Makkan, by the majority
The middle years in Makkah
It is Makkan in the saying of Ibn ʿAbbās, al-Ḥasan, Mujāhid, ʿIkrimah, Qatādah and the majority. One ayah is related from Ibn ʿAbbās and Qatādah to be Madinan: the thirty-eighth, which says that no weariness touched Allah in creating the heavens and the earth. Ibn Kathīr notes that this surah is, on the sound view, the first of the Mufaṣṣal — the last and most often recited portion of the Qurʾan.
سُورَةُ ق وَيُقالُ لَها: سُورَةُ الباسِقاتِ رَوى العَوْفِيُّ [وَغَيْرُهُ] عَنِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ أنَّها مَكِّيَّةٌ، وكَذَلِكَ قالَ الحَسَنُ، ومُجاهِدٌ، وعِكْرَمَةُ، وقَتادَةُ، والجُمْهُورُوَهَذِهِ السُّورَةُ هِيَ أَوَّلُ الْحِزْبِ الْمُفَصَّلِ عَلَى الصَّحِيحِ، وَقِيلَ: مِنَ الْحُجُرَاتِThe same, in other works
- al-BaghawīMaʿālim al-tanzīlAhl al-Sunnah in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
سُورَةُ ق 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 عَنِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ قالَ: نَزَلَتْ سُورَةُ ق بِمَكَّةَ
A report he gathers; its chain is not graded here.
- al-ShawkānīFatḥ al-qadīr→
Makkan, all of it, in the saying of al-Ḥasan, ʿIkrimah, ʿAṭāʾ and Jābir ibn Zayd.
هي مَكِّيَّةٌ كُلُّها في قَوْلِ الحَسَنِ، وعِكْرِمَةَ، وعَطاءٍ، وجابِرٍ
- al-RāzīMafātīḥ al-ghaybAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
أرْبَعُونَ وخَمْسُ آياتٍ، مَكِّيَّةٌ
- Abū al-SuʿūdIrshād al-ʿaql al-salīmMāturīdī in creedḤanafī in fiqh→
Makkan.
سُورَةُ ق مَكِّيَّةٌ وآياتُها خَمْسٌ وأرْبَعُونَ
Each line of English says what the Arabic beneath it says.
What was happening
What astonished Quraysh, the surah says at once, was two things together: that a warner should come to them from among themselves, and what he warned of. “When we are dead and have become dust? That is a far-fetched return.” The whole of Qāf is the reply.
It replies first from above and around them — the sky with no rift in it, the earth spread out, the rain that brings dead land to life: “such is the coming forth.” Then from history, in a rapid roll-call of eight peoples who said the same thing. Then it moves in, closer than any of that, to the person himself. “We created man, and We know what his own soul whispers to him; and We are nearer to him than his jugular vein.” Two angels sit, one on his right and one on his left; he does not utter a word but a watcher is ready beside him.
From there the surah does not leave him. The stupor of death arrives “in truth — that is what you used to shrink from.” The Trumpet. Every soul comes with one to drive it and one to bear witness. And the sentence that gives the surah its force: “You were heedless of this; now We have removed your covering from you, and your sight today is sharp.”
The Prophet ﷺ made this the regular matter of his Friday address, and recited it in the great gatherings of the two ʿĪds. Ibn Kathīr explains why: it holds the beginning of creation, the Resurrection, the Reckoning, the Garden and the Fire, promise and threat.
What came down about what
“No weariness touched Us”
The commentators relate that this ayah answers the claim that after creating the heavens and the earth in six days the Creator rested on the seventh. “We created the heavens and the earth and what is between them in six days, and no weariness touched Us.”
Reported from Qatādah and others, and related in every one of the seven commentaries of transmitted reports these pages quote; it is why some held this one ayah to be Madinan.
Related, not gradedRelated by the commentators without a graded chain; not established as authentic.
إيقاظ القلوب الغافلة، لإدراك حقائق البعث والجزاء وبراهينه ومَشاهِدِه.
To awaken heedless hearts, so that they grasp the realities of the Resurrection and the Recompense — its proofs, and its scenes.
The surah’s aim, as al-Mukhtaṣar fī al-Tafsīr states it
- The Resurrection
- Signs in creation
- Allah’s nearness and knowledge
- The recording angels
- Death and the Trumpet
- Hell and Paradise
- Reminding by the Qurʾan
Its aims, as Ibn ʿĀshūr sets them out
أولها: التنويه بشأن القرآن.
ثانيها: أنهم كذبوا الرسول صلى الله عليه وسلم لأنه من البشر، وثالثها: الاستدلال على إثبات البعث وأنه ليس بأعظم من ابتداء خلق السماوات وما فيها وخلق الأرض وما عليها، ونشأة النبات والثمار من ماء السماء وأن ذلك مثل للإحياء بعد الموت.
الرابع: تنظير المشركين في تكذيبهم بالرسالة والبعث ببعض الأمم الخالية المعلومة لديهم، ووعيد هؤلاء أن يحل بهم ما حل بأولئك.
From its first ayah to its last
- 1–55 ayat · 10% of the surahRead from ayah 1 →
Their astonishment
Qāf. By the glorious Qurʾan. They marvel that a warner has come to them from among themselves, and the disbelievers say: “This is a strange thing. When we have died and become dust? That is a distant return.” We know what the earth takes of them, and with Us is a Book that preserves.
- 6–116 ayat · 14% of the surahRead from ayah 6 →
Look up, and around
Have they not looked at the sky above them — how We built it and adorned it, and it has no rifts? And the earth: We spread it out, cast into it firm mountains, and made every lovely kind grow in it. We sent down blessed water from the sky and grew by it gardens, grain for harvest, and tall palms with clustered fruit — and gave life by it to a dead land. Such is the coming forth.
- 12–154 ayat · 8% of the surahRead from ayah 12 →
Those who denied before
Before them the people of Nūḥ denied, and the people of al-Rass, and Thamūd; ʿĀd, Pharaoh and the brothers of Lūṭ; the people of the Thicket and the people of Tubbaʿ. All denied the messengers, and My threat came true. Were We wearied by the first creation? No — yet they are in doubt about a new creation.
- 16–227 ayat · 17% of the surahRead from ayah 16 →
One person, from thought to Trumpet
We created man and know what his soul whispers to him, and We are nearer to him than his jugular vein. Two receivers receive, seated on the right and on the left; he utters no word but there is a watcher by him, ready. The stupor of death comes in truth. The Trumpet is blown. Every soul comes, with it a driver and a witness. “You were heedless of this; We have lifted your covering from you, and your sight today is sharp.”
- 23–308 ayat · 16% of the surahRead from ayah 23 →
Before the Judge
His companion says, “This is what I have ready.” “Cast into Hell every stubborn disbeliever, hinderer of good, transgressor, doubter.” His other companion says, “Our Lord, I did not make him transgress; he was himself far astray.” He will say: “Do not dispute before Me. The word is not changed with Me, and I am not unjust to My servants.” The Day We say to Hell, “Are you filled?” and it says, “Is there more?”
- 31–355 ayat · 8% of the surahRead from ayah 31 →
The Garden brought near
The Garden is brought near to the mindful, not far off: “This is what you were promised — for everyone who turned often to Allah and kept his duty, who feared the Most Merciful unseen and came with a heart turned in devotion. Enter it in peace.” They will have whatever they wish there — and with Us is more.
- 36–4510 ayat · 27% of the surahRead from ayah 36 →
A reminder for whoever has a heart
How many a generation We destroyed before them, mightier than they. In that is a reminder for whoever has a heart, or lends an ear while he is present in mind (50:37). We created the heavens and the earth in six days, and no weariness touched Us. So be patient with what they say, and glorify your Lord with praise before the rising of the sun and before its setting, and in the night. You are not a tyrant over them: so remind, by the Qurʾan, whoever fears My threat.
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 60% of its ayat, and the rhyme turns 23 times. 2 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
“I did not learn ‘Qāf, by the glorious Qurʾan’ except from the tongue of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ: he used to recite it every Friday on the pulpit when he addressed the people.”ʿUmar asked Abū Wāqid al-Laythī what the Messenger of Allah ﷺ used to recite in the prayers of al-Aḍḥā and al-Fiṭr. He said: “He used to recite in them ‘Qāf, by the glorious Qurʾan’ and ‘The Hour has drawn near, and the moon has split’.”لاَ تَزَالُ جَهَنَّمُ تَقُولُ هَلْ مِنْ مَزِيدٍ حَتَّى يَضَعَ رَبُّ الْعِزَّةِ فِيهَا قَدَمَهُ
“Hell will go on saying, ‘Is there more?’ until the Lord of Might places His Foot in it; then it will say, ‘Enough, enough, by Your might,’ and its parts will draw together.”The names it is known by
The single letter it opens with. The Companions called it Qāf, or Qāf wa-l-Qurʾāni l-majīd.
A name Ibn al-Jawzī records, from its tenth ayah: “and tall palm-trees, with clustered spathes.”
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 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.