Madinan, by agreement — among the last
The last years in Madinah — from al-Ḥudaybiyah to the Farewell Pilgrimage, in the tenth year
Al-Qurṭubī records agreement that it is Madinan, and notes that parts came down on journeys: some at the time of al-Ḥudaybiyah, some in the year of the Conquest, some at the Farewell Pilgrimage. That, he explains, does not make them Makkan: whatever was revealed after the Hijrah is Madinan, wherever it came down. Ibn al-Jawzī says the same of the ayah of perfection, which came down at ʿArafah. ʿĀʾishah called it the last surah to be revealed, and Abū Maysarah said that nothing in it is abrogated. The traditional order places it one hundred and twelfth.
وَكُلُّ مَا أُنْزِلَ مِنَ الْقُرْآنِ بَعْدَ هِجْرَةِ النَّبِيِّ ﷺ فَهُوَ مَدَنِيٌّ، سَوَاءٌ نَزَلَ بِالْمَدِينَةِ أَوْ فِي سَفَرٍ مِنَ الْأَسْفَارِنَزَلَتْ بِعَرَفَةَ يَوْمَ عَرَفَةَ، فَلِهَذا نُسِبَتْ إلى مَكَّةَوَقَالَ أَبُو مَيْسَرَةَ: الْمَائِدَةُ مِنْ آخِرِ مَا نَزَلَ لَيْسَ فِيهَا مَنْسُوخٌ، وَفِيهَا ثَمَانِ عَشْرَةَ فَرِيضَةً لَيْسَتْ فِي غَيْرِهَاThe same, in other works
- al-BaghawīMaʿālim al-tanzīlAhl al-Sunnah in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Madinan.
سُورَةِ الْمَائِدَةِ مِائَةٌ وَعِشْرُونَ آية، نزلت بالمدنية
- al-Suyūṭīal-Durr al-manthūrAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Qatādah: al-Māʾidah is Madinan. Recorded by Ibn Jarīr and Ibn al-Mundhir.
أخْرَجَ ابْنُ جَرِيرٍ، وابْنُ المُنْذِرِ، عَنْ قَتادَةَ قالَ: المائِدَةُ مَدَنِيَّةٌ
A report he gathers; its chain is not graded here.
- al-ShawkānīFatḥ al-qadīr→
Madinan, by agreement, citing al-Qurṭubī.
قالَ القُرْطُبِيُّ: هي مَدَنِيَّةٌ بِالإجْماعِ
- Abū al-SuʿūdIrshād al-ʿaql al-salīmMāturīdī in creedḤanafī in fiqh→
Madinan.
سُورَةُ المائِدَةِ مَدَنِيَّةٌ وهي مِائَةٌ وعِشْرُونَ آيَةً
Each line of English says what the Arabic beneath it says.
What was happening
By the time this surah came down the long struggle was over. Makkah was open, the Arabs were entering Islam by tribes, and the Prophet ﷺ had made, or was about to make, his one Pilgrimage. What was left to do was to finish: to settle what remained unsettled in the Law, and to say the last word to the two communities who had been given scripture before.
So the surah addresses the believers by name more often than any other — sixteen times, “O you who believe” — and almost every call carries a ruling. Fulfil your contracts. Do not violate the symbols of Allah. When you rise for the prayer, wash your faces and your hands to the elbows. Stand firm for Allah as witnesses in justice, “and do not let hatred of a people lead you to be unjust. Be just: that is nearer to mindfulness.” Do not forbid the good things Allah has made lawful for you. And wine, which two earlier surahs had stopped short of forbidding: “an abomination, of Satan’s work; so shun it… Will you then desist?” Anas was pouring for a company in Abū Ṭalḥah’s house when the crier went round. Abū Ṭalḥah said: go out and pour it away. It ran, he says, in the lanes of Madinah.
The ayah of perfection stands in the middle of a list of forbidden foods. “Today those who disbelieve have despaired of your religion; so do not fear them, but fear Me. Today I have perfected for you your religion, completed My favour upon you, and approved for you Islam as religion.” The Companions relate that it came down on the afternoon of ʿArafah. He ﷺ lived some eighty days more.
Around the laws the surah sets the history of covenants that were not kept. The Children of Israel at the edge of the land they were told to enter: “Go, you and your Lord, and fight; we shall stay sitting here.” The first murder, one son of Ādam killing the other, and the rule drawn from it: whoever kills a soul, it is as though he had killed all mankind, and whoever saves one, as though he had saved all mankind. And the Christians, addressed here at length — both those who said that Allah is the Messiah, and those whose eyes overflowed with tears when they heard what was sent down to the Messenger.
It ends in the next world. Allah gathers the messengers and asks ʿĪsā, before them all: “Did you say to people, ‘Take me and my mother as two gods besides Allah’?” His answer is the last long speech in the surah, and it closes with a sentence the Prophet ﷺ once stood repeating in prayer until dawn: “If You punish them, they are Your servants; and if You forgive them, You are the Almighty, the Wise.”
What came down about what
The day it was perfected
The Jews said to ʿUmar: “You recite an ayah which, had it been sent down among us, we would have taken that day as a festival.” ʿUmar said: “I know when it was sent down, and where it was sent down, and where the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was when it was sent down: the day of ʿArafah — and we, by Allah, were at ʿArafah.”
Ṭāriq ibn Shihāb, from ʿUmar: al-Bukhārī (4606) and Muslim (3017).
Ṣaḥīḥ
ʿĀʾishah’s necklace
ʿĀʾishah said: “We went out with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ on one of his journeys, and at al-Baydāʾ a necklace of mine broke. He stopped to look for it, and the people stopped with him; they were not at any water, and had none with them.” Abū Bakr came and rebuked her. “The Messenger of Allah ﷺ rose in the morning without water, and Allah sent down the ayah of tayammum.” Usayd ibn Ḥuḍayr said: “This is not the first of your blessings, family of Abū Bakr.” Then they roused the camel she had been on, and found the necklace beneath it.
ʿĀʾishah: al-Bukhārī (4607) and Muslim (367).
Ṣaḥīḥ
The judgement on the two who were stoned
A Jew passed by the Prophet ﷺ with his face blackened, having been flogged. He called them: “Is this how you find the penalty for the adulterer in your Book?” They said yes. He called one of their scholars and adjured him by Allah, who said: “No. We find it to be stoning; but it became common among our nobles, so when we caught a noble we let him go, and when we caught a weak man we carried out the penalty. So we agreed on something to apply to both.” He ﷺ said: “O Allah, I am the first to revive Your command, when they had let it die.” And Allah sent down: “O Messenger, do not be grieved by those who race into disbelief…” to “whoever does not judge by what Allah has sent down — those are the disbelievers.”
Al-Barāʾ ibn ʿĀzib: Muslim (1700).
Ṣaḥīḥ
“Allah will protect you from the people”
ʿĀʾishah said: “The Prophet ﷺ used to be guarded, until this ayah came down: ‘Allah will protect you from the people.’ Then the Messenger of Allah ﷺ put his head out of the tent and said: ‘People, go; Allah has protected me.’”
ʿĀʾishah: al-Tirmidhī (3046); ḥasan according to al-Albānī.
ḤasanḤasan: accepted and acted upon, a degree below ṣaḥīḥ.
The day wine was forbidden
Anas said: “I was serving the company in the house of Abū Ṭalḥah when the prohibition of wine came down. He ordered a crier to call it out. Abū Ṭalḥah said: ‘Go out and see what that voice is.’ I went out and said: ‘A crier is announcing that wine has been forbidden.’ He said: ‘Go and pour it away.’ And it ran in the lanes of Madinah.” Some people said: “Men were killed with it in their bellies.” So Allah sent down: “There is no blame on those who believe and do right for what they consumed.”
Anas ibn Mālik: al-Bukhārī (4620) and Muslim (1980).
Ṣaḥīḥ
“Do not ask about things”
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ gave an address the like of which I had never heard. He said: “If you knew what I know, you would laugh little and weep much.” The Companions covered their faces, sobbing. Then a man said: “Who is my father?” He said: “So-and-so.” And this ayah came down: “Do not ask about things which, if they were disclosed to you, would distress you.”
Anas ibn Mālik: al-Bukhārī (4621) and Muslim (2359).
Ṣaḥīḥ
الوفاء بالعقود والتزام الشرائع والحدود وإكمال الدين.
The fulfilling of contracts, the keeping of the laws and limits, and the completion of the religion.
The surah’s aim, as al-Mukhtaṣar fī al-Tafsīr states it
- Fulfilling contracts
- Lawful and unlawful food
- The completion of the religion
- Justice, even towards an enemy
- Covenants broken by earlier peoples
- The two sons of Ādam
- Judging by what Allah has sent down
- The final prohibition of wine
- ʿĪsā, and the Table
Its aims, as Ibn ʿĀshūr sets them out
وقد احتوت على تمييز الحلال من الحرام في المأكولات، وعلى حفظ شعائر الله في الحج والشهر الحرام، والنهي عن بعض المحرمات من عوائد الجاهلية مثل الأزلام، وفيها شرائع الوضوء، والغسل، والتيمم، والأمر بالعدل في الحكم، والأمر بالصدق في الشهادة، وأحكام القصاص في الأنفس والأعضاء، وأحكام الحرابة، وتسلية الرسول صلى الله عليه وسلم عن نفاق المنافقين، وتحريم الخمر والميسر، والأيمان وكفارتها، والحكم بين أهل الكتاب، وأصول المعاملة بين المسلمين، وبين أهل الكتاب، وبين المشركين والمنافقين، والخشية من ولايتهم أن تفضي إلى
From its first ayah to its last
- 1–55 ayat · 7% of the surahRead from ayah 1 →
Contracts, and what is lawful
O you who believe, fulfil your contracts. Do not violate the symbols of Allah. Help one another in righteousness and mindfulness, and do not help one another in sin and aggression. Forbidden to you are carrion, blood, the flesh of swine, and what has been slaughtered to other than Allah. Today I have perfected for you your religion, completed My favour upon you, and approved for you Islam as religion (5:3). Today the good things are made lawful for you, and the food of those given the Book.
- 6–116 ayat · 5% of the surahRead from ayah 6 →
Purity, and justice
When you rise for the prayer, wash your faces, and your hands to the elbows; wipe your heads, and wash your feet to the ankles. If you find no water, then take clean earth. Allah does not wish to place any hardship on you, but to purify you. O you who believe, stand firm for Allah as witnesses in justice, and do not let hatred of a people lead you to be unjust. Be just: that is nearer to mindfulness.
- 12–2615 ayat · 13% of the surahRead from ayah 12 →
Covenants that were broken
Allah took the covenant of the Children of Israel, and raised among them twelve leaders. For their breaking of it We cursed them and made their hearts hard. And from those who say, “We are Christians,” We took their covenant, and they forgot a portion of what they were reminded of. People of the Book, there has come to you from Allah a light and a clear Book. Mūsā said: “My people, enter the holy land.” They said: “Go, you and your Lord, and fight; we shall stay sitting here.” So it was forbidden to them for forty years.
- 27–4014 ayat · 10% of the surahRead from ayah 27 →
The two sons of Ādam
Recite to them the true story of the two sons of Ādam. “If you stretch out your hand to kill me, I shall not stretch out my hand to kill you; I fear Allah, Lord of the worlds.” Then Allah sent a raven scratching the ground, to show him how to cover his brother’s body. For that reason We decreed for the Children of Israel: whoever kills a soul, it is as though he had killed all mankind; and whoever saves one, as though he had saved all mankind. The penalty for those who wage war on Allah and His Messenger; and for the thief.
- 41–5010 ayat · 11% of the surahRead from ayah 41 →
Judge by what Allah has sent down
O Messenger, do not be grieved by those who race into disbelief. We sent down the Torah, in which was guidance and light; and We sent ʿĪsā after them, and gave him the Gospel. And We have sent down to you the Book with the truth, confirming the Scripture before it and standing guard over it. For each of you We have appointed a law and a way. So race to what is good. Is it the judgement of the Age of Ignorance they seek?
- 51–6616 ayat · 12% of the surahRead from ayah 51 →
Whose side you are on
O you who believe, whoever among you turns back from his religion — Allah will bring a people whom He loves and who love Him, humble towards the believers, firm against the disbelievers. Your ally is only Allah, His Messenger, and those who believe. Do not take as allies those who make a mockery of your religion. The Jews say, “Allah’s hand is chained.” Chained are their own hands; rather, both His hands are outstretched: He spends as He wills. Had they upheld the Torah and the Gospel, they would have eaten from above them and from beneath their feet.
- 67–8620 ayat · 14% of the surahRead from ayah 67 →
Convey — and the truth about the Messiah
O Messenger, convey what has been sent down to you from your Lord; Allah will protect you from the people. They have disbelieved who say, “Allah is the Messiah, son of Maryam,” and they have disbelieved who say, “Allah is the third of three.” The Messiah, son of Maryam, was only a messenger; messengers passed away before him; his mother was a woman of truth; both ate food. You will find the nearest of them in affection to the believers to be those who say, “We are Christians”: when they hear what was sent down to the Messenger, you see their eyes overflow with tears.
- 87–10822 ayat · 18% of the surahRead from ayah 87 →
Good things, oaths, wine and the hunt
O you who believe, do not forbid the good things Allah has made lawful for you. The expiation for a broken oath. Wine, gambling, stone altars and divining arrows are an abomination of Satan’s work; so shun them. Do not kill game while you are in the state of pilgrimage. Allah has made the Kaʿbah, the Sacred House, a support for mankind. Do not ask about things which, if disclosed to you, would distress you. Take care of your own souls. And the witnessing of a bequest, when death approaches one of you.
- 109–12012 ayat · 10% of the surahRead from ayah 109 →
The messengers gathered, and the Table
The Day Allah gathers the messengers and says: “What response were you given?” “ʿĪsā, son of Maryam, remember My favour upon you and upon your mother.” The disciples said: “Can your Lord send down to us a table from heaven?” And when Allah says: “ʿĪsā, did you say to people, ‘Take me and my mother as two gods besides Allah’?” — “Glory be to You! I said to them only what You commanded me. If You punish them, they are Your servants; and if You forgive them, You are the Almighty, the Wise.” Allah will say: “This is the Day when their truthfulness benefits the truthful.”
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 86% of its ayat, and the rhyme turns 26 times. 3 of those turns come 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
Jubayr ibn Nufayr said: I made the Pilgrimage and went in to see ʿĀʾishah. She said to me: “Jubayr, do you recite al-Māʾidah?” I said yes. She said: “It is the last surah that came down. Whatever you find in it lawful, treat as lawful; and whatever you find in it forbidden, treat as forbidden.”فَقَالَتْ: أَمَا إِنَّهَا آخِرُ سُورَةٍ نَزَلَتْ فَمَا وَجَدْتُمْ فِيهَا مِنْ حَلَالٍ فَاسْتَحِلُّوهُ، وَمَا وَجَدْتُمْ فِيهَا من حرام فحرموهAbū Dharr said: “The Prophet ﷺ stood in prayer until morning with a single ayah, repeating it: ‘If You punish them, they are Your servants; and if You forgive them, You are the Almighty, the Wise.’”ḤasanḤasan: accepted and acted upon, a degree below ṣaḥīḥ.
إِنَّا سَنُرْضِيكَ فِي أُمَّتِكَ وَلاَ نَسُوءُكَ
The Prophet ﷺ recited the words of Ibrāhīm, “whoever follows me is of me,” and the words of ʿĪsā, “If You punish them, they are Your servants.” Then he raised his hands and said: “O Allah, my community, my community,” and wept. Allah said: “Jibrīl, go to Muḥammad and say: We shall content you concerning your community, and shall not grieve you.”The names it is known by
After the table spread with food that the disciples of ʿĪsā asked to be sent down from heaven (5:112–115).
From its first command: “O you who believe, fulfil your contracts.”
Its place in the muṣḥaf
Ayat you will hear named
- 5:1Fulfil your contracts
- 5:2Help one another in righteousness
- 5:3“Today I have perfected your religion”
- 5:6The ayah of ablution
- 5:8Justice, even to those you hate
- 5:27–31The two sons of Ādam
- 5:32As though he had killed all mankind
- 5:48A law and a way for each
- 5:54A people He loves, and who love Him
- 5:67“Convey what has been sent down to you”
- 5:82–83Eyes overflowing with tears
- 5:90–91The prohibition of wine
- 5:112–115The Table
- 5:116–118ʿĪsā questioned
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 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 Sunan of al-Tirmidhī, al-Nasāʾī and Ibn Mājah; Musnad Aḥmad
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.