Makkan, by agreement
Makkah, some seven years before the Hijrah, when news came of the Persian conquest of Syria and Palestine
It is Makkan without any disagreement, as al-Qurṭubī says, and Ibn al-Jawzī records the agreement. Its opening is dated by the event it speaks of: the defeat of the Byzantines by the Persians “in the nearest land”, which took place in the middle years of the Prophet’s ﷺ mission. The traditional order places it eighty-fourth.
سُورَةُ الرُّومِ وَهِيَ مَكِّيَّةٌ كُلُّها بِإجْماعِهِمْسُورَةُ الرُّومِ مَكِّيَّةٌ كُلُّهَا مِنْ غَيْرِ خِلَافٍ، وهي ستون آيةThe same, in other works
- al-BaghawīMaʿālim al-tanzīlAhl al-Sunnah in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
سُورَةُ الرُّومِ 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 الرُّومِ بِمَكَّةَ
A report he gathers; its chain is not graded here.
- Abū al-SuʿūdIrshād al-ʿaql al-salīmMāturīdī in creedḤanafī in fiqh→
Makkan, with the exception he names.
مَكِّيَّةٌ إلّا قَوْلَهُ ﴿فَسُبْحانَ اللَّهِ﴾ ... الآيَةَ. وهى سِتُّونَ آيَةً
Each line of English says what the Arabic beneath it says.
What was happening
The two great powers of the age were at war. The Persians, under Khusraw, overran the Byzantine provinces of the Near East, took Damascus and then Jerusalem, and drove the emperor Heraclius back until, as Ibn Kathīr tells it, he was besieged in his own capital.
In Makkah the news divided people along a line they all understood. Ibn al-Jawzī gives it from the commentators: the Persians had no scripture, denied the Resurrection and worshipped idols; the Byzantines were a people of a Book.◇ So the idolaters rejoiced and said to the Muslims: you are people of a scripture, and the Christians are people of a scripture; our brothers the Persians have beaten your brothers — and if you fight us, we shall beat you.
The surah came down: “The Byzantines have been defeated, in the nearest land. But they, after their defeat, will overcome — within a few years.” The word used, biḍʿ, means a number from three to nine. Abū Bakr went out and announced it, and the idolaters challenged him to a wager, in the days before such wagers were forbidden. He first fixed too short a term, and the Prophet ﷺ told him to lengthen it: “Why did you not make it less than ten?”
Nothing could have looked less likely. And yet within that span Heraclius struck back, broke the Persian armies and recovered what had been lost. Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī said: on the day of Badr the Byzantines prevailed over the Persians, and the believers were glad of it — as the ayah had said they would be: “and on that day the believers will rejoice, in the help of Allah.”
From that sign in history the surah turns to signs that need no news to carry them. Six times it says, “And among His signs…”: your creation from dust; mates made from yourselves, with affection and mercy placed between you; the difference of your tongues and colours; your sleep and your seeking of His bounty; the lightning and the rain; the standing of the heaven and the earth by His command.
- Related, not gradedRelated by the commentators without a graded chain; not established as authentic.
What came down about what
Abū Bakr’s wager
Niyār ibn Mukram al-Aslamī said: when “Alif Lām Mīm. The Byzantines have been defeated, in the nearest land; and after their defeat they will prevail, within a few years” came down, the Persians had the upper hand over the Byzantines. The Muslims wished the Byzantines to prevail, because they and the Byzantines were both people of a Book — and of that Allah says, “On that day the believers will rejoice in the help of Allah.” Quraysh wished the Persians to prevail, because neither they nor the Persians had a Book or believed in the Resurrection.
When Allah sent these ayat down, Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq went out crying them aloud through the quarters of Makkah. Some men of Quraysh said to him: “Then let that stand between us and you. Your companion claims that the Byzantines will defeat the Persians within a few years. Will you not wager with us on it?” He said: “I will.” That was before wagering was forbidden. So Abū Bakr and the idolaters laid down their stakes, and they said to him: “How long do you make ‘a few’? It is from three years to nine; so name a middle term between us at which it ends.” And they fixed six years between them.
The six years passed before the Byzantines prevailed, and the idolaters took Abū Bakr’s stake. When the seventh year came, the Byzantines defeated the Persians. The Muslims blamed Abū Bakr for having named six years, since Allah had said “within a few years”. And at that, said Niyār, many people entered Islam.
Ibn ʿAbbās tells of the same wager, with a term of five years. When it ran out and they had not yet prevailed, it was mentioned to the Prophet ﷺ, who said: “Why did you not set it further off?” — at something under ten, the narrator thought he said; for “a few”, Saʿīd ibn Jubayr explained, is what is less than ten. Then the Byzantines prevailed; and Sufyān al-Thawrī had heard that it was on the day of Badr.
Niyār ibn Mukram al-Aslamī: al-Tirmidhī (3194); ḥasan according to al-Albānī. Ibn ʿAbbās: Aḥmad and al-Tirmidhī (3193); ṣaḥīḥ according to al-Albānī.
Graded ṣaḥīḥ
وَكَانَ الْمُسْلِمُونَ يُحِبُّونَ أَنْ تَظْهَرَ الرُّومُ عَلَى فَارِسَ؛ لِأَنَّهُمْ أَهْلُ كِتَابٍ، فذُكر ذَلِكَ لِأَبِي بَكْرٍ،، فَذَكَرَهُ أَبُو بَكْرٍ لِرَسُولِ اللَّهِ ﷺ، فَقَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ ﷺ: أَمَا إِنَّهُمْ سَيَغْلِبُونَبيان الحقيقة الكونية في أن تصريف الأمور والأحوال والأحداث لله وحده، كما قال تعالى: ﴿لِلَّهِ الأَمْرُ مِن قَبْلُ ومِن بَعْدُ﴾.
To set out the reality that governs the world: the turning of affairs, conditions and events belongs to Allah alone — “To Allah belongs the command, before and after.”
The surah’s aim, as al-Mukhtaṣar fī al-Tafsīr states it
- The command belongs to Allah
- The prophecy of the Byzantine victory
- “And among His signs”
- Marriage, affection and mercy
- The natural disposition
- Corruption on land and sea
- Patience and the promise
Its aims, as Ibn ʿĀshūr sets them out
أول أغراض هذه السورة سبب نزولها على ما سر المشركين من تغلب الفرس على الروم، فقمع الله تعالى تطاول المشركين به وتحداهم بأن العاقبة للروم في الغلب على الفرس بعد سنين قليلة.
ثم تطرق من ذلك إلى تجهيل المشركين بأنهم لا تغوص أفهامهم في الاعتبار بالأحداث ولا في أسباب نهوض وانحدار الأمم من الجانب الرباني، ومن ذلك إهمالهم النظر في الحياة الثانية ولم يتعظوا بهلاك الأمم السالفة المماثلة لهم في الإشراك بالله، وانتقل من ذلك إلى ذكر البعث.
From its first ayah to its last
- 1–77 ayat · 6% of the surahRead from ayah 1 →
The prophecy
Alif Lām Mīm. The Byzantines have been defeated in the nearest land; and they, after their defeat, will overcome, within a few years. To Allah belongs the command, before and after. On that day the believers will rejoice in the help of Allah. It is the promise of Allah. But most people do not know: they know what is apparent of the life of this world, and of the Hereafter they are heedless.
- 8–1912 ayat · 17% of the surahRead from ayah 8 →
Reflect, and travel
Have they not reflected within themselves? Allah created the heavens and the earth only in truth and for an appointed term. Have they not travelled the land and seen how those before them ended — who were stronger, and tilled the earth and built upon it more than these have? So glorify Allah when you reach the evening and when you rise in the morning. He brings the living out of the dead and the dead out of the living; and thus you will be brought out.
- 20–278 ayat · 15% of the surahRead from ayah 20 →
“And among His signs”
Among His signs is that He created you from dust. Among His signs is that He created for you mates from yourselves, that you may find rest in them, and placed between you affection and mercy (30:21). Among His signs: the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the diversity of your tongues and colours; your sleep by night and day; the lightning, and the rain that gives life to the earth after its death; and that the heaven and the earth stand by His command.
- 28–4013 ayat · 26% of the surahRead from ayah 28 →
The upright religion
He sets you an example from yourselves: do you make your slaves equal partners in what We have given you? So set your face to the religion, inclining to truth — the natural disposition upon which Allah created mankind; there is no altering Allah’s creation. That is the upright religion. Turn to Him, and do not be of those who split their religion into sects. Give the kinsman his due, and the needy, and the traveller. What you give in usury does not increase with Allah; what you give in charity, seeking His Face, is multiplied.
- 41–5313 ayat · 23% of the surahRead from ayah 41 →
Corruption, wind and rain
Corruption has appeared on land and sea because of what people’s hands have earned, that He may make them taste some of what they have done, so that they may return. Among His signs is that He sends the winds as heralds of good news. Look at the traces of Allah’s mercy — how He gives life to the earth after its death. He it is who will give life to the dead. You cannot make the dead hear.
- 54–607 ayat · 12% of the surahRead from ayah 54 →
Weakness, strength, weakness
It is Allah who created you in weakness, then after weakness gave strength, then after strength gave weakness and grey hair. On the Day the Hour arrives, the guilty will swear they stayed but an hour. So be patient: the promise of Allah is true. And do not let those who have no certainty shake you.
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 97% of its ayat, and the rhyme turns 4 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
مَا مِنْ مَوْلُودٍ إِلاَّ يُولَدُ عَلَى الْفِطْرَةِ
“No child is born but upon the natural disposition. Then his parents make him a Jew, or a Christian, or a Magian — as an animal brings forth its young whole: do you see any among them maimed?” Then Abū Hurayrah recited: “The natural disposition upon which Allah created mankind; there is no altering Allah’s creation.”“On the day of Badr the Byzantines prevailed over the Persians, and that pleased the believers. Then there came down: ‘Alif Lām Mīm. The Byzantines have been defeated…’ to ‘the believers will rejoice in the help of Allah.’”The name it is known by
After the people named in its second ayah — the Romans of the East, whose empire was ruled from Constantinople and who held Syria and Palestine. It is the only surah named after a foreign nation of the Prophet’s ﷺ own time.
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)
- 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; Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī
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.