Makkan — two ayat excepted
The later years in Makkah
Ibn al-Jawzī says it is Makkan without any disagreement he knew of, except that Ibn ʿAbbās and Qatādah set apart two ayat: “Have you not seen those who exchanged the favour of Allah for ingratitude…” and the one after it (14:28–29). Al-Qurṭubī explains that these were said to have come down about the idolaters who fought at Badr. Ibn ʿAbbās’s own words, in al-Bukhārī, are that they are the disbelievers of the people of Makkah. The traditional order places the surah seventy-second.
وَهِيَ مَكِّيَّةٌ مِن غَيْرِ خِلافٍ عَلِمْناهُ بَيْنَهم، إلّا ما رُوِيَ عَنِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ، وقَتادَةَ أنَّهُما قالا: سِوى آيَتَيْنِ مِنهامَكِّيَّةٌ كُلُّهَا فِي قَوْلِ الْحَسَنِ وَعِكْرِمَةَ وَجَابِرٍThe same, in other works
- al-BaghawīMaʿālim al-tanzīlAhl al-Sunnah in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
سُورَةِ إِبْرَاهِيمَ مَكِّيَّةٌ
- al-Suyūṭīal-Durr al-manthūrAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Ibn ʿAbbās: it came down in Makkah. Recorded by Ibn Mardawayh.
أخْرَجَ ابْنُ مَرْدُوَيْهِ، عَنِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ قالَ نَزَلَتْ سُورَةُ إبْراهِيمَ بِمَكَّةَ
A report he gathers; its chain is not graded here.
- al-ShawkānīFatḥ al-qadīr→
Makkan, as Ibn Mardawayh records from Ibn ʿAbbās.
هي مَكِّيَّةٌ كَما أخْرَجَهُ ابْنُ مَرْدَوَيْهِ عَنِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ
- Abū al-SuʿūdIrshād al-ʿaql al-salīmMāturīdī in creedḤanafī in fiqh→
Makkan, with the exception he names.
سُورَةُ إبْراهِيمَ عَلَيْهِ السَّلامُ. مَكِّيَّةٌ، إلّا آيَتَيِ ثَمانِيَةٌ وعِشْرُونَ وتِسْعَةٌ وعِشْرُونَ فَمَدَنِيَّتانِ، وآيَتُها اثْنانِ وخَمْسُونَ
Each line of English says what the Arabic beneath it says.
What was happening
Ibn Kathīr, at its opening, notes how wide the commission is: the noblest Book, sent down to the noblest messenger, for all the people of the earth, Arab and non-Arab. The surah is addressed to Quraysh, but it speaks of “mankind” in its first ayah and its last.
Having said what the Prophet ﷺ was sent to do, it shows that the task is not new. Mūsā was told the same: “Bring your people out of darknesses into the light, and remind them of the days of Allah.” And then, instead of telling the stories of the prophets one by one as other surahs do, it runs them together. All the messengers speak as one: “Is there any doubt about Allah, the Originator of the heavens and the earth?” All the peoples answer as one: “You are only human beings like us.” — “We are indeed only human beings like you; but Allah bestows His favour on whom He wills of His servants.” — “We shall drive you out of our land, unless you return to our religion.” Quraysh were about to say that last sentence themselves.
It is a surah of images. The deeds of those who deny their Lord are like ashes on which the wind blows hard on a stormy day. A good word is like a good tree: its root firm, its branches in the sky, giving its fruit in every season. A bad word is like a bad tree, torn up from the surface of the earth, with nothing to hold it. And on the Day of Judgement Satan himself rises to address those who followed him: “Allah made you a promise of truth; I made you a promise, and broke it. I had no power over you, except that I called you, and you answered. So do not blame me; blame yourselves.”
Then it turns to the city where all this was being recited. “Have you not seen those who exchanged the favour of Allah for ingratitude, and settled their people in the abode of ruin?” What favour? The surah answers by going back to the day the place was founded. “My Lord, make this land secure, and keep me and my sons from worshipping idols… Our Lord, I have settled some of my descendants in a valley without crops, by Your Sacred House — our Lord, that they may keep up the prayer. So make the hearts of people incline towards them, and provide them with fruits, that they may give thanks.” The people of Makkah lived, every day, inside the answer to that prayer. The one thing it asked of them in return was the thing they had abandoned.
بيان وظيفة الرسل وحرصهم على إخراج الناس من ظلمات الشرك إلى نور التوحيد، في مقابل إعراض أقوامهم، تثبيتًا للنبي ﷺ وتوعدًا للظالمين.
To set out the task of the messengers, and their eagerness to bring people out of the darknesses of idolatry into the light of tawḥīd, against the turning away of their peoples — to steady the Prophet ﷺ, and to warn the wrongdoers.
The surah’s aim, as al-Mukhtaṣar fī al-Tafsīr states it
- From darknesses into light
- Every messenger in his people’s tongue
- “If you give thanks, I will increase you”
- The messengers speak as one
- Satan’s speech
- The good word and the good tree
- Favours beyond counting
- The prayer of Ibrāhīm
Its aims, as Ibn ʿĀshūr sets them out
واشتملت من الأغراض على أنها ابتدئت بالتنبيه إلى إعجاز القرآن، وبالتنويه بشأنه، وأنه أنزل لإخراج الناس من الضلالة. والامتنان بأن جعله بلسان العرب. وتمجيد الله تعالى الذي أنزله ووعيد الذين كفروا به وبمن أنزل عليه.
وإيقاظ المعاندين بأن محمدا صلى الله عليه وسلم ما كان بدعا من الرسل. وأن كونه بشرا أمر غير مناف لرسالته من عند الله كغيره من الرسل.
From its first ayah to its last
- 1–88 ayat · 16% of the surahRead from ayah 1 →
The commission
Alif Lām Rā. A Book We have sent down to you, that you may bring mankind out of darknesses into the light, by their Lord’s leave, to the path of the Almighty, the Praiseworthy. We sent no messenger but in the language of his people, to make things clear to them. We sent Mūsā with Our signs: “Bring your people out of darknesses into the light, and remind them of the days of Allah.” Your Lord proclaimed: “If you give thanks, I will surely increase you; and if you are ungrateful, My punishment is severe.”
- 9–2012 ayat · 25% of the surahRead from ayah 9 →
The messengers and their peoples
Has there not come to you the news of those before you — the people of Nūḥ, ʿĀd, Thamūd, and those after them? Their messengers said: “Is there any doubt about Allah, the Originator of the heavens and the earth?” They said: “You are only human beings like us.” Those who disbelieved said to their messengers: “We shall drive you out of our land.” Their Lord revealed: “We shall destroy the wrongdoers, and settle you in the land after them.” The deeds of those who deny their Lord are like ashes on which the wind blows hard on a stormy day.
- 21–277 ayat · 18% of the surahRead from ayah 21 →
Satan’s speech, and the two trees
They will all come forth before Allah, and the weak will say to those who were arrogant: “We were your followers.” And Satan will say, when the matter is decided: “Allah made you a promise of truth; I promised you, and failed you. Do not blame me; blame yourselves.” Have you not seen how Allah sets out a likeness: a good word is like a good tree, its root firm and its branches in the sky. And a bad word is like a bad tree, uprooted from the earth. Allah keeps firm those who believe, with the firm word, in the life of this world and in the next.
- 28–347 ayat · 12% of the surahRead from ayah 28 →
Favour exchanged for ingratitude
Have you not seen those who exchanged the favour of Allah for ingratitude, and settled their people in the abode of ruin? Tell My servants who believe to keep up the prayer and to spend, before a Day comes in which there is no bargaining and no friendship. Allah is He who created the heavens and the earth, sent down water, and brought out fruits; who subjected to you the ships, the rivers, the sun and the moon, the night and the day. He gave you of all that you asked of Him. If you count the favours of Allah, you cannot number them.
- 35–417 ayat · 12% of the surahRead from ayah 35 →
The prayer of Ibrāhīm
When Ibrāhīm said: “My Lord, make this land secure, and keep me and my sons from worshipping idols. Our Lord, I have settled some of my descendants in a valley without crops, by Your Sacred House. Praise be to Allah, who has given me, in old age, Ismāʿīl and Isḥāq. My Lord, make me one who keeps up the prayer, and of my descendants too. Our Lord, forgive me, and my parents, and the believers, on the Day the reckoning is set up.”
- 42–5211 ayat · 16% of the surahRead from ayah 42 →
The Day the earth is changed
Do not think Allah unaware of what the wrongdoers do; He only gives them respite until a Day when eyes will stare. Warn people of the Day the punishment comes, and they say: “Our Lord, give us respite for a short while.” They plotted their plot — though their plot were such as to move mountains. The Day the earth is changed to another earth, and the heavens. This is a message for mankind, that they may be warned by it, and know that He is One God.
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 19% of its ayat, and the rhyme turns 32 times. 5 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
We were with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ when he said: “Tell me of a tree that is like the Muslim: its leaves do not fall, and it gives its fruit at every season.” Ibn ʿUmar said: “It came to my mind that it was the date-palm; but I saw that Abū Bakr and ʿUmar did not speak, and I was shy to.” When they said nothing, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: “It is the date-palm.”الْمُسْلِمُ إِذَا سُئِلَ فِي الْقَبْرِ يَشْهَدُ أَنْ لاَ إِلَهَ إِلاَّ اللَّهُ وَأَنَّ مُحَمَّدًا رَسُولُ اللَّهِ
“When the Muslim is questioned in the grave, he bears witness that there is no god but Allah, and that Muḥammad is the Messenger of Allah. That is His saying: ‘Allah keeps firm those who believe, with the firm word, in the life of this world and in the next.’”ʿĀʾishah said: I asked the Messenger of Allah ﷺ about His saying, “The Day the earth is changed to another earth, and the heavens” — “Where will the people be that Day, Messenger of Allah?” He said: “On the Bridge.”Ibn ʿAbbās said of “those who exchanged the favour of Allah for ingratitude”: “They are the disbelievers of the people of Makkah.”The name it is known by
After the prayer of Ibrāhīm for Makkah and for his descendants (14:35–41), which is the heart of the surah.
Its place in the muṣḥaf
Ayat you will hear named
- 14:1Out of darknesses into the light
- 14:4Every messenger in the tongue of his people
- 14:7“If you give thanks, I will increase you”
- 14:10“Is there any doubt about Allah?”
- 14:18Deeds like ashes in the wind
- 14:22Satan’s speech
- 14:24–27The good word, and the firm word
- 14:34Favours you cannot number
- 14:35–41The prayer of Ibrāhīm
- 14:42Do not think Allah unaware
- 14:48The Day the earth is changed
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 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.