Makkan, by agreement
The middle years in Makkah
It is Makkan in the saying of all: Ibn al-Jawzī and al-Qurṭubī both record the agreement. It is the middle one of three surahs that open with the letters Ṭā Sīn and came down in the order in which they stand: al-Shuʿarāʾ, al-Naml, al-Qaṣaṣ. The traditional order places it forty-eighth.
سُورَةُ النَّمْلِ وَهِيَ مَكِّيَّةٌ كُلُّها بِإجْماعِهِمْمَكِّيَّةٌ كُلُّهَا فِي قَوْلِ الْجَمِيعِ، وَهِيَ ثَلَاثٌ وتسعون آيةThe same, in other works
- al-BaghawīMaʿālim al-tanzīlAhl al-Sunnah in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
سُورَةُ النَّمْلِ 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.
أخْرَجَ ابْنُ الضُّرَيْسِ، والنَّحّاسُ، وابْنُ مَرْدُوَيْهِ، والبَيْهَقِيُّ في الدَّلائِلِ، عَنِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ قالَ: أُنْزِلَتْ سُورَةُ النَّمْلِ بِمَكَّةَ
A report he gathers; its chain is not graded here.
- al-ShawkānīFatḥ al-qadīr→
Makkan, by agreement, citing al-Qurṭubī.
قالَ القُرْطُبِيُّ: وهي مَكِّيَّةٌ كُلُّها في قَوْلِ الجَمِيعِ
- al-RāzīMafātīḥ al-ghaybAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
تِسْعُونَ وثَلاثُ أوْ أرْبَعُ أوْ خَمْسُ آياتٍ مَكِّيَّةٌ
- Abū al-SuʿūdIrshād al-ʿaql al-salīmMāturīdī in creedḤanafī in fiqh→
Makkan.
سُورَةُ النَّمْلِ مَكِّيَّةٌ وهي ثَلاثٌ أوْ أرْبَعٌ وتِسْعُونَ آيَةً
Each line of English says what the Arabic beneath it says.
What was happening
No occasion is reported for it. Its opening lines say whom it is for — “guidance and good news for the believers” — and whom it is not for: “those who do not believe in the Hereafter: We have made their deeds seem fair to them, so they wander blindly.”
The surah that follows is about knowledge, and what people do with it. Mūsā is shown nine signs, and Pharaoh’s people reject them “though their souls were convinced of them, out of injustice and pride.” Then come Dāwūd and Sulaymān, who were given knowledge and said, “Praise be to Allah, who has favoured us above many of His believing servants.” That is the contrast the whole surah turns on. The men of Quraysh were not short of evidence. They were short of gratitude.
The story of Sulaymān is told here more fully than anywhere else. His hosts of jinn, men and birds march in ranks; an ant tells her kind to go indoors lest they be trampled unawares, and he smiles at her words and thanks his Lord. The hoopoe is missing from the muster and comes back with a report: a woman ruling a people, with a mighty throne, and they bow to the sun. The letter he sends her begins: “In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Especially Merciful.” She consults her council, tests him with a gift, and at last comes herself — to find her own throne there before her, and a floor of glass she takes for water. Her words on seeing it are the point of the story: “My Lord, I have wronged myself; and I submit, with Sulaymān, to Allah, Lord of the worlds.” A sovereign with every worldly reason for pride did what the chiefs of Makkah would not.
Then the surah puts five questions to its hearers, each ending, “Is there a god with Allah?” — who created the heavens and the earth; who made the earth firm; who answers the one in distress when he calls; who guides you through the darkness of land and sea; who begins creation and then repeats it.
الامتنان على النبي ﷺ بالآية الكبرى - وهي القرآن - والحث على شكرها والصبر على تبليغها.
To recall Allah’s favour to the Prophet ﷺ in the greatest sign — the Qurʾan — and to urge thankfulness for it and patience in conveying it.
The surah’s aim, as al-Mukhtaṣar fī al-Tafsīr states it
- Knowledge and gratitude
- Mūsā and the nine signs
- Sulaymān
- The Queen of Sabaʾ
- “Is there a god with Allah?”
- The signs before the Hour
Its aims, as Ibn ʿĀshūr sets them out
أول أغراض هذه السورة افتتاحها بما يشير إلى إعجاز القرآن ببلاغة نظمه وعلو معانيه، بما يشير إليه الحرفان المقطعان في أولها.
والتنويه بشأن القرآن وأنه هدى لمن ييسر الله الاهتداء به دون من جحدوا أنه من عند الله.
والتحدي بعلم ما فيه من أخبار الأنبياء.
والاعتبار بملك أعظم ملك أوتيه نبيء. وهو ملك داود وملك سليمان عليهما السلام، وما بلغه من العلم بأحوال الطير، وما بلغ إليه ملكه من عظمة الحضارة.
From its first ayah to its last
- 1–66 ayat · 4% of the surahRead from ayah 1 →
The Qurʾan, and who receives it
Ṭā Sīn. These are the ayat of the Qurʾan and a clear Book: guidance and good news for the believers, who keep up the prayer, give the zakāh, and are certain of the Hereafter. You are receiving the Qurʾan from One who is Wise, All-Knowing.
- 7–148 ayat · 9% of the surahRead from ayah 7 →
Mūsā at the fire
Mūsā said to his family, “I perceive a fire.” When he came to it he was called: “Blessed is whoever is at the fire and whoever is around it. Mūsā, it is I, Allah, the Almighty, the Wise. Throw down your staff.” Nine signs for Pharaoh and his people. They rejected them, though their own souls were convinced, out of injustice and pride.
- 15–4430 ayat · 36% of the surahRead from ayah 15 →
Sulaymān and the Queen of Sabaʾ
We gave knowledge to Dāwūd and Sulaymān. Sulaymān’s hosts were mustered; an ant said, “Enter your dwellings, lest Sulaymān and his hosts crush you unawares,” and he smiled. The hoopoe brought news from Sabaʾ of a queen and a people who prostrate to the sun. He wrote to her; she sent a gift; he sent it back. One with knowledge of the Book brought her throne before his glance returned to him: “This is of the bounty of my Lord, to test me — will I give thanks, or be ungrateful?” She came, and said: “I submit, with Sulaymān, to Allah, Lord of the worlds.”
- 45–5814 ayat · 12% of the surahRead from ayah 45 →
Ṣāliḥ, and Lūṭ
To Thamūd We sent their brother Ṣāliḥ, and they became two quarrelling factions. Nine men in the city swore to attack him and his family by night. They plotted, and We planned; there are their houses, fallen in. And Lūṭ, whose people said: “Expel the family of Lūṭ from your town; they are people who keep themselves pure.”
- 59–668 ayat · 12% of the surahRead from ayah 59 →
Is there a god with Allah?
Say: praise be to Allah, and peace upon His servants whom He has chosen. Who created the heavens and the earth and sent down water for you? Who made the earth a fixed abode? Who answers the distressed one when he calls on Him, and removes the harm? Who guides you in the darkness of land and sea? Who originates creation and then repeats it? Is there a god with Allah? Say: none in the heavens or the earth knows the unseen but Allah.
- 67–8216 ayat · 13% of the surahRead from ayah 67 →
The deniers, and the Beast
Those who disbelieve say: “When we are dust, we and our fathers, shall we be brought out?” Travel through the land, and see how the guilty ended. Do not grieve over them. This Qurʾan relates to the Children of Israel most of that over which they differ. You cannot make the dead hear. And when the word falls upon them, We shall bring out for them a creature from the earth that will speak to them.
- 83–9311 ayat · 13% of the surahRead from ayah 83 →
The Day
The Day We gather from every nation a troop of those who denied Our signs. The Day the Trumpet is blown, and all in the heavens and the earth are terrified. You see the mountains and think them fixed, while they pass as the clouds pass. Whoever brings a good deed will have better than it. Say: I am commanded only to worship the Lord of this city, who made it sacred. And say: praise be to Allah; He will show you His signs, and you will know them.
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 93 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
“An ant bit one of the prophets, and he ordered the ant colony to be burned. Then Allah revealed to him: because a single ant bit you, you have burned a nation of those that glorify Allah?”The name it is known by
After the valley of the ants in its eighteenth ayah. It is also called Sūrat Sulaymān, and Ṭā Sīn, after the two letters it opens with.
Its place in the muṣḥaf
Ayat you will hear named
- 27:18–19The ant, and Sulaymān’s prayer of thanks
- 27:26An ayah of prostration
- 27:30The basmalah, in Sulaymān’s letter
- 27:40“This is of the bounty of my Lord, to test me”
- 27:44“I submit, with Sulaymān, to Allah”
- 27:62Who answers the distressed one when he calls?
- 27:88The mountains, passing as the clouds pass
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
- 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.