Madinan, by agreement
Madinah, in the later years
It is Madinan in the saying of all. It belongs to the later years in Madinah, when the Prophet’s ﷺ household had grown to several wives; ʿUmar’s long account of the affair, in the two Ṣaḥīḥs, mentions the fear at the time of an attack by the Ghassānids, which places it near the ninth year.
سُورَةُ التَّحْرِيمِ وَهِيَ مَدَنِيَّةٌ كُلُّها بِإجْماعِهِمْسُورَةُ التَّحْرِيمِ مَدَنِيَّةٌ فِي قَوْلِ الْجَمِيعِ، وَهِيَ اثْنَتَا عَشْرَةَ آيَةً. وَتُسَمَّى سُورَةَ النَّبِيِّThe same, in other works
- al-BaghawīMaʿālim al-tanzīlAhl al-Sunnah in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Madinan.
سُورَةُ التَّحْرِيمِ 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 التَّحْرِيمِ بِالمَدِينَةِ
A report he gathers; its chain is not graded here.
- al-ShawkānīFatḥ al-qadīr→
Madinan.
هي مَدَنِيَّةٌ
- al-RāzīMafātīḥ al-ghaybAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Madinan.
اثْنَتا عَشْرَةَ آيَةً مَدَنِيَّةً
- Abū al-SuʿūdIrshād al-ʿaql al-salīmMāturīdī in creedḤanafī in fiqh→
Madinan.
مَدَنِيَّةٌ وآياتُها اثْنَتا عَشْرَةَ
Each line of English says what the Arabic beneath it says.
What was happening
Two accounts are given of what the Prophet ﷺ had forbidden himself. In the one narrated by ʿĀʾishah in both Ṣaḥīḥs, he used to stay a while with his wife Zaynab bint Jaḥsh and drink honey there. ʿĀʾishah and Ḥafṣah agreed that whichever of them he came to next would say that she noticed on him the smell of maghāfīr, a strong-scented gum. He said: “No — I drank honey at Zaynab’s, and I will not do so again; I have sworn it. Tell no one.” In the other, reported by Anas, he had sworn off his bondwoman Māriyah to satisfy his wives. Ibn Kathīr mentions both, and the scholars note that the two may both be true.
Either way the correction is the same. A prophet’s choices become his community’s law. He cannot, to please the people around him, treat as forbidden what Allah has permitted; and the way out of an oath of that kind has already been ordained.
Then the surah speaks to the two wives directly — “if you both turn to Allah in repentance, for your hearts have inclined” — and it does so with a force that astonished Ibn ʿAbbās, who waited a year for the courage to ask ʿUmar who the two were. ʿUmar told him: ʿĀʾishah and Ḥafṣah — his own daughter.
From the Prophet’s ﷺ house the surah turns to everyone’s: “O you who believe, guard yourselves and your families against a Fire.” And it closes with four women. The wives of Nūḥ and of Lūṭ lived under the roofs of two prophets and were lost. The wife of Pharaoh lived under the roof of the worst of tyrants and asked her Lord for a house near Him in the Garden. And Maryam had no husband at all.
What came down about what
The honey
“The Messenger of Allah ﷺ used to drink honey at the house of Zaynab bint Jaḥsh and stay with her. Ḥafṣah and I agreed that whichever of us he came to would say: have you eaten maghāfīr? I find the smell of maghāfīr on you. He said: ‘No, but I was drinking honey at Zaynab bint Jaḥsh’s, and I will not return to it; I have sworn. Do not tell anyone.’”
ʿĀʾishah: al-Bukhārī (4912) and Muslim (1474).
Ṣaḥīḥ
Māriyah
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ had a bondwoman with whom he was intimate, and ʿĀʾishah and Ḥafṣah kept at him until he made her forbidden to himself. So Allah sent down: “O Prophet, why do you prohibit what Allah has made lawful for you?”
Anas ibn Mālik: al-Nasāʾī (3959); its chain is ṣaḥīḥ according to al-Albānī.
Graded ṣaḥīḥ
اختلُف فِي سَبَبِ نُزُولِ صَدْرِ هَذِهِ السُّورَةِ، فَقِيلَ: نَزَلَتْ فِي شَأْنِ مَارِيَةَ، وَكَانَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ ﷺ قَدْ حَرَّمَهَاThe two who backed each other
Ibn ʿAbbās said: for a year I wanted to ask ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb about an ayah, and could not, out of awe of him — until he went out on the Pilgrimage and I went with him. On the way back he turned aside into the thorn trees for a need of his; I waited for him, then walked on with him, and said: “Commander of the Faithful, who were the two among the wives of the Prophet ﷺ who backed each other against him?” He said: “Those were Ḥafṣah and ʿĀʾishah.”
ʿUmar told him to ask about whatever he thought he had knowledge of, and went on: “By Allah, in the days of ignorance we counted women as nothing, until Allah sent down about them what He sent down, and apportioned to them what He apportioned. One day I was turning a matter over, and my wife said: If only you did such-and-such. I said: What is it to you? She said: How strange you are, Ibn al-Khaṭṭāb! You will not be answered back — and your own daughter answers back the Messenger of Allah ﷺ until he spends his day angry.”
He took up his cloak and went straight to Ḥafṣah. “Daughter, do you answer back the Messenger of Allah ﷺ until he spends his day angry?” She said: “By Allah, we do answer him back.” He said: “Know that I am warning you of the punishment of Allah and the anger of His Messenger. Daughter, do not be misled by the one whose beauty has made her bold, and the love the Messenger of Allah ﷺ has for her” — he meant ʿĀʾishah. Then he went in to Umm Salamah, who was his kinswoman, and spoke to her; and she said: “How strange you are, Ibn al-Khaṭṭāb! You have entered into everything, until now you want to come between the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and his wives.” “By Allah,” he said, “she took me up in a way that broke some of what I was feeling.”
He had a friend among the Helpers; when one of them was away, the other brought him the news. They were in fear at that time of one of the kings of Ghassān, who was said to be making ready to march on them. One night the friend beat at the door: “Open, open!” — “Has the Ghassānī come?” — “Worse than that. The Messenger of Allah ﷺ has withdrawn from his wives.”
He found the Messenger of Allah ﷺ in an upper room reached by a ladder, a servant of his at the head of the steps, and was given leave to enter. He told him the whole of this, and when he reached what Umm Salamah had said, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ smiled. He was lying on a mat with nothing between him and it, under his head a leather cushion stuffed with palm fibre; at his feet a heap of tanning leaves, and by his head some hides hung up. “I saw the mark of the mat on his side, and I wept. He said: ‘What makes you weep?’ I said: Messenger of Allah, Chosroes and Caesar live as they live — and you are the Messenger of Allah. He said: ‘Are you not content that this world should be theirs, and the Hereafter ours?’”
Ibn ʿAbbās, from ʿUmar: al-Bukhārī (4913) and Muslim (1479).
Ṣaḥīḥ
تربية البيت النبوي، ليكون أسوة للأسرة والمجتمع.
The upbringing of the Prophet’s ﷺ household, that it may be the model for the family and for society.
The surah’s aim, as al-Mukhtaṣar fī al-Tafsīr states it
- The Prophet’s ﷺ household
- Not forbidding what Allah permitted
- Sincere repentance
- Guarding one’s family from the Fire
- Four women as examples
Its aims, as Ibn ʿĀshūr sets them out
ما تضمنه سبب نزولها أن أحدا لا يحرم على نفسه ما أحل الله له لإرضاء أحد إذ ليس ذلك بمصلحة له ولا للذي يسترضيه فلا ينبغي أن يجعل كالنذر إذ لا قربة فيه وما هو بطلاق لأن التي حرمها جارية ليست بزوجة، فإنما صلاح كل جانب فيما يعود بنفع على نفسه أو بنفع به غيره نفعا مرضيا عند الله وتنبيه نساء النبيء صلى الله عليه وسلم إلى أن غيرة الله على نبيه أعظم من غيرتهن عليه وأسمى مقصدا.
وأن الله يطلعه على ما يخصه من الحادثات.
From its first ayah to its last
- 1–55 ayat · 37% of the surahRead from ayah 1 →
To the Prophet ﷺ and his wives
O Prophet, why do you prohibit what Allah has made lawful for you, seeking to please your wives? Allah has ordained for you the release from your oaths. The Prophet confided a matter to one of his wives; when she disclosed it and Allah made it known to him, he told her part and passed over part. If you two turn to Allah in repentance — your hearts have inclined. But if you support each other against him, Allah is his Protector, and Jibrīl, and the righteous among the believers, and the angels besides.
- 6–83 ayat · 31% of the surahRead from ayah 6 →
To every household
O you who believe, guard yourselves and your families against a Fire whose fuel is people and stones, over which are angels stern and severe, who do not disobey Allah in what He commands. O you who believe, turn to Allah in sincere repentance (66:8): it may be that your Lord will remove your misdeeds from you and admit you to gardens, on the Day He will not disgrace the Prophet and those who believed with him, their light running before them.
- 91 ayah · 4% of the surahRead from ayah 9 →
To the Prophet ﷺ again
O Prophet, strive against the disbelievers and the hypocrites, and be firm with them. Their refuge is Hell.
- 10–123 ayat · 27% of the surahRead from ayah 10 →
Four women
Allah sets forth an example for the disbelievers: the wife of Nūḥ and the wife of Lūṭ. They were under two of Our righteous servants and betrayed them, and those two availed them nothing against Allah. And an example for the believers: the wife of Pharaoh, when she said, “My Lord, build for me a house near You in the Garden, and save me from Pharaoh and his deeds”; and Maryam daughter of ʿImrān, who guarded her chastity, and affirmed the words of her Lord and His Books, and was of the devout.
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 58% of its ayat, and the rhyme turns 5 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
كَمَلَ مِنَ الرِّجَالِ كَثِيرٌ
“Many among men have reached perfection, but among women none reached it except Āsiyah, the wife of Pharaoh, and Maryam, the daughter of ʿImrān. And the excellence of ʿĀʾishah over other women is as the excellence of tharīd over other food.”The name it is known by
From its first ayah: “Why do you prohibit what Allah has made lawful for you?” It is also called by its opening, Lima tuḥarrim, and al-Qurṭubī records the name Sūrat al-Nabī, the Surah of the Prophet.
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; Sunan al-Nasāʾī
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.