Makkan, by agreement
The middle years in Makkah
It is Makkan in the saying of all: Ibn al-Jawzī records the agreement, and al-Qurṭubī says the same. The traditional order places it thirty-eighth.
سُورَةُ صَ وَيُقالُ لَها: سُورَةُ داوُدَ، وهي مَكِّيَّةٌ [كُلُّها] بِإجْماعِهِمْسُورَةُ ص مَكِّيَّةٌ فِي قَوْلِ الْجَمِيعِThe same, in other works
- al-BaghawīMaʿālim al-tanzīlAhl al-Sunnah in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
سُورَةُ ص 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 مَرْدُويَهْ والبَيْهَقِيُّ في الدَّلائِلِ عَنِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ قالَ: نَزَلَتْ سُورَةُ ص بِمَكَّةَ
A report he gathers; its chain is not graded here.
- al-ShawkānīFatḥ al-qadīr→
Makkan, by agreement, citing al-Qurṭubī.
تَفْسِيرُ سُورَةِ ص وهِيَ مَكِّيَّةٌ: قالَ القُرْطُبِيُّ: في قَوْلِ الجَمِيعِ
- al-RāzīMafātīḥ al-ghaybAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
ثَمانُونَ وثَمانِ آياتٍ مَكِّيَّةٌ
- Abū al-SuʿūdIrshād al-ʿaql al-salīmMāturīdī in creedḤanafī in fiqh→
Makkan.
سُورَةُ صَ مَكِّيَّةٌ، وآياتُها ثَمانٌ وثَمانُونَ آيَةً
Each line of English says what the Arabic beneath it says.
What was happening
It opens on the state of the people it is about: “those who disbelieve are in pride and dissension.” One thing had been asked of them — to say that there is no god but Allah — and the surah keeps their answer word for word: “Has he made the gods into one God? This is an astonishing thing.”
The surah quotes them further. Their leaders set off saying, “Go on, and stand by your gods — this is something that is being plotted. We never heard of this in the latest religion. It is nothing but an invention. Has the Reminder been sent down to him, out of all of us?” The last question is the truest. What they could not bear was that revelation should have come to him and not to one of them.
To the one who had to listen to this, the surah says: “Be patient with what they say, and remember Our servant Dāwūd.” Three prophets follow, each given something immense and each tried in it. Dāwūd was given strength, a kingdom and judgement; he was tested, understood at once, and fell down in prostration. Sulaymān was given a dominion such as no one after him would have; he was tested, and turned back. Ayyūb was given affliction, and called on his Lord — “and We found him patient: an excellent servant, ever turning back.” The same praise is given to all three.
Of Dāwūd’s trial, Ibn Kathīr writes that the commentators relate a story most of which is taken from Israelite sources, that nothing binding is established about it from the Prophet ﷺ, and that the right course is to keep to what the Qurʾan itself recites.
The surah ends at the beginning of the human story: the creation of Ādam, and the one who would not bow.
ذكر المخاصمة بالباطل وعاقبتها.
To recount contention in the cause of falsehood, and what it leads to.
The surah’s aim, as al-Mukhtaṣar fī al-Tafsīr states it
- The pride of Quraysh
- Patience
- Dāwūd, Sulaymān and Ayyūb
- Turning back to Allah
- The quarrel of the people of the Fire
- Ādam and Iblīs
Its aims, as Ibn ʿĀshūr sets them out
توبيخ المشركين على تكذيبهم الرسول صلى الله عليه وسلم وتكبرهم عن قبول ما أرسل به، وتهديدهم بمثل ما حل بالأمم المكذبة قبلهم وأنهم إنما كذبوه لأنه جاء بتوحيد الله تعالى ولأنه اختص بالرسالة من دونهم. وتسلية الرسول صلى الله عليه وسلم عن تكذيبهم وأن يقتدي بالرسل من قبله داود وأيوب وغيرهم وما جوزوا عن صبرهم، واستطراد الثناء على داود وسليمان وأيوب، وأتبع ذكر أنبياء آخرين لمناسبة سنذكرها. وإثبات البعث لحكمة جزاء العالمين بأعمالهم من خير أو شر.
From its first ayah to its last
- 1–1616 ayat · 19% of the surahRead from ayah 1 →
Their astonishment
Ṣād. By the Qurʾan, full of reminder: those who disbelieve are sunk in pride and dissent. They marvel that a warner has come to them from among themselves, and say: “A sorcerer, a liar. Has he made the gods one God?” Their chiefs go off: “Stand by your gods.” Before them the people of Nūḥ denied, and ʿĀd, and Pharaoh of the stakes, and Thamūd, the people of Lūṭ and the people of the Thicket. They say, “Our Lord, hasten our share to us before the Day of Reckoning.”
- 17–2913 ayat · 25% of the surahRead from ayah 17 →
Dāwūd
Be patient with what they say, and remember Our servant Dāwūd, the man of strength, ever turning back. The mountains and the birds glorified with him. Two disputants climbed into his sanctuary: one had ninety-nine ewes and the other one. Dāwūd understood that We had tried him; he asked his Lord’s forgiveness, fell down bowing, and turned back. “Dāwūd, We have made you a vicegerent on the earth: so judge between people in truth, and do not follow desire.” A blessed Book We have sent down to you, that they may ponder its ayat.
- 30–4011 ayat · 11% of the surahRead from ayah 30 →
Sulaymān
To Dāwūd We gave Sulaymān — an excellent servant, ever turning back. The fine horses were shown to him at evening. We tried Sulaymān, and placed a body on his throne; then he turned back and said: “My Lord, forgive me, and grant me a kingdom that will befit no one after me.” So We subjected the wind to him, and the devils — every builder and diver.
- 41–488 ayat · 9% of the surahRead from ayah 41 →
Ayyūb, and the others
Remember Our servant Ayyūb, when he called to his Lord: “Satan has afflicted me with hardship and pain.” “Strike with your foot: here is a cool bath, and drink.” We gave him back his family and their like with them. We found him patient: an excellent servant, ever turning back. And remember Ibrāhīm, Isḥāq and Yaʿqūb, men of strength and vision; and Ismāʿīl, al-Yasaʿ and Dhū l-Kifl — all among the best.
- 49–6416 ayat · 14% of the surahRead from ayah 49 →
Two destinations
For the mindful there is a good return: Gardens of Eden, their gates opened for them. For the transgressors an evil return: Hell. There they turn on one another — “No welcome to them!” — “No, no welcome to you!” — and ask, “Why do we not see men we used to count among the wicked?” That is the truth: the wrangling of the people of the Fire.
- 65–8824 ayat · 21% of the surahRead from ayah 65 →
Ādam and Iblīs
Say: I am only a warner, and there is no god but Allah, the One, the Subduer. When your Lord said to the angels, “I am creating a human being from clay; when I have shaped him and breathed into him of My spirit, fall down before him in prostration,” they did, all together — except Iblīs. “What prevented you from prostrating to what I created with My two hands?” — “I am better than him.” — “Then leave; you are accursed.” He swore to mislead them all, except Your chosen servants. Say: I ask of you no wage for it. It is only a reminder to the worlds — and you will come to know its news after a time.
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 40% of its ayat, and the rhyme turns 34 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
Ibn ʿAbbās said: “Ṣād is not among the obligatory prostrations — but I saw the Prophet ﷺ prostrate at it.” And when Mujāhid asked him on what basis he prostrated there, he recited: “‘And of his descendants, Dāwūd and Sulaymān… those are the ones Allah guided, so follow their guidance.’ Dāwūd was among those your Prophet was commanded to follow. Dāwūd prostrated at it, so the Messenger of Allah ﷺ prostrated at it.”The names it is known by
The single letter it opens with.
A name Ibn al-Jawzī records, after the prophet whose story it tells first and at greatest length.
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
- Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī; 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.