Differed over — Makkan, by the majority
On the majority’s view: Makkah, when the idolaters had refused the very name al-Raḥmān
Ibn al-Jawzī gives two views. That it is Makkan is reported from Ibn ʿAbbās through Ibn Abī Ṭalḥah, and is the saying of al-Ḥasan, ʿAṭāʾ, Muqātil and the majority; al-Qurṭubī adds ʿUrwah ibn al-Zubayr, ʿIkrimah and Jābir, and Ibn Kathīr gives it as Makkan. That it is Madinan is reported from Ibn ʿAbbās through ʿAṭiyyah, and from Ibn Masʿūd — and that is how the muṣḥaf heads it, the traditional order placing it ninety-seventh. Its manner throughout is that of the Makkan surahs.
وَفِي نُزُولِها قَوْلانِ. أحَدُهُما: أنَّها مَكِّيَّةٌ، رَواهُ ابْنُ أبِي طَلْحَةَ عَنِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ، وبِهِ قالَ الحَسَنُ، وعَطاءٌ، ومُقاتِلٌ، والجُمْهُورُوالثّانِي: أنَّها مَدَنِيَّةٌ، رَواهُ عَطِيَّةُ عَنِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ. وبِهِ قالَ ابْنُ مَسْعُودٍThe same, in other works
- al-BaghawīMaʿālim al-tanzīlAhl al-Sunnah in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
سُورَةُ الرَّحْمَنِ 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 الرَّحْمَنِ بِمَكَّةَ
A report he gathers; its chain is not graded here.
- al-ShawkānīFatḥ al-qadīr→
Makkan.
هي مَكِّيَّةٌ
- al-Suyūṭīal-Durr al-manthūrAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Ibn ʿAbbās, in another report: it came down in Madinah. Recorded by Ibn al-Ḍurays, Ibn Mardawayh and al-Bayhaqī.
وأخْرَجَ ابْنُ الضُّرَيْسِ، وابْنُ مَرْدُويَهْ، والبَيْهَقِيُّ في الدَّلائِلِ عَنِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ قالَ: نَزَلَتْ سُورَةُ الرَّحْمَنِ بِالمَدِينَةِ
A report he gathers; its chain is not graded here.
- al-RāzīMafātīḥ al-ghaybAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
سَبْعُونَ وثَمانُ آياتٍ مَكِّيَّةٌ
- Abū al-SuʿūdIrshād al-ʿaql al-salīmMāturīdī in creedḤanafī in fiqh→
Makkan; Madinan is also said.
مَكِّيَّةٌ أوْ مَدَنِيَّةٌ أوْ مُتَبَعِّضَةٌ وآياتُها ثَمانٍ وسَبْعُونَ
Each line of English says what the Arabic beneath it says.
What was happening
The idolaters of Makkah knew the name Allah. The name al-Raḥmān they affected not to know. “When it is said to them, ‘Prostrate to the Most Merciful,’ they say: ‘And what is the Most Merciful?’” (25:60). Ibn al-Jawzī relates from Muqātil that this surah came down in reply.◇
The reply is not a definition. It is a list. Al-Raḥmān: He taught the Qurʾan; He created man; He taught him to express himself. The sun and the moon run to a reckoning. The sky was raised and the balance set. The earth was laid out for living creatures, with its fruit and palms and grain. And after each gift, the question — addressed, unusually, to two hearers: “Then which of the favours of your Lord will you two deny?” The two are mankind and the jinn, whom the surah names together throughout.
The Prophet ﷺ once recited it to his Companions from beginning to end, and they sat silent. He said: “I recited it to the jinn on the night of the jinn, and they made a better response than you. Each time I came to ‘Then which of the favours of your Lord will you two deny?’ they said: ‘Not one of Your favours do we deny, our Lord; to You belongs all praise.’”
The surah moves through three circles: the favours of this world; the passing away of everything on it, and the reckoning; and then the next world — the Fire briefly, and at length four gardens, two for those who feared the standing before their Lord, and two below them. Its last ayah returns to where it began: “Blessed is the name of your Lord, Owner of Majesty and Honour.”
- Related, not gradedRelated by the commentators without a graded chain; not established as authentic.
الإعلام بآلاء الله الباهرة وآثار رحمته الظاهرة في الدنيا والآخرة، ترغيبًا في الإيمان، وتحذيرًا من الكفران.
To make known the dazzling favours of Allah and the manifest traces of His mercy in this world and the next — to draw towards faith, and warn against ingratitude.
The surah’s aim, as al-Mukhtaṣar fī al-Tafsīr states it
- The mercy of Allah
- The Qurʾan as the first favour
- The balance
- Mankind and the jinn addressed together
- Everything perishes but His Face
- The four gardens
Its aims, as Ibn ʿĀshūr sets them out
ابتدئت بالتنويه بالقرآن
وتبع ذلك من التنويه بالنبيء صلى الله عليه وسلم بأن الله هو الذي علمه القرآن ردا على مزاعم المشركين الذين يقولون: إنما يعلمه بشر [النحل: 103] ، وردا على مزاعمهم أن القرآن أساطير الأولين أو أنه سحر أو كلام كاهن أو شعر.
ثم التذكير بدلائل قدرة الله تعالى فيما أتقن صنعه مدمجا في ذلك التذكير بما في ذلك كله من نعم على الناس.
وخلق الجن وإثبات جزائهم.
From its first ayah to its last
- 1–1313 ayat · 12% of the surahRead from ayah 1 →
The first favours
The Most Merciful: He taught the Qurʾan, created man, and taught him clear speech. The sun and the moon run by a reckoning; the stars and the trees prostrate. He raised the sky and set the balance — so do not transgress in the balance. And the earth He laid down for creatures, with fruit, sheathed palms, husked grain and fragrant plants. Then which of the favours of your Lord will you two deny?
- 14–2512 ayat · 15% of the surahRead from ayah 14 →
The two created kinds, and the two seas
He created man from dry clay like pottery, and the jinn from a smokeless flame of fire. Lord of the two risings and the two settings. He let loose the two seas, meeting; between them is a barrier they do not pass. From them come pearl and coral; and His are the ships, raised up on the sea like mountains.
- 26–305 ayat · 8% of the surahRead from ayah 26 →
All that is on it will perish
Everyone upon it will pass away, and there will remain the Face of your Lord, Owner of Majesty and Honour. All who are in the heavens and the earth ask of Him; every day He is engaged in some matter.
- 31–4515 ayat · 25% of the surahRead from ayah 31 →
The reckoning
We shall attend to you, you two weighty hosts. O company of jinn and men, if you are able to pass beyond the regions of the heavens and the earth, then pass: you will not pass except by authority. When the sky is split and turns rose-red like oil — on that Day none will need to be asked about his sin. The guilty will be known by their marks, and seized by the forelocks and the feet. This is the Hell that the guilty deny.
- 46–6116 ayat · 21% of the surahRead from ayah 46 →
Two gardens
For whoever feared the standing before his Lord there are two gardens: of spreading branches; in each, two flowing springs, and of every fruit two kinds. They recline on couches lined with brocade, the fruit of both gardens hanging near; in them are those of modest gaze, as though they were rubies and coral. Is the reward of excellence anything but excellence?
- 62–7817 ayat · 19% of the surahRead from ayah 62 →
And two more
And below these, two other gardens: dark green; in each, two gushing springs; fruit, date-palms and pomegranates; good and beautiful companions, sheltered in pavilions; reclining on green cushions and fine carpets. Blessed is the name of your Lord, Owner of Majesty and Honour.
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 94% of its ayat, and the rhyme turns 8 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
لاَ بِشَيْءٍ مِنْ نِعَمِكَ رَبَّنَا نُكَذِّبُ فَلَكَ الْحَمْدُ
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ went out to his Companions and recited Sūrat al-Raḥmān to them from beginning to end, and they were silent. He said: “I recited it to the jinn on the night of the jinn, and they responded better than you. Whenever I came to ‘Then which of the favours of your Lord will you two deny?’ they said: ‘Not one of Your favours do we deny, our Lord; Yours is the praise.’”ḤasanḤasan: accepted and acted upon, a degree below ṣaḥīḥ.
The name it is known by
After the name of Allah that is its first ayah. It is the only surah that opens with one of His names standing by itself.
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
- Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī
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.