Makkan, by agreement
Makkah, before the emigration to Abyssinia — the fifth year of the mission or earlier
Ibn al-Jawzī records agreement that it is Makkan, without any disagreement he knew of, and al-Qurṭubī says the same. Isolated sayings except its ayah of prostration, or two ayat after it. It was already known to the Muslims who emigrated to Abyssinia in the fifth year of the mission, for Jaʿfar recited from it there; Ibn Masʿūd counted it among the earliest surahs he learned. The traditional order places it forty-fourth.
سُورَةُ مَرْيَمَ وَهِيَ مَكِّيَّةٌ بِإجْماعِهِمْ مِن غَيْرِ خِلافٍ عَلِمْناهُوَقَدْ رَوَى مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ إِسْحَاقَ فِي السِّيرَةِ مِنْ حَدِيثِ أُمِّ سَلَمَةَ، وَأَحْمَدَ بْنِ حَنْبَلٍ عَنِ ابْنِ مَسْعُودٍ فِي قِصَّةِ الْهِجْرَةِ إِلَى أَرْضِ الْحَبَشَةِ مِنْ مَكَّةَ: أَنَّ جَعْفَرَ بْنَ أَبِي طَالِبٍ رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُ، قَرَأَ صَدْرَ هَذِهِ السُّورَةِ عَلَى النَّجَاشِيِّ وَأَصْحَابِهِThe same, in other works
- al-BaghawīMaʿālim al-tanzīlAhl al-Sunnah in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
سُورَةِ مَرْيَمَ مَكِّيَّةٌ، وَهِيَ ثَمَانٍ وَتِسْعُونَ آيَةً
- al-Suyūṭīal-Durr al-manthūrAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Ibn al-Zubayr: it came down in Makkah. Recorded by al-Naḥḥās and Ibn Mardawayh.
أخْرَجَ النَّحّاسُ، وابْنُ مَرْدُوَيْهِ عَنِ ابْنِ الزُّبَيْرِ قالَ: أُنْزِلَ بِمَكَّةَ سُورَةُ كهيعص
A report he gathers; its chain is not graded here.
- al-ShawkānīFatḥ al-qadīr→
Ibn ʿAbbās: it came down in Makkah. Recorded by al-Naḥḥās and Ibn Mardawayh.
أخْرَجَ النَّحّاسُ وابْنُ مَرْدَوَيْهِ، عَنِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ قالَ: أُنْزِلَتْ بِمَكَّةَ سُورَةُ كهيعص
- al-RāzīMafātīḥ al-ghaybAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
وهي ثَمانٍ وتِسْعُونَ آيَةً، مَكِّيَّةٌ
- Abū al-SuʿūdIrshād al-ʿaql al-salīmMāturīdī in creedḤanafī in fiqh→
Makkan, with the exception he names.
سُورَةُ مَرْيَمَ عَلَيْها السَّلامُ مَكِّيَّةٌ، إلّا الآياتِ الثّامِنَةَ والخَمْسِينَ والواحِدَةَ والسَّبْعِينَ فَمَدَنِيَّتانِ، وآياتُها ثَمانِيَةٌ وتِسْعُونَ
Each line of English says what the Arabic beneath it says.
What was happening
When the persecution in Makkah became more than the weaker Muslims could bear, the Prophet ﷺ told them to cross the sea to Abyssinia, where a Christian king ruled under whom no one was wronged. Quraysh sent two envoys after them with gifts for the king and his bishops, to have them sent back.
Umm Salamah, who was there, tells what happened. The Negus summoned the Muslims and asked what this religion was for which they had left their people and yet had not entered his. Jaʿfar ibn Abī Ṭālib answered him — we were a people of ignorance, worshipping idols, eating carrion, until Allah sent us a messenger from among ourselves — and the king asked whether he had with him anything of what the man had brought. Jaʿfar recited from the opening of this surah. The Negus wept until his beard was wet, and his bishops wept until their scrolls were wet. “This and what Mūsā brought,” he said, “come from one niche. Go: by Allah, I will never hand them over.”
The surah was made to be heard by such an audience. It tells of Zakariyyā, old and childless, calling on his Lord in secret, and of Yaḥyā given to him. It tells of Maryam, withdrawn to an eastern place, visited by the angel, driven by the pains of birth to the trunk of a palm-tree and wishing she had died before this. And when she comes back to her people carrying the child, and they say what people would say, she only points — and the infant speaks: “I am the servant of Allah. He has given me the Book and made me a prophet.” His first word about himself is the word that settles everything the Christians disputed.
One name runs through the whole surah: al-Raḥmān, the Most Merciful — sixteen times, more than in any other. It opens, “A mention of the mercy of your Lord to His servant Zakariyyā,” and it closes with the promise that for those who believe and do right, the Most Merciful will appoint love.
What came down about what
“We do not descend except by your Lord’s command”
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said to Jibrīl: “What keeps you from visiting us more often than you do?” Then there came down: “We do not descend except by the command of your Lord. To Him belongs what is before us and what is behind us.”
Ibn ʿAbbās: al-Bukhārī (4731).
Ṣaḥīḥ
Khabbāb and his debt
Khabbāb said: “I was a blacksmith, and al-ʿĀṣ ibn Wāʾil owed me a debt. I went to collect it, and he said: ‘I will not pay you until you disbelieve in Muḥammad.’ I said: ‘I will not disbelieve until you die and are raised.’ He said: ‘Then leave me until I die and am raised; I shall be given wealth and children, and I will pay you then.’” And there came down: “Have you seen the one who disbelieves in Our signs and says, ‘I shall surely be given wealth and children’?”
Khabbāb ibn al-Aratt: al-Bukhārī (4732) and Muslim (2795).
Ṣaḥīḥ
بيان مظاهر رحمة الله بأوليائه، كهبة الولد الصالح، وبيان تنزُّهه تعالى عن الولد والمُعين، ردًا على المفترين.
To show the manifestations of Allah’s mercy to those near to Him — such as the gift of a righteous child — and to declare Him far above having a child or a helper, in refutation of those who invent lies.
The surah’s aim, as al-Mukhtaṣar fī al-Tafsīr states it
- The mercy of the Most Merciful
- Zakariyyā and Yaḥyā
- Maryam and the birth of ʿĪsā
- ʿĪsā, the servant of Allah
- Ibrāhīm and his father
- The enormity of ascribing a son to Allah
Its aims, as Ibn ʿĀshūr sets them out
ويظهر أن هذه السورة نزلت للرد على اليهود فيما اقترفوه من القول الشنيع في مريم وابنها، فكان فيها بيان نزاهة آل عمران وقداستهم في الخير.
وهل يثبت الخطي إلا وشيجه ثم التنويه بجمع من الأنبياء والمرسلين من أسلاف هؤلاء وقرابتهم.
والإنحاء على بعض خلفهم من ذرياتهم الذين لم يكونوا على سننهم في الخير من أهل الكتاب والمشركين وأتوا بفاحش من القول إذ نسبوا لله ولدا، وأنكر المشركون منهم البعث وأثبت النصارى ولدا لله تعالى.
From its first ayah to its last
- 1–1515 ayat · 14% of the surahRead from ayah 1 →
Zakariyyā and Yaḥyā
Kāf Hā Yā ʿAyn Ṣād. A mention of the mercy of your Lord to His servant Zakariyyā, when he called on his Lord in secret: “My Lord, my bones have weakened and my head is aflame with grey, and I have never, in calling on You, been disappointed. Grant me an heir.” — “Zakariyyā, We give you good news of a boy whose name is Yaḥyā.” We gave him judgement while still a child; and peace upon him the day he was born, the day he dies, and the day he is raised alive.
- 16–4025 ayat · 27% of the surahRead from ayah 16 →
Maryam and ʿĪsā
Mention in the Book Maryam, when she withdrew from her family to an eastern place. We sent to her Our spirit, who appeared to her as a man: “I am only a messenger of your Lord, to give you a pure boy.” The pains of childbirth drove her to the trunk of the palm: “Would that I had died before this.” She brought him to her people; they said, “Sister of Hārūn, your father was not a bad man.” She pointed to him. He said: “I am the servant of Allah.” Such is ʿĪsā, son of Maryam: the word of truth about which they dispute. It is not for Allah to take a son. Warn them of the Day of Regret.
- 41–5010 ayat · 12% of the surahRead from ayah 41 →
Ibrāhīm and his father
Mention in the Book Ibrāhīm: “Father, why do you worship what neither hears nor sees? Father, do not worship Satan.” — “Do you turn from my gods, Ibrāhīm? If you do not stop, I will stone you.” — “Peace be upon you. I will ask my Lord to forgive you.” When he had left them and what they worshipped, We gave him Isḥāq and Yaʿqūb.
- 51–6515 ayat · 17% of the surahRead from ayah 51 →
The line of the prophets
Mūsā, whom We called from the right side of the Mount; Ismāʿīl, true to his promise, who enjoined on his family the prayer and the zakāh; Idrīs, whom We raised to a high station. When the ayat of the Most Merciful were recited to them, they fell down prostrating and weeping. But after them came successors who neglected the prayer and followed their desires. — We do not descend except by your Lord’s command.
- 66–8722 ayat · 21% of the surahRead from ayah 66 →
The doubter and the boaster
Man says, “When I am dead, shall I be brought out alive?” Does he not remember that We created him before, when he was nothing? There is none of you but will come to it. Have you seen the one who disbelieves in Our signs and says, “I shall be given wealth and children”? Has he looked into the unseen? The Day We gather the mindful to the Most Merciful as an honoured delegation, and drive the guilty to Hell, thirsting.
- 88–9811 ayat · 8% of the surahRead from ayah 88 →
“The Most Merciful has taken a son”
They say, “The Most Merciful has taken a son.” You have brought a monstrous thing: the heavens almost burst at it, the earth splits and the mountains fall in ruin, that they ascribe a son to the Most Merciful. Everyone in the heavens and the earth comes to the Most Merciful only as a servant. Those who believe and do right — the Most Merciful will appoint for them love. We have made it easy in your tongue only that you may give good news to the mindful.
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 92% of its ayat, and the rhyme turns 3 times. One of those turns comes 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
هُنَّ مِنَ الْعِتَاقِ الأُوَلِ وَهُنَّ مِنْ تِلاَدِي
Ibn Masʿūd said of Banī Isrāʾīl, al-Kahf, Maryam, Ṭā-Hā and al-Anbiyāʾ: “They are among the first and finest, and they are my oldest wealth” — among the earliest surahs he learned.“Death will be brought in the form of a white ram, and a caller will call: ‘People of the Garden!’ They will crane their necks and look… Then it will be slaughtered, and he will say: ‘People of the Garden, eternity and no death; people of the Fire, eternity and no death.’” Then he recited: “And warn them of the Day of Regret, when the matter is decided, while they are heedless.”The name it is known by
After Maryam, the mother of ʿĪsā, whose story it tells. She is the only woman named in the Qurʾan, and this is the only surah named after a woman. It is also called by the five letters it opens with: Kāf Hā Yā ʿAyn Ṣād.
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
- Ibn Isḥāq’s account of the emigration to Abyssinia, from Umm Salamah
- 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.