Makkan, by the majority
The early years in Makkah, when Quraysh still hoped to strike a bargain
That it is Makkan is the saying of Ibn Masʿūd, al-Ḥasan and the majority; that it is Madinan is reported from Qatādah, and al-Qurṭubī adds one of two reports from Ibn ʿAbbās, and al-Ḍaḥḥāk. Its occasion settles it for most: the people it answers are the leaders of Quraysh, and the offer they made belongs to the years when they still hoped he could be bought off.
وَفِيها قَوْلانِ. أحَدُهُما: مَكِّيَّةٌ، قالَهُ ابْنُ مَسْعُودٍ، والحَسَنُ، والجُمْهُورُ. والثّانِي: مَدَنِيَّةٌ، رُوِيَ عَنْ قَتادَةَوَهِيَ مَكِّيَّةٌ فِي قَوْلِ ابْنِ مَسْعُودٍ وَالْحَسَنِ وَعِكْرِمَةَ. وَمَدَنِيَّةٌ فِي أَحَدِ قَوْلَيِ ابْنِ عَبَّاسٍ وقتادة والضحاك. وهي ست آياتThe same, in other works
- al-BaghawīMaʿālim al-tanzīlAhl al-Sunnah in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
سُورَةُ الْكَافِرُونَ 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 ﴿قُلْ يا أيُّها الكافِرُونَ﴾ بِمَكَّةَ
A report he gathers; its chain is not graded here.
- al-ShawkānīFatḥ al-qadīr→
Makkan, in the saying of Ibn Masʿūd, al-Ḥasan and ʿIkrimah.
هي مَكِّيَّةٌ في قَوْلِ ابْنِ مَسْعُودٍ، والحَسَنِ، وعِكْرِمَةَ
- al-RāzīMafātīḥ al-ghaybAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
سِتُّ آياتٍ، مَكِّيَّةٌ
- Abū al-SuʿūdIrshād al-ʿaql al-salīmMāturīdī in creedḤanafī in fiqh→
Makkan.
مَكِّيَّةٌ وآيُها سِتٌّ
Each line of English says what the Arabic beneath it says.
What was happening
The idolaters of Makkah did not ask Muḥammad ﷺ to stop believing in Allah. They believed in Allah themselves. What they could not accept was that He be worshipped alone, with their gods left out — and so the compromises they offered were always about that.
The reports name the men: al-Walīd ibn al-Mughīrah, al-ʿĀṣ ibn Wāʾil, al-Aswad ibn al-Muṭṭalib, Umayyah ibn Khalaf.◇ In one account they went through his uncle al-ʿAbbās; in another they came to him themselves. Come, they said: you worship what we worship for a year, and we will worship what you worship for a year. If what you have is better, we will have had our share of it; and if what we have is better, you will have had yours.
By the standards of the time it was a generous offer, and a man seeking position would have taken it. The surah has him refuse it in four different ways — for now and for the future, in what he worships and in how — and then draws the line: to you your religion, and to me mine. It is not a statement that the two are equally valid. It is a declaration that they will never be mixed.
- Related, not gradedRelated by the commentators without a graded chain; not established as authentic.
What came down about what
A year for a year
In their ignorance they invited the Messenger of Allah ﷺ to worship their idols for a year, and they would worship the One he worshipped for a year. So Allah sent down this surah, commanding His Messenger to declare himself free of their religion altogether.
Ibn Kathīr, on the surah. Al-Ṭabarī, al-Baghawī, al-Qurṭubī, al-Suyūṭī and al-Shawkānī relate it too, and Ibn al-Jawzī gives it as one of three accounts of who made the offer.
Related, not gradedRelated by the commentators without a graded chain; not established as authentic.
دَعَوا رَسُولَ اللَّهِ ﷺ إِلَى عِبَادَةِ أَوْثَانِهِمْ سَنَةً، وَيَعْبُدُونَ مَعْبُودَهُ سَنَةً، فَأَنْزَلَ اللَّهُ هَذِهِ السُّورَةَ، وَأَمَرَ رَسُولَهَ ﷺ فِيهَا أَنْ يَتَبَرَّأَ مِنْ دِينِهِمْ بِالْكُلِّيَّةِتقرير توحيد العبادة والبراءة من الشرك، والتمايز التام بين الإسلام والشرك.
To establish that worship is for Allah alone, to declare freedom from shirk, and to mark the complete separation of Islam from it.
The surah’s aim, as al-Mukhtaṣar fī al-Tafsīr states it
- Tawḥīd in worship
- Disavowal of shirk
- No compromise in religion
Its aims, as Ibn ʿĀshūr sets them out
وبهذا يعلم الغرض الذي اشتملت عليه وأنه تأييسهم من أن يوافقهم في شيء مما هم عليه من الكفر بالقول الفصل المؤكد في الحال والاستقبال وأن دين الإسلام لا يخالط شيئا من دين الشرك.
From its first ayah to its last
- 1–22 ayat · 27% of the surahRead from ayah 1 →
Say
Say: O disbelievers — I do not worship what you worship.
- 3–53 ayat · 58% of the surahRead from ayah 3 →
Neither now nor ever
Nor are you worshippers of what I worship. Nor will I be a worshipper of what you have worshipped; nor will you be worshippers of what I worship. The repetition is the refusal: present and future, the object of worship and the manner of it.
- 61 ayah · 15% of the surahRead from ayah 6 →
The line
To you your religion, and to me my religion.
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.
Its commonest close carries 50% of its ayat, and the rhyme turns 4 times. 2 of those turns come just where a new passage begins, as this page divides the surah.
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
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ recited, in the two units before the dawn prayer, “Qul yā ayyuhā l-kāfirūn” and “Qul huwa Allāhu aḥad”.In his Pilgrimage he ﷺ recited the same two surahs in the two units of prayer after going round the House.فَإِنَّهَا بَرَاءَةٌ مِنَ الشِّرْكِ
The Prophet ﷺ said to Nawfal: “Recite ‘Qul yā ayyuhā l-kāfirūn’, then sleep upon its ending, for it is a declaration of freedom from shirk.”The names it is known by
After those it addresses. In the hadith it goes by its opening words, Qul yā ayyuhā l-kāfirūn.
A name given to this surah and al-Ikhlāṣ together, because the Prophet ﷺ recited them as a pair: this one clears worship of every partner, that one clears belief.
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 Muslim; the Sunan of Abū Dāwūd and al-Tirmidhī
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.