Makkan, by the majority
The later years in Makkah
It is Makkan in the saying of Ibn ʿAbbās, al-Ḥasan, ʿIkrimah, Mujāhid, Qatādah and the majority. One ayah is reported, from Ibn ʿAbbās and Qatādah, to be Madinan: the fourteenth, which tells the believers to forgive. It is the sixth of the Ḥawāmīm, and the traditional order places it sixty-fifth.
وَتُسَمّى سُورَةَ الشَّرِيعَةِ رَوى العَوْفِيُّ وابْنُ أبِي طَلْحَةَ عَنِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ أنَّها مَكِّيَّةٌ، وهو قَوْلُ الحَسَنِ، [وَعِكْرِمَةَ]، ومُجاهِدٍ، وقَتادَةَ، والجُمْهُورِسُورَةُ الْجَاثِيَةِ مَكِّيَّةٌ كُلُّهَا فِي قَوْلِ الْحَسَنِ وَجَابِرٍ وَعِكْرِمَةَ. وَقَالَ ابْنُ عَبَّاسٍ وَقَتَادَةُ: إِلَّا آيَةًThe same, in other works
- al-BaghawīMaʿālim al-tanzīlAhl al-Sunnah in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
سُورَةُ الْجَاثِيَةِ 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: أُنْزِلَ بِمَكَّةَ سُورَةُ حم الجاثِيَةِ
A report he gathers; its chain is not graded here.
- al-RāzīMafātīḥ al-ghaybAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
ثَلاثُونَ وسَبْعُ آياتٍ مَكِّيَّةٍ
- Abū al-SuʿūdIrshād al-ʿaql al-salīmMāturīdī in creedḤanafī in fiqh→
Makkan.
مَكِّيَّةٌ وهي سَبْعٌ وثَلاثُونَ آيَةً
Each line of English says what the Arabic beneath it says.
What was happening
No occasion is reported for the surah as a whole. It speaks to the settled outlook of the Makkan establishment, and states that outlook in their own words more baldly than anywhere else in the Qurʾan: “There is nothing but our life in this world. We die and we live, and nothing destroys us but time.” No Maker to answer to, no return; only al-dahr, the passing of the ages, wearing everything away.
The reply to that is in the Prophet’s ﷺ report of his Lord’s words: “The son of Ādam wrongs Me. He curses time — and I am time: in My hand is the matter; I turn the night and the day.” What they blamed on blind time was the act of One who sees.
The surah traces the outlook to its root. “Have you seen the one who takes his own desire as his god?” A man who will not have a Lord ends by serving his appetites, and Allah leaves him to it — his hearing and his heart sealed, a covering over his sight.
Against that it sets a way. The Children of Israel were given the Book, judgement and prophethood, and fell into division after knowledge had come to them, out of rivalry. “Then We set you upon a sharīʿah of the matter: so follow it, and do not follow the desires of those who do not know.”
معالجة أصحاب الهوى المستكبرين عن الحق، من خلال عرض الآيات والتذكير بالآخرة.
To deal with those who follow desire and are too proud for the truth — by setting out the signs, and reminding of the Hereafter.
The surah’s aim, as al-Mukhtaṣar fī al-Tafsīr states it
- Signs in creation
- Arrogance before the Qurʾan
- Desire taken as a god
- The clear way
- “Nothing destroys us but time”
- The record of deeds
Its aims, as Ibn ʿĀshūr sets them out
الابتداء بالتحدي بإعجاز القرآن وأنه جاء بالحق توطئة لما سيذكر بأنه حق كما اقتضاه قوله تلك آيات الله نتلوها عليك بالحق [الجاثية: 6] . وإثبات انفراد الله تعالى بالإلهية بدلائل ما في السماوات والأرض من آثار خلقه وقدرته في جواهر الموجودات وأعراضها وإدماج ما فيها مع ذلك من نعم يحق على الناس شكرها لا كفرها. ووعيد الذين كذبوا على الله والتزموا الآثام بالإصرار على الكفر والإعراض عن النظر في آيات القرآن والاستهزاء بها.
From its first ayah to its last
- 1–66 ayat · 11% of the surahRead from ayah 1 →
Signs
Ḥā Mīm. The sending down of the Book is from Allah, the Almighty, the Wise. In the heavens and the earth are signs for the believers; in your own creation and the creatures He scatters, signs for people who are certain; in the alternation of night and day, the provision He sends down from the sky and the turning of the winds, signs for people who reason. In what discourse, after Allah and His signs, will they believe?
- 7–115 ayat · 12% of the surahRead from ayah 7 →
The one who hears and persists
Woe to every sinful liar, who hears the ayat of Allah recited to him and then persists in arrogance as though he had not heard them, and when he learns something of Our ayat takes it in mockery. Behind them is Hell; what they earned will not avail them, nor those they took as protectors besides Allah.
- 12–154 ayat · 11% of the surahRead from ayah 12 →
What has been put at your service
It is Allah who subjected the sea to you, that ships may sail on it by His command; and subjected to you all that is in the heavens and the earth, all of it from Him. Tell those who believe to forgive those who do not look to the days of Allah. Whoever does right, it is for his own soul; and whoever does evil, it is against it.
- 16–205 ayat · 15% of the surahRead from ayah 16 →
The clear way
We gave the Children of Israel the Book, judgement and prophethood, and favoured them; and they differed only after knowledge had come to them. Then We set you upon a clear way of the matter, so follow it, and do not follow the desires of those who do not know (45:18). This is enlightenment for mankind, and guidance and mercy for people who are certain.
- 21–266 ayat · 22% of the surahRead from ayah 21 →
Desire, and time
Do those who commit evil deeds think We will make them like those who believe and do right, equal in life and in death? Have you seen the one who takes his desire as his god? They say: “There is nothing but our worldly life; we die and live, and nothing destroys us but time.” They have no knowledge of that. Say: Allah gives you life, then causes you to die, then gathers you for the Day of Resurrection.
- 27–3711 ayat · 28% of the surahRead from ayah 27 →
Every nation kneeling
On the Day the Hour comes, the followers of falsehood will lose. You will see every nation kneeling; every nation called to its record: “Today you are repaid for what you used to do. This is Our record, speaking against you in truth; We were having transcribed whatever you did.” To Allah belongs all praise, Lord of the heavens and Lord of the earth, Lord of the worlds; and His is the majesty in the heavens and the earth.
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 37 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
يُؤْذِينِي ابْنُ آدَمَ يَسُبُّ الدَّهْرَ وَأَنَا الدَّهْرُ
“Allah said: The son of Ādam wrongs Me. He curses time, and I am time: in My hand is the matter; I alternate the night and the day.”The names it is known by
From its twenty-eighth ayah: “You will see every nation kneeling.”
A name Ibn al-Jawzī records, from its eighteenth ayah: “Then We set you upon a clear way of the matter, so follow it.” It is the only place in the Qurʾan where the word sharīʿah occurs.
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 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.