Makkan, by agreement
The later years in Makkah
It is Makkan in the saying of all: both Ibn al-Jawzī and al-Qurṭubī record the agreement. The traditional order places it seventy-eighth, immediately after al-Mulk.
سُورَةُ الحاقَّةِ وَهِيَ مَكِّيَّةٌ كُلُّها بِإجْماعِهِمْالحاقةُ مِنْ أَسْمَاءِ يَوْمِ الْقِيَامَةِ؛ لِأَنَّ فِيهَا يَتَحقَّقُ الوَعدُ والوَعيد؛ وَلِهَذَا عَظَّم تَعَالَى أمرَهاThe same, in other works
- al-BaghawīMaʿālim al-tanzīlAhl al-Sunnah in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
سُورَةُ الْحَاقَّةِ مَكِّيَّةٌ
- al-Suyūṭīal-Durr al-manthūrAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Ibn ʿAbbās: it came down in Makkah. 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 الحاقَّةِ بِمَكَّةَ
A report he gathers; its chain is not graded here.
- al-RāzīMafātīḥ al-ghaybAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
خَمْسُونَ وآيَتانِ، مَكِّيَّةٌ
- Abū al-SuʿūdIrshād al-ʿaql al-salīmMāturīdī in creedḤanafī in fiqh→
Makkan.
سُورَةُ الحاقَّةِ مَكِّيَّةٌ، وآياتُها اثْنَتانِ وخَمْسُونَ آيَةً
Each line of English says what the Arabic beneath it says.
What was happening
No occasion is transmitted for the surah. It answers the two things Quraysh said most often in those years: that there would be no Resurrection, and that the Qurʾan was the work of a poet or a soothsayer.
To the first it replies with history they knew. Thamūd and ʿĀd denied the Striking Calamity. Thamūd were destroyed by the overwhelming blast; ʿĀd by a screaming, violent wind that He loosed on them for seven nights and eight days without a break, until you could see the people lying like hollow trunks of palm. Pharaoh, and those before him, and the overturned cities. And the Flood: “When the water overflowed, We carried you in the sailing ship.”
To the second it replies by oath — by all that you see and all that you do not see — that this is the word of a noble messenger, not a poet’s, not a soothsayer’s, but sent down from the Lord of the worlds. And then a sentence that only the truth could afford to say: had he invented any saying in Our name, We would have seized him by the right hand and cut his life-vein, and not one of you could have shielded him.
حتمية وقوع القيامة تأكيدًا لصدق القرآن، ووعدًا للمؤمنين بالفرحة، ووعيدًا للمكذبين بالحسرة.
That the Resurrection must come to pass — confirming the truth of the Qurʾan, promising the believers their joy, and threatening the deniers with their regret.
The surah’s aim, as al-Mukhtaṣar fī al-Tafsīr states it
- The Resurrection
- The destroyed nations
- The Throne
- The two records
- The truth of the Qurʾan
Its aims, as Ibn ʿĀshūr sets them out
اشتملت هذه السورة على تهويل يوم القيامة، وتهديد المكذبين بوقوعه.
وتذكيرهم بما حل بالأمم التي كذبت به من عذاب في الدنيا ثم عذاب الآخرة وتهديد المكذبين لرسل الله تعالى بالأمم التي أشركت وكذبت.
وأدمج في ذلك أن الله نجى المؤمنين من العذاب، وفي ذلك تذكير بنعمة الله على البشر إذ أبقى نوعهم بالإنجاء من الطوفان.
ووصف أهوال من الجزاء وتفاوت الناس يومئذ فيه.
From its first ayah to its last
- 1–1212 ayat · 26% of the surahRead from ayah 1 →
Those who denied it
The Inevitable Reality — what is the Inevitable Reality? Thamūd and ʿĀd denied the Striking Calamity: Thamūd were destroyed by the overwhelming blast, and ʿĀd by a furious wind, seven nights and eight days on end. Pharaoh, and those before him, and the overthrown cities. And when the water rose, We carried you in the ship, to make it a reminder for you.
- 13–186 ayat · 14% of the surahRead from ayah 13 →
The Day itself
When the Trumpet is blown with a single blast, and the earth and the mountains are lifted and crushed with a single blow — on that Day the Event will come to pass. The sky will split; the angels will be at its edges; and eight, that Day, will bear the Throne of your Lord above them. That Day you will be brought out; nothing of yours will stay hidden.
- 19–246 ayat · 12% of the surahRead from ayah 19 →
The book in the right hand
He will say, “Here — read my record! I was sure that I would meet my reckoning.” He will be in a life of contentment, in a lofty garden whose fruit hangs near. “Eat and drink with pleasure, for what you sent ahead in the days gone by.”
- 25–3713 ayat · 24% of the surahRead from ayah 25 →
The book in the left
He will say, “If only I had never been given my record, and never known my reckoning. If only that death had been the end. My wealth has not availed me; my authority has left me.” Seize him and shackle him; then burn him in the Blaze; then bind him in a chain of seventy cubits. He did not believe in Allah, the Tremendous, nor urge the feeding of the poor.
- 38–5215 ayat · 25% of the surahRead from ayah 38 →
Whose word this is
I swear by what you see and what you do not see: it is the word of a noble messenger — not the word of a poet, little do you believe; nor of a soothsayer, little do you reflect. A sending down from the Lord of the worlds. Had he fabricated sayings against Us, We would have seized him by the right hand and severed his aorta. It is a reminder for the mindful, and it is the truth of certainty. So glorify the name of your Lord, the Tremendous.
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 62% of its ayat, and the rhyme turns 3 times. None of them comes where a 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
No authenticated report specific to this surah is recorded here.
The name it is known by
One of the names of the Day of Resurrection, and the surah’s first word. Ibn Kathīr explains it: because in it the promise and the threat are made real.
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)
- 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
- The Musnad of Aḥmad
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.