Differed over — Makkan, by most
On the view that it is Makkan: the early years, when the call was to one thing only — who Allah is
There are two views and both go back to the early generations. That it is Makkan is reported from Ibn Masʿūd, al-Ḥasan, ʿAṭāʾ, ʿIkrimah and Jābir; that it is Madinan, from Ibn ʿAbbās in one of two reports from him, Qatādah, al-Ḍaḥḥāk and al-Suddī. The difference follows the reports of who asked the question it answers: the idolaters of Makkah, or — in the reports from Qatādah and al-Ḍaḥḥāk — a group of the rabbis. Ibn Kathīr gives it as Makkan without qualification, which is also how it is headed in the muṣḥaf, and its subject and brevity are those of the earliest surahs.
وَفِيها قَوْلانِ. أحَدُهُما: أنَّها مَكِّيَّةٌ، قالَهُ ابْنُ مَسْعُودٍ، والحَسَنُ، وعَطاءٌ، وعِكْرِمَةُ، وجابِرٌ. والثّانِي: مَدَنِيَّةٌ، رُوِيَ عَنِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ، وقَتادَةَ، والضَّحّاكِمَكِّيَّةٌ فِي قَوْلِ ابْنِ مَسْعُودٍ وَالْحَسَنِ وَعَطَاءٍ وَعِكْرِمَةَ وَجَابِرٍ. وَمَدَنِيَّةٌ فِي أَحَدِ قَوْلَيِ ابْنِ عباس وقتادة والضحاك والسدي. وَهِيَ أَرْبَعُ آيَاتٍThe same, in other works
- al-BaghawīMaʿālim al-tanzīlAhl al-Sunnah in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
سُورَةُ الْإِخْلَاصِ مَكِّيَّةٌ
- al-ShawkānīFatḥ al-qadīr→
Makkan in the saying of Ibn Masʿūd, al-Ḥasan, ʿAṭāʾ, ʿIkrimah and Jābir; Madinan in one of two reports from Ibn ʿAbbās, and in the saying of Qatādah, al-Ḍaḥḥāk and al-Suddī.
هي مَكِّيَّةٌ في قَوْلِ ابْنِ مَسْعُودٍ، والحَسَنِ، وعَطاءٍ، وعِكْرِمَةَ، وجابِرٍ، ومَدَنِيَّةٌ في أحَدِ قَوْلَيِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ، وقَتادَةَ، والضَّحّاكِ، والسُّدِّيِّ
- al-RāzīMafātīḥ al-ghaybAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
أرْبَعُ آياتٍ، مَكِّيَّةٌ
- Abū al-SuʿūdIrshād al-ʿaql al-salīmMāturīdī in creedḤanafī in fiqh→
Makkan, with a difference over it.
مَكِّيَّةٌ مُخْتَلَفٌ فِيها وآيُها أرْبَعٌ
Each line of English says what the Arabic beneath it says.
What was happening
The Arabs of Makkah were not atheists. They knew the name of Allah, swore by it, and said that He had made the heavens and the earth. What they could not do was leave Him alone: they gave Him daughters, set lesser gods beside Him as go-betweens, and thought of Him, as they thought of everything, in terms of family and descent. A man was known by his lineage. So when Muḥammad ﷺ called them to worship Allah and nothing else, they asked him the only question they knew how to ask about anyone: whose son is He?
“Describe your Lord’s lineage to us,” they said — unsub lanā rabbak. The surah came down as the reply. It does not argue. It makes four statements, each closing a door: He is One; He is the One all creation turns to in need, who needs nothing; He has no child and no parent; and nothing is like Him.
The same question was put again in other mouths — by an Arab chief who asked whether this god was of gold or silver or iron, and, in some reports, by rabbis who asked what kind of thing He was and who would inherit from Him.◇ That is very likely why the early scholars are reported differing over where it came down. The answer was the same wherever it was asked.
- Related, not gradedRelated by the commentators without a graded chain; not established as authentic.
What came down about what
“Describe your Lord’s lineage to us”
The idolaters said to the Prophet ﷺ: “Muḥammad, describe your Lord’s lineage to us.” So Allah sent down: “Say: He is Allah, One; Allah, the Eternal Refuge; He neither begets nor is born; and there is none comparable to Him.”
From Ubayy ibn Kaʿb: Aḥmad and al-Tirmidhī (3364). Al-Tirmidhī also has it from Abū al-ʿĀliyah without naming Ubayy, and says that form is the sounder; al-Albānī graded the report ḥasan.
ḤasanḤasan: accepted and acted upon, a degree below ṣaḥīḥ.
عَنْ أُبَيِّ بْنِ كَعْبٍ: أَنَّ الْمُشْرِكِينَ قَالُوا لِلنَّبِيِّ ﷺ: يَا مُحَمَّدُ، انْسُبْ لَنَا رَبَّكَ، فَأَنْزَلَ اللَّهُThree reports of who asked
Ibn al-Jawzī sets the reports side by side. The first is the one above. In the second, from Ibn ʿAbbās, ʿĀmir ibn al-Ṭufayl asked what the Prophet ﷺ was calling to, and on being told, said: “Describe Him to me — is He of gold, or silver, or iron?” In the third, from Qatādah and al-Ḍaḥḥāk, it was a group of rabbis who asked what kind He was, whom He had inherited the world from, and to whom He would leave it.
Ibn al-Jawzī, Zād al-Masīr, at the head of the surah.
Related, not gradedRelated by the commentators without a graded chain; not established as authentic.
وَفِي سَبَبِ نُزُولِها ثَلاثَةُ أقْوالٍ. أحَدُها: أنَّ المُشْرِكِينَ قالُوا: يا مُحَمَّدُ انْسِبْ لَنا رَبَّكَ، فَنَزَلَتْ هَذِهِ السُّورَةُ، قالَهُ أُبَيُّ بْنُ كَعْبٍإثبات تفرد الله بالكمال والألوهية وتنزُّهه عن النقص.
To affirm that Allah alone possesses perfection and divinity, and that He is far above every deficiency.
The surah’s aim, as al-Mukhtaṣar fī al-Tafsīr states it
- Tawḥīd
- The names of Allah
- Refuting shirk
Its aims, as Ibn ʿĀshūr sets them out
إثبات وحدانية الله تعالى.
وأنه لا يقصد في الحوائج غيره وتنزيهه عن سمات المحدثات.
وإبطال أن يكون له ابن.
وإبطال أن يكون المولود إلها مثل عيسى عليه السلام.
From its first ayah to its last
- 1–22 ayat · 40% of the surahRead from ayah 1 →
Who He is
“Say: He is Allah, One. Allah, al-Ṣamad.” Aḥad — one with no second, in His essence, His attributes and His right to be worshipped. Al-Ṣamad — the Master whose lordship is complete, to whom every creature turns in its need, while He needs none of them.
- 3–42 ayat · 60% of the surahRead from ayah 3 →
What He is far above
“He neither begets nor is born, and there is none comparable to Him.” No child — against those who gave Him daughters, and those who said the Messiah or ʿUzayr was His son. No origin. And no equal: nothing to compare Him with, nothing that shares in what is His.
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 4 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
وَالَّذِي نَفْسِي بِيَدِهِ إِنَّهَا لَتَعْدِلُ ثُلُثَ الْقُرْآنِ
A man heard another reciting “Qul huwa Allāhu aḥad”, repeating it over and over. In the morning he came to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and mentioned it, as though he thought it little. He ﷺ said: “By the One in whose hand is my soul, it is equal to a third of the Qurʾan.”قُلْ هُوَ اللَّهُ أَحَدٌ تَعْدِلُ ثُلُثَ الْقُرْآنِ
“Is any one of you unable to recite a third of the Qurʾan in a night?” They said: “How could anyone recite a third of the Qurʾan?” He said: “Qul huwa Allāhu aḥad is equal to a third of the Qurʾan.”أَخْبِرُوهُ أَنَّ اللَّهَ يُحِبُّهُ
The Prophet ﷺ sent a man at the head of an expedition, and he would lead his companions in prayer and end his recitation each time with “Qul huwa Allāhu aḥad”. When they returned they mentioned it, and he ﷺ said: “Ask him why he does that.” He said: “Because it is the description of the Most Merciful, and I love to recite it.” The Prophet ﷺ said: “Tell him that Allah loves him.”When the Prophet ﷺ went to his bed each night he would bring his palms together, blow into them, and recite into them “Qul huwa Allāhu aḥad”, “Qul aʿūdhu bi-rabbi l-falaq” and “Qul aʿūdhu bi-rabbi n-nās”; then he would wipe with them whatever he could of his body, beginning with his head and his face and the front of his body. He would do that three times.“Qul huwa Allāhu aḥad and the two surahs of refuge, when evening comes and when morning comes, three times: they will suffice you against everything.”ḤasanḤasan: accepted and acted upon, a degree below ṣaḥīḥ.
The names it is known by
The word does not occur in the surah. It is named for what it does: it sets out the oneness of Allah free of every addition, and whoever holds to it has made his religion purely for Allah.
Its opening words, and the name it most often goes by in the hadith: “Qul huwa Allāhu aḥad is equal to a third of the Qurʾan” (Muslim 811).
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)
- 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 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.