Makkan, by the majority
The middle years in Makkah
Ibn ʿAbbās, al-Ḥasan, Mujāhid, ʿIkrimah and Qatādah, among others, said it is Makkan, and al-Qurṭubī calls that the saying of the majority. It is reported from Ibn ʿAbbās and Qatādah that three of its ayat (25:68–70) came down in Madinah. Al-Ḍaḥḥāk alone held the reverse. The Companions were already reciting it in the Prophet’s lifetime as a surah by this name: ʿUmar heard Hishām ibn Ḥakīm reciting “Sūrat al-Furqān” in prayer. The traditional order places it forty-second.
قالَ ابْنُ عَبّاسٍ، والحَسَنُ، ومُجاهِدٌ، وعِكْرِمَةُ، وقَتادَةُ في آخَرِينَ: هي مَكِّيَّةٌ. وحُكِيَ عَنِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ وقَتادَةَ أنَّهُما قالا: إلّا ثَلاثَ آياتٍ مِنها نَزَلَتْ بِالمَدِينَةِوَمَقْصُودُ هَذِهِ السُّورَةِ ذِكْرُ مَوْضِعِ عِظَمِ الْقُرْآنِ، وَذِكْرُ مَطَاعِنِ الْكُفَّارِ فِي النبوة والرد على مقالاتهمThe same, in other works
- al-BaghawīMaʿālim al-tanzīlAhl al-Sunnah in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
سُورَةُ الْفُرْقَانِ مَكِّيَّةٌ
- al-Suyūṭīal-Durr al-manthūrAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Ibn ʿAbbās: it came down in Makkah. Recorded by Ibn al-Ḍurays, al-Naḥḥās, Ibn Mardawayh and al-Bayhaqī, through several chains.
أخْرَجَ ابْنُ الضُّرَيْسِ، والنَّحّاسُ، وابْنُ مَرْدُوَيْهِ، والبَيْهَقِيُّ في الدَّلائِلِ، مِن طُرُقٍ عَنِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ قالَ: نَزَلَتْ سُورَةُ الفُرْقانِ بِمَكَّةَ
A report he gathers; its chain is not graded here.
- al-ShawkānīFatḥ al-qadīr→
Makkan, all of it, in the saying of the majority; and so Ibn al-Ḍurays, al-Naḥḥās and Ibn Mardawayh record from Ibn ʿAbbās.
هي مَكِّيَّةٌ كُلُّها في قَوْلِ الجُمْهُورِ، وكَذا أخْرَجَهُ ابْنُ الضَّرِيسِ والنَّحّاسُ وابْنُ مَرْدَوَيْهِ مِن طُرُقٍ عَنِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ
- al-RāzīMafātīḥ al-ghaybAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
سَبْعٌ وسَبْعُونَ آيَةً مَكِّيَّةً
Each line of English says what the Arabic beneath it says.
What was happening
Al-Qurṭubī states what the surah is for: to show the greatness of the Qurʾan, and to set down what the disbelievers said against the prophethood and answer it. It reads like a record of a hearing. Each objection is quoted as it was spoken, and each is met.
This is nothing but a lie he has invented, and others have helped him with it. Tales of the ancients, which he has had written down, dictated to him morning and evening. What is the matter with this messenger, that he eats food and walks about the markets? Why has no angel been sent down to be with him as a warner — or a treasure thrown down to him, or a garden he could eat from? You follow only a man bewitched. Why are the angels not sent down to us, or why do we not see our Lord? Why was the Qurʾan not sent down to him all at once?
The answers are short. He who knows the secret in the heavens and the earth sent it down. We sent no messengers before you but they ate food and walked in the markets. And as for sending it down in parts: “Thus — that We may make your heart firm by it; and We have recited it in measured recitation. They bring you no argument but We bring you the truth and a better explanation.”
Twice the surah lets the Prophet ﷺ see past the argument to its end. The Day the wrongdoer bites his hands and says: “Would that I had taken a path with the Messenger. Woe to me — would that I had not taken so-and-so for a friend.” The commentators relate that this was about ʿUqbah ibn Abī Muʿayṭ, who had begun to listen and was turned back by a friend’s scorn.◇ And then the Messenger’s own complaint, kept in the Qurʾan as he will make it: “My Lord, my people have taken this Qurʾan as a thing abandoned.”
When the Makkans were told to prostrate to al-Raḥmān, they said: “And what is al-Raḥmān?” The close of the surah answers by describing His servants.
- Related, not gradedRelated by the commentators without a graded chain; not established as authentic.
What came down about what
The greatest of sins
Ibn Masʿūd said: I asked the Messenger of Allah ﷺ: “Which sin is greatest with Allah?” He said: “That you set up a rival to Allah, when He created you.” I said: “Then what?” He said: “That you kill your child for fear that he will eat with you.” I said: “Then what?” He said: “That you commit adultery with your neighbour’s wife.” And Allah sent down in confirmation of it: “Those who do not call upon another god with Allah, nor kill the soul Allah has forbidden except by right, nor commit adultery.”
ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd: al-Bukhārī (4761) and Muslim (86).
Ṣaḥīḥ
“If only you told us there is an expiation”
Some people of the idolaters had killed, and killed much, and committed adultery, and done so much. They came to Muḥammad ﷺ and said: “What you say and call to is good — if only you would tell us that there is an expiation for what we have done.” Then there came down: “Those who do not call upon another god with Allah…”, and: “Say: O My servants who have transgressed against themselves, do not despair of the mercy of Allah.”
Ibn ʿAbbās: al-Bukhārī (4810) and Muslim (122).
Ṣaḥīḥ
الانتصار للرسول ﷺ بعد تطاول المشركين عليه.
To come to the defence of the Messenger ﷺ, after the idolaters had grown insolent towards him.
The surah’s aim, as al-Mukhtaṣar fī al-Tafsīr states it
- The Qurʾan as the Criterion
- The objections to the Messenger, answered
- Why the Qurʾan came down in parts
- The regret of the wrongdoer
- Desire taken as a god
- Signs: the shadow, the two seas, night and day
- The servants of the Most Merciful
- Repentance that turns evil deeds to good
Its aims, as Ibn ʿĀshūr sets them out
واشتملت هذه السورة على الابتداء بتمجيد الله تعالى وإنشاء الثناء عليه، ووصفه بصفات الإلهية والوحدانية فيها.
وأدمج في ذلك التنويه بالقرآن، وجلال منزله، وما فيه من الهدى، وتعريض بالامتنان على الناس بهديه وإرشاده إلى اتقاء المهالك، والتنويه بشأن النبيء صلى الله عليه وسلم.
وأقيمت هذه السورة على ثلاث دعائم:
From its first ayah to its last
- 1–99 ayat · 14% of the surahRead from ayah 1 →
Blessed is He who sent down the Criterion
Blessed is He who sent down the Criterion upon His servant, that he may be a warner to the worlds — He to whom belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth, who has taken no son and has no partner, who created everything and measured it exactly. Those who disbelieve say: “This is only a lie he has invented… tales of the ancients… What is the matter with this messenger, that he eats food and walks in the markets?”
- 10–2011 ayat · 16% of the surahRead from ayah 10 →
Better than what they asked
Blessed is He who, if He willed, could give you better than that: gardens beneath which rivers flow, and palaces. No — they have denied the Hour, and for those who deny the Hour We have prepared a blaze; when it sees them from afar, they hear its fury and its roar. The Day He gathers them and what they worshipped: “Was it you who misled these servants of Mine?” We sent no messengers before you but they ate food and walked in the markets; and We have made some of you a trial for others: will you be patient?
- 21–3414 ayat · 16% of the surahRead from ayah 21 →
The Day of regret, and the Qurʾan abandoned
Those who do not expect to meet Us say, “Why are the angels not sent down to us, or why do we not see our Lord?” The Day they see the angels, there will be no good news for the guilty; and We shall turn to what deeds they did and make them scattered dust. The Day the wrongdoer will bite his hands: “Would that I had taken a path with the Messenger.” And the Messenger will say: “My Lord, my people have taken this Qurʾan as abandoned” (25:30). They say, “Why was the Qurʾan not sent down to him all at once?” Thus — to make your heart firm.
- 35–4410 ayat · 13% of the surahRead from ayah 35 →
Those who denied before
We gave Mūsā the Book, and appointed his brother Hārūn as his helper. The people of Nūḥ, when they denied the messengers, We drowned; and ʿĀd, and Thamūd, and the people of al-Rass, and many generations between. When they see you they take you only in mockery: “Is this the one Allah has sent as a messenger?” Have you seen him who takes his own desire as his god? They are only like cattle; no, they are further astray.
- 45–6218 ayat · 23% of the surahRead from ayah 45 →
Signs of the Most Merciful
Have you not seen how your Lord stretches out the shadow? He made the night a garment for you, and sleep a rest. He sends the winds as good news before His mercy. He let the two seas flow, this one fresh and sweet, that one salt and bitter, and set between them a barrier. He created from water a human being. He created the heavens and the earth in six days, then rose over the Throne: the Most Merciful. When it is said to them, “Prostrate to the Most Merciful,” they say, “And what is the Most Merciful?” He made the night and the day follow one another, for whoever wishes to remember or to give thanks.
- 63–7715 ayat · 17% of the surahRead from ayah 63 →
The servants of the Most Merciful
The servants of the Most Merciful are those who walk upon the earth gently, and when the ignorant address them, say, “Peace”; who spend the night before their Lord, prostrating and standing; who, when they spend, are neither wasteful nor miserly; who do not call on another god with Allah, nor kill, nor commit adultery — except the one who repents, believes and does right: for those, Allah will change their evil deeds into good. Who do not bear false witness; who, reminded of their Lord’s ayat, do not fall deaf and blind at them; who say: “Our Lord, grant us in our spouses and offspring the comfort of our eyes, and make us leaders of 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 99% of its ayat, and the rhyme turns 2 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
إِنَّ هَذَا الْقُرْآنَ أُنْزِلَ عَلَى سَبْعَةِ أَحْرُفٍ فَاقْرَءُوا مَا تَيَسَّرَ مِنْهُ
ʿUmar said: I heard Hishām ibn Ḥakīm reciting Sūrat al-Furqān in the lifetime of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, in a way other than the way he had taught it to me. I almost leapt on him in the prayer. I brought him to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, who had each of us recite, and said to each: “So it was sent down.” Then he said: “This Qurʾan was sent down in seven modes; so recite of it what is easy for you.”The name it is known by
From its first ayah. Ibn al-Jawzī: the Furqān is the Qurʾan, so called because by it truth is parted from falsehood.
Its place in the muṣḥaf
Ayat you will hear named
- 25:1Blessed is He who sent down the Criterion
- 25:23Deeds made scattered dust
- 25:27–29The wrongdoer bites his hands
- 25:30“My people have taken this Qurʾan as abandoned”
- 25:32Why it was sent down in parts
- 25:43He who takes his desire as his god
- 25:53The two seas
- 25:60An ayah of prostration
- 25:63–76The servants of the Most Merciful
- 25:74“The comfort of our eyes”
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)
- 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.