Differed over, as al-Falaq is
With al-Falaq: Makkah on one view, Madinah on the other
It goes with al-Falaq: the two came down together and the same two views are reported, both from Ibn ʿAbbās — that it is Madinan, in the report of Abū Ṣāliḥ, and that it is Makkan, in another. Al-Qurṭubī says simply that it is like al-Falaq, being one of the two surahs of refuge. The muṣḥaf heads it Makkan.
وَفِيها قَوْلانِ. أحَدُهُما: أنَّها مَدَنِيَّةٌ، رَواهُ أبُو صالِحٍ عَنِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ. والثّانِي: أنَّها مَكِّيَّةٌسُورَةُ النَّاسِ مِثْلُ الْفَلَقِ لِأَنَّهَا إِحْدَى الْمُعَوِّذَتَيْنِThe same, in other works
- al-BaghawīMaʿālim al-tanzīlAhl al-Sunnah in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Madinan.
سُورَةُ النَّاسِ مَدَنِيَّةٌ
- al-Suyūṭīal-Durr al-manthūrAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Ibn al-Zubayr: it came down in Madinah. Recorded by Ibn Mardawayh.
أخْرَجَ ابْنُ مَرْدُويَهَ عَنْ عَبْدِ اللهِ بْنِ الزُّبَيْرِ قالَ: أُنْزِلَ بِالمَدِينَةِ ﴿قُلْ أعُوذُ بِرَبِّ النّاسِ
A report he gathers; its chain is not graded here.
- al-ShawkānīFatḥ al-qadīr→
The difference over whether it is Makkan or Madinan is as already described for Sūrat al-Falaq.
والخِلافُ في كَوْنِها مَكِّيَّةً أوْ مَدَنِيَّةً كالخِلافِ الَّذِي تَقَدَّمَ في سُورَةِ الفَلَقِ
- 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: أُنْزِلَ بِمَكَّةَ ﴿قُلْ أعُوذُ بِرَبِّ النّاسِ
A report he gathers; its chain is not graded here.
- al-RāzīMafātīḥ al-ghaybAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Madinan.
وهِيَ سِتُّ آياتٍ، مَدَنِيَّةٌ
- Abū al-SuʿūdIrshād al-ʿaql al-salīmMāturīdī in creedḤanafī in fiqh→
Makkan, with a difference over it.
مَكِّيَّةٌ مُخْتَلَفٌ فِيها وآياتُها سِتٌّ
Each line of English says what the Arabic beneath it says.
What was happening
What is reported of al-Falaq’s setting is reported of this surah too; they were sent down as a pair, and the Prophet ﷺ announced them together: “Ayat have been sent down tonight the like of which has never been seen.”
The two divide the field between them. Al-Falaq asks protection from what happens to a person — things done by others, which may harm his body or his life but do not make him guilty of anything. Al-Nās asks protection from the one harm that does: the prompting to do wrong himself. That is why, Ibn al-Qayyim observes, the balance is reversed. There, one name of Allah stands against four evils. Here, three names — Lord, King, God — stand against one.
The one is al-waswās al-khannās: the whisperer who draws back. The early commentators explained the second word from Ibn ʿAbbās: the devil crouches over the heart of the son of Ādam; when he is heedless, it whispers, and when he remembers Allah, it withdraws.
الاعتصام والتحصن بالله من شر الشيطان ووسوسته، ومن الشرور الخفية.
To hold fast to Allah and take shelter in Him from the evil of the devil and his whispering, and from the evils that are hidden.
The surah’s aim, as al-Mukhtaṣar fī al-Tafsīr states it
- Seeking refuge in Allah
- Lordship, kingship, divinity
- The whisper of the devil
Its aims, as Ibn ʿĀshūr sets them out
إرشاد النبيء صلى الله عليه وسلم لأن يتعوذ بالله ربه من شر الوسواس الذي يحاول إفساد عمل النبيء صلى الله عليه وسلم وإفساد إرشاده الناس ويلقي في نفوس الناس الإعراض عن دعوته. وفي هذا الأمر إيماء إلى أن الله تعالى معيذه من ذلك فعاصمه في نفسه من تسلط وسوسة الوسواس عليه، ومتمم دعوته حتى تعم في الناس. ويتبع ذلك تعليم المسلمين التعوذ بذلك، فيكون لهم من هذا التعوذ ما هو حظهم من قابلية التعرض إلى الوسواس، ومع السلامة منه بمقدار مراتبهم في الزلفى.
From its first ayah to its last
- 1–33 ayat · 40% of the surahRead from ayah 1 →
With Whom
Say: I seek refuge with the Lord of mankind, the King of mankind, the God of mankind. He who made and sustains them, He who rules them, and He alone whom they are to worship: the three together leave no one else to turn to.
- 4–63 ayat · 60% of the surahRead from ayah 4 →
From what
From the evil of the whisperer who withdraws, who whispers into the breasts of mankind — from among jinn and men. The whisperer is not only a devil unseen; a human companion can do the same work.
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 6 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
“Have you not seen the ayat that were sent down tonight, the like of which has never been seen? ‘Say: I seek refuge with the Lord of the daybreak’ and ‘Say: I seek refuge with the Lord of mankind’.”Each night when the Prophet ﷺ went to his bed 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 l-nās”, then wipe with them as much of his body as he could, beginning with his head and face and the front of his body. He would do that three times.“Say ‘Qul huwa Allāhu aḥad’ and the two surahs of refuge three times when evening comes and when morning comes: they will suffice you against everything.”ḤasanḤasan: accepted and acted upon, a degree below ṣaḥīḥ.
The names it is known by
After the word that ends five of its six ayat. The Prophet ﷺ called it by its opening: Qul aʿūdhu bi-rabbi l-nās.
The name it shares with al-Falaq.
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 القيمTafsīr Ibn al-QayyimIbn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 751 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 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.