḥ al-ghaybAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
ثَلاثٌ آياتٍ، مَكِّيَّةٌ
- Abū al-SuʿūdIrshād al-ʿaql al-salīmMāturīdī in creedḤanafī in fiqh→
Makkan.
مَكِّيَّةٌ وآيُها ثَلاثٌ
Each line of English says what the Arabic beneath it says.
What was happening
Among the Arabs a man lived on in his sons. They carried his name, defended his honour and kept his memory; a man without them was abtar — docked, cut off, a line that stops. The Prophet’s ﷺ sons died in infancy, and his enemies saw their chance.
Ibn Kathīr gathers the reports.◇ Ibn ʿAbbās, Mujāhid, Saʿīd ibn Jubayr and Qatādah said it came down about al-ʿĀṣ ibn Wāʾil, who, whenever the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was mentioned, would say: leave him — he is a man cut off, with no descendants; when he dies, his memory will die with him. Others named ʿUqbah ibn Abī Muʿayṭ, or Kaʿb ibn al-Ashraf.
The reply is three ayat. We have given you al-Kawthar. So pray to your Lord, and sacrifice — to Him, not as they prayed and sacrificed to their idols. It is the one who hates you who is cut off.
No prediction in the Qurʾan has been more visibly kept. The men who said it are remembered only because of the ayah that answered them. And the one they called cut off is named, with blessing, by people in every country on earth, in every call to prayer, every day.
- Related, not gradedRelated by the commentators without a graded chain; not established as authentic.
What came down about what
“A man cut off”
Al-ʿĀṣ ibn Wāʾil used to say, when the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was mentioned: “Leave him, for he is a man cut off, with no posterity. When he perishes, his mention will end.” So Allah sent down this surah.
Ibn Kathīr, from Ibn ʿAbbās, Mujāhid, Saʿīd ibn Jubayr and Qatādah, and from Ibn Isḥāq. Al-Ṭabarī, al-Baghawī, Ibn al-Jawzī, al-Qurṭubī, al-Suyūṭī and al-Shawkānī relate it too.
Related, not gradedRelated by the commentators without a graded chain; not established as authentic.
قَالَ ابْنُ عَبَّاسٍ، وَمُجَاهِدٌ، وَسَعِيدُ بْنُ جُبَيْرٍ، وَقَتَادَةُ: نَزَلَتْ فِي الْعَاصِ بْنِ وَائِلٍ. وَقَالَ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ إِسْحَاقَ، عَنْ يَزِيدَ بْنِ رُومَانَ قَالَ: كَانَ الْعَاصُ بْنُ وَائِلٍ إِذَا ذَكَرَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ ﷺ يقول: دَعُوهُ فَإِنَّهُ رَجُلٌ أَبْتَرُ لَا عَقِبَ لَهُ، فَإِذَا هَلَكَ انْقَطَعَ ذِكْرُهُ. فَأَنْزَلَ اللَّهُ هَذِهِ السُّورَةَمنة الله على النبي ﷺ وقطع سبيل المبغضين له.
To recall Allah’s favour to the Prophet ﷺ, and to cut off the way of those who hate him.
The surah’s aim, as al-Mukhtaṣar fī al-Tafsīr states it
- Allah’s favour to the Prophet ﷺ
- Prayer and sacrifice
- The fate of his enemies
Its aims, as Ibn ʿĀshūr sets them out
اشتملت على بشارة النبيء صلى الله عليه وسلم بأنه أعطي الخير الكثير في الدنيا والآخرة.
وأمره بأن يشكر الله على ذلك بالإقبال على العبادة.
وأن ذلك هو الكمال الحق لا ما يتطاول به المشركون على المسلمين بالثروة والنعمة وهم مغضوب عليهم من الله تعالى لأنهم أبغضوا رسوله، وغضب الله بتر لهم إذا كانوا بمحل السخط من الله.
وإن انقطاع الولد الذكر ليس بترا لأن ذلك لا أثر له في كمال الإنسان.
From its first ayah to its last
- 11 ayah · 30% of the surahRead from ayah 1 →
The gift
We have given you al-Kawthar: abundant good, and of it a river in Paradise, and the Basin to which his community will come on the Day of Resurrection.
- 21 ayah · 30% of the surahRead from ayah 2 →
The thanks
So pray to your Lord, and sacrifice. The two greatest acts of worship of body and of wealth, both made for Allah alone.
- 31 ayah · 40% of the surahRead from ayah 3 →
The answer
It is your enemy who is cut off.
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 3 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
أُنْزِلَتْ عَلَيَّ آنِفًا سُورَةٌ
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ was among us one day when he dozed, then raised his head, smiling. We said: “What has made you smile, Messenger of Allah?” He said: “A surah has just been sent down to me,” and recited it. Then he said: “Do you know what al-Kawthar is?” We said: “Allah and His Messenger know best.” He said: “It is a river that my Lord has promised me, with abundant good upon it. It is a Basin to which my community will come on the Day of Resurrection, its vessels as many as the stars.”“While I was walking in Paradise I came upon a river whose banks were domes of hollowed pearl. I said: What is this, Jibrīl? He said: This is al-Kawthar, which your Lord has given you.”The name it is known by
From kathrah, plenty, in its most intensive form. The Prophet ﷺ explained it: “It is a river that my Lord has promised me, with abundant good upon it” (Muslim 400). Ibn ʿAbbās said it is the abundant good that Allah gave him — and when told that people said it was a river in Paradise, his student Saʿīd ibn Jubayr answered that the river is part of that good (al-Bukhārī 4966).
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)
- 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.
Also drawn on
- Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī and Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim
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.