Madinan, by agreement
Madinah, after the rulings of al-Baqarah on divorce had been in force for some years
It is Madinan in the saying of all. It came down after al-Baqarah, whose rulings on divorce and the waiting period it completes — as Ibn Masʿūd pointed out when the waiting period of a pregnant widow was being disputed.
سُورَةُ الطَّلاقِ وَتُسَمّى سُورَةَ النِّساءِ القُصْرى، وهي مَدَنِيَّةٌ كُلُّها بِإجْماعِهِمْسُورَةُ الطَّلَاقِ مَدَنِيَّةٌ فِي قَوْلِ الْجَمِيعِ. وَهِيَ إِحْدَى عَشْرَةَ آيَةً، أَوِ اثْنَتَا عَشْرَةَ آيَةًThe same, in other works
- al-BaghawīMaʿālim al-tanzīlAhl al-Sunnah in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Madinan.
سُورَةُ الطَّلَاقِ مَدَنِيَّةٌ
- al-Suyūṭīal-Durr al-manthūrAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Ibn ʿAbbās: it came down in Madinah. 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 الطَّلاقِ بِالمَدِينَةِ
A report he gathers; its chain is not graded here.
- al-ShawkānīFatḥ al-qadīr→
Madinan, by agreement, citing al-Qurṭubī.
هي مَدَنِيَّةٌ، قالَ القُرْطُبِيُّ: في قَوْلِ الجَمِيعِ
- al-RāzīMafātīḥ al-ghaybAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Madinan.
اثْنَتا عَشْرَةَ آيَةً مَدَنِيَّةً
Each line of English says what the Arabic beneath it says.
What was happening
Before Islam a man could divorce his wife and take her back as often as he pleased, leaving her neither married nor free. Al-Baqarah had already set a limit to that. This surah regulates how a divorce is to be carried out, and it is addressed first to the Prophet ﷺ himself, by title — “O Prophet, when you divorce women” — and through him to the whole community.
Its first ruling was explained by an incident. ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar divorced his wife while she was in her monthly course. ʿUmar asked the Messenger of Allah ﷺ about it. He was displeased, and said: “Tell him to take her back, and keep her until she is pure, then has her course, then is pure again. Then, if he wishes, he may keep her, and if he wishes, divorce her before touching her. That is the waiting period for which Allah commanded that women be divorced.”
What the surah then sets out is a procedure with a purpose. A divorce is to be given at a time when the waiting period can begin at once, so that it is not prolonged. The period is to be counted exactly. She is not to be turned out of her home during it, nor to leave — “you do not know: perhaps Allah will bring about, after that, a new situation.” At its end there is to be either honourable retention or honourable parting, before two just witnesses. And the classes that al-Baqarah had not covered are given their periods: the woman past the age of courses, the one who has not had them, and the one who is pregnant.
Through all of it runs a refrain on what mindfulness of Allah brings, and five things are promised for it: a way out; provision unlooked for; ease in one’s affair; the remission of sins; a great reward.
What came down about what
Ibn ʿUmar’s divorce
Ibn ʿUmar divorced his wife during her course, in the time of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. ʿUmar asked him about it, and he said: “Command him to take her back, then keep her until she becomes pure, then menstruates, then becomes pure. Then if he wishes he may keep her, and if he wishes he may divorce her before he touches her. That is the waiting period for which Allah has commanded that women be divorced.”
ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar: al-Bukhārī (5251) and Muslim (1471).
Ṣaḥīḥ
تعظيم أمر الطلاق وحدوده، وبيان عاقبة التقوى والتعدي على حدود الله.
To impress the gravity of divorce and its limits, and to show the outcome of mindfulness of Allah and of overstepping His bounds.
The surah’s aim, as al-Mukhtaṣar fī al-Tafsīr states it
- The procedure of divorce
- The waiting period
- Maintenance and housing
- Mindfulness of Allah and its fruits
- Reliance on Allah
Its aims, as Ibn ʿĀshūr sets them out
الغرض من آيات هذه السورة تحديد أحكام الطلاق وما يعقبه من العدة والإرضاع والإنفاق والإسكان. تتميما للأحكام المذكورة في سورة البقرة.
والإيماء إلى حكمة شرع العدة.
والنهي عن الإضرار بالمطلقات والتضييق عليهن.
والإشهاد على التطليق وعلى المراجعة.
وإرضاع المطلقة ابنها بأجر على الله.
From its first ayah to its last
- 1–33 ayat · 32% of the surahRead from ayah 1 →
How a divorce is given
O Prophet, when you divorce women, divorce them for their waiting period, and count the period, and be mindful of Allah your Lord. Do not turn them out of their houses, nor should they leave. When they have reached their term, either keep them honourably or part from them honourably, and call two just men among you to witness. Whoever is mindful of Allah, He will make a way out for him and provide for him from where he does not reckon; and whoever relies on Allah, He is enough for him.
- 4–52 ayat · 15% of the surahRead from ayah 4 →
The waiting periods
For those of your women who no longer expect courses, their period is three months, and likewise for those who have not had them. For those who are pregnant, their term is until they deliver. Whoever is mindful of Allah, He will make his affair easy for him.
- 6–72 ayat · 20% of the surahRead from ayah 6 →
Housing and provision
Lodge them where you live, according to your means, and do not harass them to make things hard for them. If they are pregnant, provide for them until they deliver; and if they nurse your child, give them their due. Let the man of plenty spend from his plenty, and the man whose provision is narrow spend from what Allah has given him. Allah burdens no soul beyond what He has given it. Allah will bring about, after hardship, ease.
- 8–103 ayat · 13% of the surahRead from ayah 8 →
Towns that defied their Lord
How many a town rebelled against the command of its Lord and His messengers, and We called it to a stern account. So be mindful of Allah, you who have understanding and have believed.
- 11–122 ayat · 21% of the surahRead from ayah 11 →
The light, and the One who sent it
A Messenger reciting to you the clear ayat of Allah, to bring those who believe and do right out of darkness into light. It is Allah who created seven heavens, and of the earth their like; the command descends among them — that you may know that Allah has power over all things, and that Allah encompasses all things in knowledge.
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 12 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
No authenticated report specific to this surah is recorded here.
The names it is known by
After its subject, named in its first ayah.
The name Ibn Masʿūd gave it, beside the long Sūrat al-Nisāʾ: “The shorter Sūrat al-Nisāʾ was sent down after the longer” (al-Bukhārī 4910). Ibn al-Jawzī records it.
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.