Makkan, by the majority
The later years in Makkah — about the time the jinn heard the Qurʾan at Nakhlah
It is Makkan in the saying of Ibn ʿAbbās, al-Ḥasan, Mujāhid, ʿIkrimah, Qatādah and the majority; al-Qurṭubī calls it Makkan in the saying of them all. One ayah, the tenth, is reported from Ibn ʿAbbās and Qatādah to be Madinan, because the witness from the Children of Israel that it mentions was understood to be ʿAbd Allāh ibn Salām; Muqātil added the thirty-fifth. It is the seventh and last of the Ḥawāmīm, and the traditional order places it sixty-sixth.
رَوى العَوْفِيُّ وابْنُ أبِي طَلْحَةَ عَنِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ أنَّها مَكِّيَّةٌ، وبِهِ قالَ الحَسَنُ، ومُجاهِدٌ، وعِكْرِمَةُ، وقَتادَةَ، والجُمْهُورُ. ورُوِيَ عَنِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ وقَتادَةَ أنَّهُما قالا: فِيها آيَةٌ مَدَنِيَّةٌسُورَةُ الْأَحْقَافِ مَكِّيَّةٌ فِي قَوْلِ جميعهمThe same, in other works
- al-BaghawīMaʿālim al-tanzīlAhl al-Sunnah in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
سُورَةُ الْأَحْقَافِ 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 سُورَةُ حم الأحْقافِ بِمَكَّةَ
A report he gathers; its chain is not graded here.
- al-RāzīMafātīḥ al-ghaybAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
وهِيَ ثَلاثُونَ وخَمْسُ آياتٍ مَكِّيَّةٍ
- Abū al-SuʿūdIrshād al-ʿaql al-salīmMāturīdī in creedḤanafī in fiqh→
Makkan.
مَكِّيَّةٌ وهي خَمْسٌ وثَلاثُونَ آيَةً
Each line of English says what the Arabic beneath it says.
What was happening
By the late Makkan years the Prophet ﷺ had been called a sorcerer, a forger and a novelty. This surah has him answer the last charge in a line of great modesty: “Say: I am no new thing among the messengers, and I do not know what will be done with me or with you. I only follow what is revealed to me.”
It then gives Quraysh three mirrors. The first is ʿĀd. They were greater than Makkah in every way — “We had established them in what We have not established you” — and when the punishment came they mistook it for a blessing. They saw a cloud advancing on their valleys and said, “This is a cloud bringing us rain.” No: it is what you asked to be hastened, a wind in which is a painful punishment. ʿĀʾishah says that whenever the Prophet ﷺ saw cloud or wind, the change could be seen in his face; and when she asked him why, he recalled those very words.
The second is a group of jinn. Passing by as he recited, they said to one another, “Listen in silence”; and when it was finished they returned to their people as warners: “We have heard a Book sent down after Mūsā, confirming what came before it, guiding to the truth.” It is the same event told at length in Sūrat al-Jinn. Creatures of another kind had believed on one hearing.
The third is drawn from inside a household: a child grown to full strength who, at forty, asks his Lord to make him grateful for what was given to him and to his parents — and beside him a son who says “Uff!” to his parents when they plead with him to believe.
What came down about what
A witness from the Children of Israel
Saʿd ibn Abī Waqqāṣ said: “I never heard the Prophet ﷺ say of anyone walking the earth that he was of the people of Paradise, except ʿAbd Allāh ibn Salām. And about him this ayah was revealed: ‘and a witness from the Children of Israel has testified to the like of it.’”
Saʿd ibn Abī Waqqāṣ: al-Bukhārī (3812) and Muslim (2483). Others held the ayah Makkan and the witness to be Mūsā.
Ṣaḥīḥ
The jinn at Nakhlah
A party of jinn was turned towards the Prophet ﷺ and heard him reciting. They listened in silence, believed, and went back to warn their people. The event is the one narrated by Ibn ʿAbbās for Sūrat al-Jinn.
Ibn ʿAbbās: al-Bukhārī (4921) and Muslim (449).
Ṣaḥīḥ
إقامة الحجة على المكذبين وإنذارهم بالعذاب، ولذا تكرر فيها لفظ الإنذار.
To establish the proof against the deniers and warn them of punishment — which is why the word “warning” recurs in it.
The surah’s aim, as al-Mukhtaṣar fī al-Tafsīr states it
- The helplessness of what is worshipped besides Allah
- The Prophet ﷺ no novelty
- Kindness to parents
- ʿĀd at the dunes
- The jinn who believed
- The patience of the messengers of resolve
Its aims, as Ibn ʿĀshūr sets them out
ومن الأغراض التي اشتملت عليها أنها افتتحت مثل سورة الجاثية بما يشير إلى إعجاز القرآن للاستدلال على أنه منزل من عند الله. والاستدلال بإتقان خلق السماوات والأرض على التفرد بالإلهية، وعلى إثبات جزاء الأعمال. والإشارة إلى وقوع الجزاء بعد البعث وأن هذا العالم صائر إلى فناء. وإبطال الشركاء في الإلهية. والتدليل على خلوهم عن صفات الإلهية. وإبطال أن يكون القرآن من صنع غير الله. وإثبات رسالة محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم واستشهاد الله تعالى على صدق رسالته واستشهاد شاهد بني إسرائيل وهو عبد الله بن سلام.
From its first ayah to its last
- 1–66 ayat · 12% of the surahRead from ayah 1 →
What have they created?
Ḥā Mīm. We did not create the heavens and the earth except in truth and for an appointed term. Say: have you considered what you call upon besides Allah — show me what they have created of the earth; or have they a share in the heavens? Who is further astray than one who calls on those who will not answer him until the Day of Resurrection, and who are unaware of his calling?
- 7–148 ayat · 22% of the surahRead from ayah 7 →
No new thing among the messengers
When Our clear ayat are recited they say, “This is plain magic,” or, “He has invented it.” Say: I am no novelty among the messengers, and I do not know what will be done with me or with you. Have you considered: if it is from Allah and you reject it, while a witness from the Children of Israel has testified to its like and believed? Before it was the Book of Mūsā, a guide and a mercy. Those who say, “Our Lord is Allah,” and then stand firm — no fear shall be upon them.
- 15–206 ayat · 22% of the surahRead from ayah 15 →
Two sons
We have enjoined on man goodness to his parents: his mother carried him in hardship and bore him in hardship. When he reaches full strength and reaches forty years he says: “My Lord, inspire me to be grateful for Your favour upon me and upon my parents, and to do right such as pleases You, and make my offspring righteous” (46:15). And the one who says to his parents, “Uff to you! Do you promise me that I shall be brought out?”
- 21–288 ayat · 22% of the surahRead from ayah 21 →
ʿĀd at the dunes
Remember the brother of ʿĀd, when he warned his people at the sand-dunes. They said: bring us what you threaten us with. When they saw it as a cloud approaching their valleys they said, “This is a cloud that will give us rain.” No — it is what you sought to hasten: a wind bringing a painful punishment, destroying everything by the command of its Lord. Morning found nothing to be seen but their dwellings. We had established them as We have not established you.
- 29–324 ayat · 11% of the surahRead from ayah 29 →
The jinn who listened
We turned towards you a group of jinn, listening to the Qurʾan. When they were in its presence they said, “Be silent.” When it was ended they returned to their people as warners: “Our people, we have heard a Book sent down after Mūsā, confirming what was before it. Our people, answer the one who calls to Allah.”
- 33–353 ayat · 10% of the surahRead from ayah 33 →
Be patient
Do they not see that Allah, who created the heavens and the earth and was not wearied by creating them, is able to give life to the dead? So be patient, as the messengers of firm resolve were patient, and do not seek to hasten it for them. On the Day they see what they are promised, it will be as though they had stayed but an hour of a day.
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 2 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
ʿĀʾishah said: “I never saw the Messenger of Allah ﷺ laugh so fully that I could see his uvula; he would only smile. And when he saw cloud or wind, it could be seen in his face.” She asked him about it and he said: “ʿĀʾishah, what assures me that there is not punishment in it? A people were punished by the wind; a people saw the punishment and said: ‘This is a cloud bringing us rain.’”The name it is known by
From its twenty-first ayah: the long, curving dunes of southern Arabia, between Oman and Ḥaḍramawt, where the people of ʿĀd lived and where Hūd warned them.
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.