Makkan, by agreement
Makkah, some five years before the Hijrah — the night the moon was split
Ibn al-Jawzī records agreement that it is Makkan. Muqātil excepted three ayat (54:44–46); al-Qurṭubī mentions this and says it is not sound — and ʿĀʾishah settles it in al-Bukhārī: “‘Rather, the Hour is their appointed time, and the Hour is more grievous and more bitter’ was sent down to Muḥammad ﷺ in Makkah, when I was a young girl at play.” The traditional order places the surah thirty-seventh.
سُورَةُ القَمَرِ وَهِيَ مَكِّيَّةٌ بِإجْماعِهِمْسُورَةُ الْقَمَرِ مَكِّيَّةٌ كُلُّهَا فِي قَوْلِ الْجُمْهُورِ. وَقَالَ مُقَاتِلٌ: إِلَّا ثَلَاثَ آيَاتٍThe same, in other works
- al-BaghawīMaʿālim al-tanzīlAhl al-Sunnah in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
سُورَةُ الْقَمَرِ مَكِّيَّةٌ
- al-Suyūṭīal-Durr al-manthūrAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Ibn ʿAbbās: it came down in Makkah. Recorded by al-Naḥḥās.
أخْرَجَ النَّحّاسُ، عَنِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ قالَ: نَزَلَتْ سُورَةُ القَمَرِ بِمَكَّةَ
A report he gathers; its chain is not graded here.
- al-ShawkānīFatḥ al-qadīr→
Makkan, in the saying of the majority.
هي مَكِّيَّةٌ كُلُّها في قَوْلِ الجُمْهُورِ
- al-RāzīMafātīḥ al-ghaybAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
خَمْسٌ وخَمْسُونَ آيَةً مَكِّيَّةً
Each line of English says what the Arabic beneath it says.
What was happening
Anas relates that the people of Makkah asked the Messenger of Allah ﷺ to show them a sign, and he showed them the moon split in two. ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd was there. “The moon was split in the time of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ into two parts — one part above the mountain and one below it — and he said: ‘Bear witness.’”
They had seen it with their own eyes, at Minā, and could not deny that. So they denied what it meant. The surah records the reply they gave, and that it was the reply they always gave: “If they see a sign they turn away and say: ‘Continuous magic.’”
After that the surah stops arguing. It tells the Prophet ﷺ to turn from them, and puts before them the Day they will come out of the graves like scattered locusts — and then five histories in quick succession, each a few ayat long: the people of Nūḥ, ʿĀd, Thamūd, the people of Lūṭ, and Pharaoh’s. Each ends in the same two beats: “Then how was My punishment, and My warnings?” and “We have made the Qurʾan easy for remembrance; is there anyone who will remember?”
Then it addresses Quraysh directly: are your disbelievers better than those? “Or do they say: we are a host that will prevail? The host will be routed, and they will turn their backs.” When that came down in Makkah the Muslims were a persecuted handful, and ʿUmar is reported to have wondered what host was meant.◇ On the day of Badr the Prophet ﷺ came out of his shelter in his coat of mail, reciting it.
- Related, not gradedRelated by the commentators without a graded chain; not established as authentic.
What came down about what
The splitting of the moon
“The people of Makkah asked the Messenger of Allah ﷺ to show them a sign, so he showed them the moon in two halves, until they saw Ḥirāʾ between them.” Ibn Masʿūd said: “The moon was split in the time of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ into two parts, and the Prophet ﷺ said: ‘Bear witness.’”
Anas ibn Mālik: al-Bukhārī (3868) and Muslim (2802). ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd: al-Bukhārī (3636) and Muslim (2800).
Ṣaḥīḥ
Recited at Badr
On the day of Badr the Prophet ﷺ was in his tent, saying: “O Allah, I call upon Your covenant and Your promise. O Allah, if You will, You will not be worshipped after today.” Abū Bakr took his hand and said: “Enough, Messenger of Allah; you have pressed your Lord.” He was in his armour, and he went out saying: “The host will be routed, and they will turn their backs.”
Ibn ʿAbbās: al-Bukhārī (4875).
Ṣaḥīḥ
On the decree
The idolaters of Quraysh came disputing with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ about the decree, and there came down: “The Day they are dragged into the Fire on their faces: ‘Taste the touch of Saqar.’ We have created everything by measure.”
Abū Hurayrah: Muslim (2656).
Ṣaḥīḥ
التذكير بالآيات والنذر، وبيان مصير المكذبين بها، ولذا تكرر فيها: ﴿ولَقَدْ يَسَّرْنا القُرْءانَ لِلذِّكْرِ فَهَلْ مِن مُّدَّكِرٍ﴾.
To remind of the signs and the warnings, and to show the fate of those who denied them — which is why it repeats: “We have made the Qurʾan easy for remembrance; is there anyone who will remember?”
The surah’s aim, as al-Mukhtaṣar fī al-Tafsīr states it
- The splitting of the moon
- The nearness of the Hour
- Five destroyed peoples
- The Qurʾan made easy
- The decree
- The rout of Quraysh foretold
Its aims, as Ibn ʿĀshūr sets them out
تسجيل مكابرة المشركين في الآيات البينة، وأمر النبيء صلى الله عليه وسلم بالإعراض عن مكابرتهم.
وإنذارهم باقتراب القيامة وبما يلقونه حين البعث من الشدائد.
وتذكيرهم بما لقيته الأمم أمثالهم من عذاب الدنيا لتكذيبهم رسل الله وأنهم سيلقون مثلما لقي أولئك إذ ليسوا خيرا من كفار الأمم الماضية.
وإنذارهم بقتال يهزمون فيه، ثم لهم عذاب الآخرة وهو أشد.
From its first ayah to its last
- 1–88 ayat · 15% of the surahRead from ayah 1 →
The sign, and their answer
The Hour has drawn near, and the moon has split. If they see a sign they turn away and say, “Continuous magic.” They denied and followed their desires. So turn from them. The Day the Caller calls to a terrible thing, they will come out of the graves with downcast eyes, like locusts scattered, hastening towards the Caller. The disbelievers will say: “This is a hard day.”
- 9–179 ayat · 16% of the surahRead from ayah 9 →
The people of Nūḥ
They denied Our servant and said, “A madman.” He called on his Lord: “I am overcome, so help.” We opened the gates of the sky with water pouring, and made the earth burst with springs, and the waters met for a matter already decreed. We carried him on a thing of planks and nails, sailing under Our eyes. We have made the Qurʾan easy for remembrance; is there anyone who will remember?
- 18–225 ayat · 9% of the surahRead from ayah 18 →
ʿĀd
ʿĀd denied. We sent against them a screaming wind on a day of unrelenting misfortune, plucking people away as though they were the trunks of uprooted palms.
- 23–3210 ayat · 19% of the surahRead from ayah 23 →
Thamūd
Thamūd denied the warnings: “A single mortal from among us — shall we follow him?” We sent the she-camel as a trial for them, and the water was to be shared. They called their companion, and he took a sword and hamstrung her. We sent upon them a single blast, and they became like the dry twigs of a pen-builder.
- 33–4210 ayat · 18% of the surahRead from ayah 33 →
The people of Lūṭ, and Pharaoh
The people of Lūṭ denied the warnings. We sent a storm of stones upon them, except the family of Lūṭ, whom We saved before dawn. They had even demanded his guests of him, so We blinded their eyes. And the warnings came to the people of Pharaoh: they denied all Our signs, and We seized them with the seizing of One Mighty, Omnipotent.
- 43–5513 ayat · 22% of the surahRead from ayah 43 →
And you?
Are your disbelievers better than those, or have you an immunity in the scriptures? Or do they say, “We are a host that will prevail”? The host will be routed, and they will turn their backs. No — the Hour is their appointed time, and the Hour is more grievous and more bitter. We have created everything by measure; and Our command is but one, like the blink of an eye. Everything they did is in the records. The mindful will be among gardens and rivers, in a seat of truth, near a Sovereign, Omnipotent.
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 55 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
اشْهَدُوا
“The moon was split in the time of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ into two parts, one part above the mountain and one part below it. And the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: ‘Bear witness.’”The Messenger of Allah ﷺ used to recite in the prayers of al-Aḍḥā and al-Fiṭr “Qāf, by the glorious Qurʾan” and “The Hour has drawn near, and the moon has split.”The name it is known by
From its first ayah. In the hadith it is called by its opening words, Iqtarabati l-sāʿah: the Prophet ﷺ recited “Qāf” and “Iqtarabati l-sāʿah” in the ʿĪd prayers (Muslim 891).
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)
- 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.