Makkan, by agreement
The later years in Makkah
It is Makkan in the saying of all: Ibn al-Jawzī and al-Qurṭubī both record the agreement. The traditional order places it sixty-seventh.
سُورَةُ الذّارِياتِ مَكِّيَّةٌ كُلُّها بِإجْماعِهِمْسُورَةُ وَالذَّارِيَاتِ مَكِّيَّةٌ فِي قَوْلِ الْجَمِيعِ، وَهِيَ سِتُّونَ آيَةًThe same, in other works
- al-BaghawīMaʿālim al-tanzīlAhl al-Sunnah in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
سُورَةُ الذَّارِيَاتِ 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 في الدَّلائِلِ عَنِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ قالَ: نَزَلَتْ سُورَةُ الذّارِياتِ بِمَكَّةَ
A report he gathers; its chain is not graded here.
- al-RāzīMafātīḥ al-ghaybAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
سِتُّونَ آيَةً مَكِّيَّةٌ
Each line of English says what the Arabic beneath it says.
What was happening
No occasion is reported for it. It belongs to the years in which the Prophet ﷺ was being answered, as every messenger before him had been, with the two words the surah quotes: “A sorcerer, or a madman.” Did they hand that down to one another? it asks. No — they are simply a people who overstep.
The surah gives him what such a moment needs: certainty, examples, and a clear statement of his task. The certainty is in the oath — “By the Lord of the heaven and the earth, it is the truth, as surely as you speak.” The examples come quickly: the guests of Ibrāhīm, who were angels on their way to the people of Lūṭ; Mūsā and Pharaoh; ʿĀd and the barren wind; Thamūd; and the people of Nūḥ.
In its middle is a portrait of the mindful, and it is one of the few places where the Qurʾan describes their nights: “They used to sleep but little of the night, and before dawn they would ask forgiveness; and in their wealth there was a rightful share for the one who asks and the one who is deprived.”
And then the task, and its ground. Turn away from them — you are not to blame. But go on reminding, for the reminder benefits the believers. “I did not create the jinn and mankind except to worship Me. I want no provision from them, nor do I want them to feed Me. It is Allah who is the Provider, the Possessor of strength, the Firm.”
تعريف المخلوقين بمصدر رزقهم وهو الله تعالى، لكي يفروا إليه ويحققوا العبودية له.
To make created beings know the source of their provision — Allah, the Exalted — so that they flee to Him and make their servitude to Him real.
The surah’s aim, as al-Mukhtaṣar fī al-Tafsīr states it
- The certainty of the promise
- The nights of the mindful
- Provision is with Allah
- Ibrāhīm’s guests
- The destroyed peoples
- The purpose of creation
Its aims, as Ibn ʿĀshūr sets them out
احتوت على تحقيق وقوع البعث والجزاء. وإبطال مزاعم المكذبين به وبرسالة محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم ورميهم بأنهم يقولون بغير تثبت. ووعيدهم بعذاب يفتنهم.
ووعد المؤمنين بنعيم الخلد وذكر ما استحقوا به تلك الدرجة من الإيمان والإحسان.
ثم الاستدلال على وحدانية الله والاستدلال على إمكان البعث وعلى أنه واقع لا محالة بما في بعض المخلوقات التي يشاهدونها ويحسون بها دالة على سعة قدرة الله تعالى وحكمته على ما هو أعظم من إعادة خلق الإنسان بعد فنائه وعلى أنه لم يخلق إلا
From its first ayah to its last
- 1–1414 ayat · 13% of the surahRead from ayah 1 →
The oath
By the winds that scatter, the clouds that bear their load, the ships that run with ease and the angels that distribute by command: what you are promised is true, and the Recompense will come to pass. By the sky with its pathways, you are at odds in what you say. Ruined are the conjecturers, who ask, “When is the Day of Recompense?” — the Day they will be tried over the Fire.
- 15–239 ayat · 14% of the surahRead from ayah 15 →
The mindful, and the signs
The mindful will be among gardens and springs, taking what their Lord gives them: before that they were doers of good — sleeping little of the night, asking forgiveness before dawn, and keeping in their wealth a share for the beggar and the deprived. On the earth are signs for those who are certain, and in yourselves: do you not see? And in the heaven is your provision, and what you are promised.
- 24–3714 ayat · 26% of the surahRead from ayah 24 →
The guests of Ibrāhīm
Has the story reached you of the honoured guests of Ibrāhīm? They entered and said, “Peace.” He brought a fattened calf; they did not eat; he felt a fear of them. They gave him good news of a knowing boy — and his wife came forward crying out, “A barren old woman!” They said: we have been sent to a guilty people, to send down on them stones of clay. We found there but one household of those who submit.
- 38–469 ayat · 19% of the surahRead from ayah 38 →
Four more
And in Mūsā, when We sent him to Pharaoh, who turned away with his forces and said, “A sorcerer, or a madman.” And in ʿĀd, when We sent against them the barren wind, which left nothing it came upon but made it like decayed ruins. And in Thamūd, whom the thunderbolt seized as they looked on. And the people of Nūḥ before.
- 47–559 ayat · 18% of the surahRead from ayah 47 →
Flee to Allah
We built the heaven with might, and We are its expander; We spread the earth — how excellent a spreader. Of everything We created pairs. So flee to Allah; I am to you from Him a clear warner. No messenger came to those before them but they said, “A sorcerer, or a madman.” So turn from them; you are not to blame. And remind — for the reminder benefits the believers.
- 56–605 ayat · 11% of the surahRead from ayah 56 →
What they were made for
I did not create the jinn and mankind except to worship Me. I want no provision from them, and I do not want them to feed Me. Allah is the Provider, the Possessor of strength, the Firm. Those who do wrong will have a portion like that of their fellows. Woe to those who disbelieve, from their Day that they are promised.
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 85% of its ayat, and the rhyme turns 6 times. None of them comes where a 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
No authenticated report specific to this surah is recorded here.
The name it is known by
After the first thing it swears by: the winds that scatter the dust. ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, asked about the four oaths from the pulpit at Kūfah, explained them in turn: the winds, the clouds, the ships, and the angels.
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)
- 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.
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.