Makkan, by agreement
Makkah — among the surahs Ibn Masʿūd learned first
It is Makkan in the saying of all; Ibn al-Jawzī and al-Qurṭubī both record the agreement. Ibn Masʿūd counted it among the earliest surahs he learned. The traditional order places it forty-fifth, directly after Maryam.
سُورَةُ طَه وَهِيَ مَكِّيَّةٌ كُلُّها بِإجْماعِهِمْمَكِّيَّةٌ فِي قَوْلِ الْجَمِيعِThe same, in other works
- al-BaghawīMaʿālim al-tanzīlAhl al-Sunnah in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
سُورَةُ طه مَكِّيَّةٌ
- al-Suyūṭīal-Durr al-manthūrAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Ibn ʿAbbās: it came down in Makkah. Recorded by al-Naḥḥās and Ibn Mardawayh.
أخْرَجَ النَّحّاسُ، وابْنُ مَرْدُوَيْهِ، عَنِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ قالَ: نَزَلَتْ سُورَةُ طه بِمَكَّةَ
A report he gathers; its chain is not graded here.
- al-ShawkānīFatḥ al-qadīr→
Makkan, by agreement, citing al-Qurṭubī.
قالَ القُرْطُبِيُّ: مَكِّيَّةٌ في قَوْلِ الجَمِيعِ
Each line of English says what the Arabic beneath it says.
What was happening
Ibn al-Jawzī gives three reports of what its opening came down about, and they point the same way.◇ One: that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ stood so long in prayer at night that he would shift his weight from foot to foot. Another: that when the Qurʾan began to come down he and his Companions prayed at great length, and Quraysh said, “Allah has sent this Qurʾan down on Muḥammad only to make him miserable.” The surah answers: “Ṭā-Hā. We have not sent down the Qurʾan to you that you should be distressed, but as a reminder for whoever fears.”
What fills most of the surah is Mūsā, and here the telling stays close to him as a person. He sees a fire and tells his family to wait. He hears: “I am your Lord, so take off your sandals… I have chosen you, so listen to what is revealed.” He is asked what is in his hand, and answers at length, like a man glad to be spoken to. He is told to go to Pharaoh, and asks for his chest to be opened, his task made easy, the knot loosed from his tongue, and his brother given to him as a helper. When he and Hārūn say they are afraid, they are told: “Do not fear. I am with you both; I hear and I see.”
The Prophet ﷺ is being shown that the fear is not new, and neither is the answer. The surah ends as it began, speaking to him directly: be patient with what they say; glorify your Lord before the rising of the sun and before its setting; do not stretch your eyes towards what We have given some of them to enjoy; and bid your family to pray, and be steadfast in it.
- Related, not gradedRelated by the commentators without a graded chain; not established as authentic.
What came down about what
“Only to make him miserable”
When the Qurʾan came down upon the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, he and his Companions prayed and stood for long. Quraysh said: “Allah has sent down this Qurʾan upon Muḥammad only so that he should be wretched.” So this was revealed.
Ibn al-Jawzī, from al-Ḍaḥḥāk — one of three accounts he gives. Al-Baghawī, al-Qurṭubī, Ibn Kathīr, al-Suyūṭī and al-Shawkānī relate the like.
Related, not gradedRelated by the commentators without a graded chain; not established as authentic.
أنَّ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ ﷺ لَمّا نَزَلَ عَلَيْهِ القُرْآنُ صَلّى هو وأصْحابُهُ فَأطالَ القِيامَ، فَقالَتْ قُرَيْشٌ: ما أنْزَلَ اللَّهُ هَذا القُرْآنَ عَلى مُحَمَّدٍ إلّا لِيَشْقى، فَنَزَلَتْ هَذِهِ الآيَةُتقوية النبي ﷺ لحمل الرسالة والصبر عليها.
To strengthen the Prophet ﷺ to bear the message, and to be patient upon it.
The surah’s aim, as al-Mukhtaṣar fī al-Tafsīr states it
- The Qurʾan as a reminder, not a burden
- The call of Mūsā
- Mūsā and Pharaoh
- The sorcerers who believed
- The golden calf
- Ādam’s forgetting
- Turning away from the Reminder
- Patience and prayer
Its aims, as Ibn ʿĀshūr sets them out
احتوت من الأغراض على:
- التحدي بالقرآن بذكر الحروف المقطعة في مفتتحها.
- والتنويه بأنه تنزيل من الله لهدي القابلين للهداية فأكثرها في هذا الشأن.
- والتنويه بعظمة الله تعالى، وإثبات رسالة محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم بأنها تماثل رسالة أعظم رسول قبله شاع ذكره في الناس، فضرب المثل لنزول القرآن على محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم بكلام الله موسى عليه السلام.
From its first ayah to its last
- 1–88 ayat · 4% of the surahRead from ayah 1 →
Not to distress you
Ṭā-Hā. We have not sent down the Qurʾan to you that you should be distressed, but only as a reminder for whoever fears: a sending down from Him who created the earth and the high heavens — the Most Merciful, who rose over the Throne. Allah: there is no god but He. His are the most beautiful names.
- 9–3628 ayat · 12% of the surahRead from ayah 9 →
The fire, and the commission
Has the story of Mūsā reached you? He saw a fire. When he came to it, he was called: “Mūsā, I am your Lord; take off your sandals — you are in the sacred valley of Ṭuwā. I am Allah; there is no god but I, so worship Me, and establish the prayer for My remembrance.” The staff, and the hand. “Go to Pharaoh; he has transgressed.” — “My Lord, open my chest for me, ease my task, loose the knot from my tongue, and give me a helper from my family: Hārūn, my brother.” — “You are granted your request, Mūsā.”
- 37–5519 ayat · 15% of the surahRead from ayah 37 →
“I made you for Myself”
We had already shown you favour another time: when We inspired your mother to cast you into the river; when your sister walked along; when you killed a man and We saved you from distress; then you came here as ordained. “I have made you for Myself. Go, you and your brother… Speak to him gently; perhaps he will take heed, or fear.” — “Our Lord, we fear he will be hasty against us.” — “Do not fear; I am with you both, hearing and seeing.” — “Who is your Lord, Mūsā?” — “Our Lord is He who gave everything its form, then guided.”
- 56–7924 ayat · 20% of the surahRead from ayah 56 →
The day of the festival
Pharaoh denied and refused, and set a contest for the day of the festival. The sorcerers cast their ropes and staffs, and Mūsā felt fear within himself. “Do not fear; you will be uppermost. Throw what is in your right hand.” The sorcerers fell in prostration: “We believe in the Lord of Hārūn and Mūsā.” Pharaoh threatened them with crucifixion: “Decree, then, whatever you will decree; you decree only for this life.” Mūsā was told to lead My servants out by night, and Pharaoh followed with his hosts, and the sea covered them.
- 80–9819 ayat · 18% of the surahRead from ayah 80 →
The calf
Children of Israel, We saved you from your enemy. — “What made you hurry ahead of your people, Mūsā?” We tried your people after you, and the Sāmirī led them astray: he brought out for them a calf, a body that lowed. Hārūn had told them, “My people, you are only being tested by it.” Mūsā returned in anger and grief; he seized his brother by the head. “And you, Sāmirī?” — “I saw what they did not see.” Your god is only Allah.
- 99–11416 ayat · 12% of the surahRead from ayah 99 →
The Day, and the Qurʾan
Thus We relate to you the news of what has gone before, and We have given you a reminder from Ourselves. They ask you about the mountains: say, my Lord will scatter them as dust. That Day they will follow the caller, without deviation, and voices will be hushed before the Most Merciful. Do not hasten with the Qurʾan before its revelation to you is completed, and say: “My Lord, increase me in knowledge” (20:114).
- 115–12713 ayat · 10% of the surahRead from ayah 115 →
Ādam forgot
We made a covenant with Ādam before, but he forgot, and We found in him no firm resolve. Satan whispered to him: “Shall I show you the tree of eternity?” They ate; then his Lord chose him, turned to him and guided him. “Whoever follows My guidance will not go astray nor be wretched. But whoever turns away from My Reminder will have a straitened life, and We shall raise him blind on the Day of Resurrection.”
- 128–1358 ayat · 9% of the surahRead from ayah 128 →
Be patient, and pray
So be patient with what they say, and glorify your Lord with praise before the rising of the sun and before its setting, and in the hours of the night, and at the ends of the day. Do not stretch your eyes towards what We have given some of them to enjoy. Bid your family to pray, and be steadfast in it; We ask no provision of you — We provide for you. Say: everyone is waiting; so wait.
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 99% of its ayat, and the rhyme turns 4 times. None of them comes where a 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
مَنْ نَسِيَ صَلاَةً فَلْيُصَلِّ إِذَا ذَكَرَهَا
“Whoever forgets a prayer, let him pray it when he remembers; there is no expiation for it but that. ‘Establish the prayer for My remembrance.’”Ibn Masʿūd counted it, with Banī Isrāʾīl, al-Kahf, Maryam and al-Anbiyāʾ, among “the first and finest” — the earliest surahs he had learned.The name it is known by
The two letters it opens with. It is also called Sūrat al-Kalīm, after Mūsā, the one to whom Allah spoke.
Its place in the muṣḥaf
Ayat you will hear named
- 20:5The Most Merciful rose over the Throne
- 20:14“I am Allah… establish the prayer for My remembrance”
- 20:25–28Mūsā’s prayer: “open my chest for me”
- 20:44Speak to him gently
- 20:46“I am with you both; I hear and I see”
- 20:114“My Lord, increase me in knowledge”
- 20:124Whoever turns from My Reminder
- 20:132Bid your family to pray
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)
- 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.