Makkan, by agreement
The later years in Makkah, when a famine had fallen on Quraysh
Ibn al-Jawzī records agreement that all of it is Makkan; al-Qurṭubī says the same and mentions one ayah, the fifteenth, that was excepted by some. The traditional order places it sixty-fourth, among the Ḥawāmīm, which came down together and in the order in which they stand in the muṣḥaf.
سُورَةُ الدُّخانِ وَهِيَ مَكِّيَّةٌ كُلُّها بِإجْماعِهِمْأحَدُهُما: أنَّها لَيْلَةُ القَدْرِ، وهو قَوْلُ الأكْثَرِينَ. ورَوى عِكْرِمَةُ عَنِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ قالَ: أُنْزِلَ القُرْآنُ مِن عِنْدِ الرَّحْمَنِ لَيْلَةَ القَدْرِ جُمْلَةً واحِدَةً، فَوُضِعَ في السَّماءِ الدُّنْيا، ثُمَّ أُنْزِلَ نُجُومًاThe same, in other works
- al-BaghawīMaʿālim al-tanzīlAhl al-Sunnah in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
سُورَةُ الدُّخَانِ مَكِّيَّةٌ
- al-Suyūṭīal-Durr al-manthūrAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Ibn ʿAbbās: it came down in Makkah. Recorded by Ibn Mardawayh.
أخْرَجَ ابْنُ مَرْدُويَهْ عَنِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ قالَ: نَزَلَتْ بِمَكَّةَ سُورَةُ حم الدُّخانِ
A report he gathers; its chain is not graded here.
- al-ShawkānīFatḥ al-qadīr→
Citing al-Qurṭubī: Makkan by agreement, except “We shall remove the punishment” (44:15).
قالَ القُرْطُبِيُّ هي مَكِّيَّةٌ بِاتِّفاقٍ إلّا قَوْلَهُ: ﴿إنّا كاشِفُو العَذابِ﴾ الدخان: ١٥
- al-RāzīMafātīḥ al-ghaybAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan, with the exception he names.
خَمْسُونَ وتِسْعُ آياتٍ مَكِّيَّةٍ إلّا قَوْلَهُ: ﴿إنّا كاشِفُوا العَذابِ
- Abū al-SuʿūdIrshād al-ʿaql al-salīmMāturīdī in creedḤanafī in fiqh→
Makkan, with the exception he names.
سُورَةُ الدُّخانِ مَكِّيَّةٌ إلّا قَوْلَهُ ﴿إنّا كاشِفُو العَذابِ﴾ وآياتُها تِسْعٌ وخَمْسُونَ آيَةً
Each line of English says what the Arabic beneath it says.
What was happening
The “blessed night” of its third ayah is the Night of Decree, in the saying of most of the scholars: the night in which the Qurʾan was sent down, and in which every matter of wisdom for the coming year is made distinct.
Of the smoke, two explanations have come down from the Companions, and both are sound in their transmission. ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd held that it had already happened. When Quraysh proved obstinate, the Prophet ﷺ prayed against them for years like the years of Yūsuf; a drought took them until they ate bones and carrion, and a man would look up at the sky and see, between himself and it, something like smoke from the weakness of his hunger. Abū Sufyān came and asked him to pray for relief. “We shall remove the punishment a little; you will surely return” — and they did return; and “the Day We seize with the greatest seizing” was the day of Badr.
ʿAlī, Ibn ʿAbbās and others held that the smoke is yet to come: one of the great signs before the Hour, which the Prophet ﷺ named among ten in the hadith of Ḥudhayfah ibn Asīd in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim. Ibn Kathīr prefers this, because the ayah calls it “a clear smoke” that “covers the people”.
Whichever is meant, the surah’s example for Quraysh is Pharaoh’s people. They, too, asked for the punishment to be lifted and promised to believe. They left behind gardens and springs, fields and fine dwellings — and another people inherited them.
What came down about what
The famine of Quraysh
“This was because when Quraysh were defiant towards the Prophet ﷺ, he prayed against them for years like the years of Yūsuf. Drought and hardship struck them until they ate bones, and a man would look at the sky and see between him and it the like of smoke, from exhaustion. So Allah sent down: ‘Then watch for the Day when the sky brings a clear smoke.’” They asked for relief and were given it, and went back to what they had been upon.
ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd: al-Bukhārī (4821) and Muslim (2798).
Ṣaḥīḥ
الإنذار بالعذاب المرتقب، من خلال تخويف المكذبين من عذاب الدنيا والآخرة.
To warn of the awaited punishment, by making the deniers fear both the punishment of this world and that of the next.
The surah’s aim, as al-Mukhtaṣar fī al-Tafsīr states it
- The blessed night
- The smoke
- Pharaoh and the Children of Israel
- The Day of Decision
- The tree of Zaqqūm
- The secure station of the mindful
Its aims, as Ibn ʿĀshūr sets them out
أشبه افتتاح هذه السورة فاتحة سورة الزخرف من التنويه بشأن القرآن وشرفه وشرف وقت ابتداء نزوله ليكون ذلك مؤذنا أنه من عند الله ودالا على رسالة محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم، وليتخلص منه إلى أن المعرضين عن تدبر القرآن ألهاهم الاستهزاء واللمز عن التدبر فحق عليهم دعاء الرسول بعذاب الجوع، إيقاظا لبصائرهم بالأدلة الحسية حين لم تنجع فيهم الدلائل العقلية، ليعلموا أن إجابة الله دعاء رسوله صلى الله عليه وسلم دليل على أنه أرسله ليبلغ عنه مراده.
From its first ayah to its last
- 1–88 ayat · 14% of the surahRead from ayah 1 →
The night it was sent down
Ḥā Mīm. By the clear Book: We sent it down on a blessed night — We are ever warning — in which every wise matter is made distinct, by a command from Us; a mercy from your Lord, the Lord of the heavens and the earth and what is between them. There is no god but He: He gives life and causes death.
- 9–168 ayat · 14% of the surahRead from ayah 9 →
The smoke
Yet they are in doubt, playing. So watch for the Day when the sky brings a clear smoke that envelops the people: “This is a painful punishment. Our Lord, lift the punishment from us; we believe.” How can a reminder reach them, when a clear Messenger has already come to them and they turned away, saying, “One taught by others, a madman”? We shall lift it a little — and you will go back. The Day We seize with the greatest seizing, We shall take retribution.
- 17–3317 ayat · 30% of the surahRead from ayah 17 →
Pharaoh’s people
Before them We tried the people of Pharaoh, and a noble messenger came to them: “Hand over to me the servants of Allah.” Then: “Set out with My servants by night; you will be pursued. And leave the sea at rest.” How many gardens and springs they left behind, and fields and fine stations, and comfort they used to enjoy — and We made another people inherit it. Neither the heaven nor the earth wept for them. We saved the Children of Israel from the humiliating torment, and chose them, knowingly, above the people of their time.
- 34–429 ayat · 19% of the surahRead from ayah 34 →
“There is only our first death”
These people say: there is nothing but our first death, and we shall not be raised; bring back our fathers, if you are truthful. Are they better, or the people of Tubbaʿ and those before them? We did not create the heavens and the earth and what is between them in play. The Day of Decision is the appointed time for them all — the Day no friend can avail a friend, except those on whom Allah has mercy.
- 43–508 ayat · 10% of the surahRead from ayah 43 →
The tree of Zaqqūm
The tree of Zaqqūm is the food of the sinful: like molten brass it boils in the bellies. “Seize him and drag him into the midst of the Blaze; pour over his head the torment of scalding water. Taste — you who were the mighty, the noble.”
- 51–599 ayat · 14% of the surahRead from ayah 51 →
The secure station
The mindful will be in a station of security, among gardens and springs, clothed in silk and brocade, facing one another. They will not taste death there, beyond the first death; and He has protected them from the punishment of the Blaze — a bounty from your Lord. We have made it easy in your tongue, that they may take heed. So wait: they too are waiting.
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 59 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
No authenticated report specific to this surah is recorded here.
The name it is known by
From its tenth ayah. It is also called Ḥā Mīm al-Dukhān: it is the fifth of the seven surahs that open with the letters Ḥā Mīm.
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 الطبريJāmiʿ al-bayānMuḥammad ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī (d. 310 AH)
- 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.