Makkan — with a passage some held Madinan
The very beginning of the mission, when the first response of Quraysh was to call him mad
Ibn al-Jawzī records agreement that it is Makkan, apart from what is related from Ibn ʿAbbās and Qatādah: that the parable of the owners of the garden, ayat 17–33, came down in Madinah. Al-Qurṭubī gives the same report in more detail, and gives it as Makkan in the saying of al-Ḥasan, ʿIkrimah, ʿAṭāʾ and Jābir. The traditional order places it second, directly after the opening of al-ʿAlaq.
سُورَةُ القَلَمِ وَهِيَ مَكِّيَّةٌ كُلُّها بِإجْماعِهِمْ إلّا ما حُكِيَ عَنِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ وقَتادَةَ أنَّ فِيها مِنَ المَدَنِيِّ قَوْلَهُ تَعالى: ﴿إنّا بَلَوْناهُمْ﴾ إلى قَوْلِهِ تَعالى: ﴿لَوْ كانُوا يَعْلَمُونَمَكِّيَّةٌ فِي قَوْلِ الْحَسَنِ وَعِكْرِمَةَ وَعَطَاءٍ وَجَابِرٍThe same, in other works
- al-BaghawīMaʿālim al-tanzīlAhl al-Sunnah in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
سُورَةُ الْقَلَمِ مَكِّيَّةٌ
- al-Suyūṭīal-Durr al-manthūrAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Ibn ʿAbbās: it came down in Makkah. Recorded by al-Naḥḥās, Ibn Mardawayh and al-Bayhaqī.
أخْرَجَ النَّحّاسُ، وابْنُ مَرْدُويَهْ، والبَيْهَقِيُّ، عَنِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ قالَ: نَزَلَتْ سُورَةُ ﴿ن والقَلَمِ﴾ بِمَكَّةَ
A report he gathers; its chain is not graded here.
- al-ShawkānīFatḥ al-qadīr→
Makkan, in the saying of al-Ḥasan, ʿIkrimah, ʿAṭāʾ and Jābir ibn Zayd.
هي مَكِّيَّةٌ في قَوْلِ الحَسَنِ، وعِكْرِمَةَ، وعَطاءٍ، وجابِرٍ
- al-RāzīMafātīḥ al-ghaybAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
وهِيَ اثْنَتانِ وخَمْسُونَ آيَةً مَكِّيَّةٌ
- Abū al-SuʿūdIrshād al-ʿaql al-salīmMāturīdī in creedḤanafī in fiqh→
Makkan, with the exception he names.
سُورَةُ القَلَمِ مَكِّيَّةٌ إلّا مِن آيَةِ سَبْعَ عَشْرَةَ إلى آيَةِ ثَلاثٍ وثَلاثِينَ، ومِن آيَةِ ثَمانٍ وأرْبَعِينَ إلى آيَةِ خَمْسِينَ فَمَدَنِيَّةٌ، وآياتُها اثْنَتانِ وخَمْسُونَ
Each line of English says what the Arabic beneath it says.
What was happening
For forty years the people of Makkah had known Muḥammad ﷺ as the most truthful and level-headed man among them. Then he told them that an angel had come to him with words from the Lord of the worlds, and they needed an explanation that did not involve believing him. The first one they found was majnūn — possessed.
This surah meets that word in its second ayah and returns to it in its second-last. In between it says three things to him. You are not mad. You will have a reward that never ends. And you are upon a tremendous character. When ʿĀʾishah was later asked what his character was, she answered with a sentence that points straight back here: his character was the Qurʾan.
It then turns to the men behind the slander and tells him not to give way to them: “They wish you would soften, so that they would soften.” One of them is described so exactly — the habitual swearer, the scandal-monger, the one who blocks every good, coarse and base-born — that the commentators give his name; most say al-Walīd ibn al-Mughīrah.◇
And it tells a story for people who think their wealth is their own doing: the owners of a garden who vowed to harvest it at dawn before the poor could come, and did not say “if Allah wills”. They found it black and bare. Quraysh, too, had been given a garden.
- Related, not gradedRelated by the commentators without a graded chain; not established as authentic.
إظهار علم النبي ﷺ وخُلُقه، تأييدًا له بعد تطاول المشركين عليه.
To make manifest the Prophet’s ﷺ knowledge and character, in support of him after the idolaters’ insolence towards him.
The surah’s aim, as al-Mukhtaṣar fī al-Tafsīr states it
- The character of the Prophet ﷺ
- No compromise with falsehood
- The owners of the garden
- The Day the shin is laid bare
- Patience
- Yūnus
Its aims, as Ibn ʿĀshūr sets them out
جاء في هذه السورة الإيماء بالحرف الذي في أولها إلى تحدي المعاندين بالتعجيز عن الإتيان بمثل سور القرآن، وهذا أول التحدي الواقع في القرآن إذ ليس في سورة العلق ولا في المزمل ولا في المدثر إشارة إلى التحدي ولا تصريح.
وفيها إشارة إلى التحدي بمعجزة الأمية بقوله: والقلم وما يسطرون [القلم: 1] .
وابتدئت بخطاب النبيء صلى الله عليه وسلم تأنيسا له وتسلية عما لقيه من أذى المشركين.
وإبطال مطاعن المشركين في النبيء صلى الله عليه وسلم.
From its first ayah to its last
- 1–77 ayat · 11% of the surahRead from ayah 1 →
The oath, and the answer
Nūn. By the pen and what they write: you are not, by the favour of your Lord, a madman. Yours is a reward unfailing, and you are of a tremendous character (68:4). You will see, and they will see, which of you is the one afflicted.
- 8–169 ayat · 13% of the surahRead from ayah 8 →
Do not give way to them
Do not obey the deniers; they would love you to compromise, so that they might. And do not obey any worthless swearer, slanderer, carrier of tales, hinderer of good, transgressor, sinner — coarse, and besides all that, base — because he has wealth and sons. When Our ayat are recited to him he says, “Tales of the ancients.” We shall brand him on the snout.
- 17–3317 ayat · 31% of the surahRead from ayah 17 →
The owners of the garden
We have tested them as We tested the owners of the garden, who swore to pick its fruit in the morning and made no exception. A visitation from your Lord came upon it while they slept. They set out early, whispering that no poor man should get in — and when they saw it they said, “We are lost… no, we are deprived.” The most balanced of them said, “Did I not tell you — why do you not glorify Allah?” Such is the punishment; and the punishment of the Hereafter is greater.
- 34–4714 ayat · 31% of the surahRead from ayah 34 →
Are the two alike?
For the mindful there are gardens of delight with their Lord. Shall We treat those who submit like the guilty? What is the matter with you — how do you judge? On the Day the shin is laid bare and they are called to prostrate, they will not be able to; they used to be called to it when they were sound. So leave Me with those who deny this discourse: We shall lead them on by degrees from where they do not know.
- 48–525 ayat · 14% of the surahRead from ayah 48 →
Be patient
So be patient for your Lord’s decision, and do not be like the Companion of the Fish, who cried out in distress. Those who disbelieve would almost strike you down with their looks when they hear the Reminder, and they say, “He is mad.” But it is nothing other than a reminder to all the worlds.
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 52 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
فَإِنَّ خُلُقَ نَبِيِّ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم كَانَ الْقُرْآنَ
Saʿd ibn Hishām asked ʿĀʾishah: “Tell me about the character of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.” She said: “Do you not read the Qurʾan?” He said: “Yes.” She said: “The character of the Prophet of Allah ﷺ was the Qurʾan.”On “the Day the shin is laid bare”: “Our Lord will uncover His shin, and every believing man and woman will prostrate to Him. There will remain those who used to prostrate in the world to be seen and heard of: they will go to prostrate, and their backs will become a single plate.”The names it is known by
After the oath in its first ayah: by the pen, and what they write.
The single letter it opens with — one of the twenty-nine surahs that begin with letters, and on the traditional order the first of them to be revealed. Ibn Kathīr heads it Sūrat Nūn, and al-Qurṭubī Nūn wa-l-Qalam.
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 الطبريJāmiʿ al-bayānMuḥammad ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī (d. 310 AH)
- 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
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.