Makkan, by agreement
Makkah, before the Hijrah: a dawn prayer at Nakhlah, on the road between Makkah and Ṭāʾif
It is Makkan in the saying of all: Ibn al-Jawzī and al-Qurṭubī both record the agreement. The traditional order places it fortieth.
سُورَةُ الجِنِّ كُلُّها مَكِّيَّةٌ بِإجْماعِهِمْسُورَةُ الْجِنِّ مَكِّيَّةٌ فِي قَوْلِ الْجَمِيعِ. وَهِيَ ثمان وعشرون آيةThe same, in other works
- al-BaghawīMaʿālim al-tanzīlAhl al-Sunnah in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
سُورَةُ الْجِنِّ 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 والنَّحاسُ، وابْنُ مَرْدُويَهَ والبَيْهَقِيُّ عَنِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ قالَ: نَزَلَتْ سُورَةُ الجِنِّ بِمَكَّةَ
A report he gathers; its chain is not graded here.
- al-ShawkānīFatḥ al-qadīr→
Makkan.
هي مَكِّيَّةٌ
- al-RāzīMafātīḥ al-ghaybAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
وهِيَ عِشْرُونَ وثَمانِ آياتٍ مَكِّيَّةٍ
- Abū al-SuʿūdIrshād al-ʿaql al-salīmMāturīdī in creedḤanafī in fiqh→
Makkan.
سُورَةُ الجِنِّ مَكِّيَّةٌ، وآياتُها ثَمانٍ وعِشْرُونَ
Each line of English says what the Arabic beneath it says.
What was happening
The Arabs believed in the jinn and feared them. A traveller stopping for the night in an empty valley would call out, “I seek the protection of the lord of this valley,” meaning its chief jinn. Soothsayers claimed that jinn brought them news stolen from the sky. Some tribes said the jinn were kin to Allah. The whole unseen world, as they imagined it, was a rival authority.
Ibn ʿAbbās relates what happened. The Prophet ﷺ set out with some of his Companions for the market of ʿUkāẓ. By then the devils had been cut off from the news of heaven, and shooting stars were loosed against them; they said to one another, something has happened — search the east of the earth and the west. A party of them, heading towards Tihāmah, came upon him at Nakhlah as he led his Companions in the dawn prayer. When they heard the Qurʾan they listened closely, and said: this is what has come between us and the news of heaven. They went back to their people: “We have heard a wondrous Qurʾan.” Ibn ʿAbbās adds: he did not recite to the jinn and did not see them; it was revealed to him what they had said.
Ibn Isḥāq places their listening at Nakhlah on his return from Ṭāʾif, in the tenth year of the mission — when the people of that town had stoned him out of it.◇ If so, the news that came with this surah was a consolation: the humans had driven him off, and the jinn believed.
What the jinn say takes every Arab belief about them apart, in their own voices. Our Lord has taken neither wife nor son. Our fools used to say outrageous things about Him. People sought refuge with us and it only made them worse. We tried the heaven and found it full of guards. We do not know the unseen. And among us are those who submit and those who do wrong, as among you.
- Related, not gradedRelated by the commentators without a graded chain; not established as authentic.
What came down about what
The dawn prayer at Nakhlah
Ibn ʿAbbās said: the Prophet ﷺ set out with a group of his Companions, making for the market of ʿUkāẓ. By then the devils had been barred from the news of heaven, and shooting stars were being sent against them. They went back to their people, who said: “What has happened to you?” — “We have been barred from the news of heaven, and shooting stars have been sent against us.” They said: “Nothing has come between you and the news of heaven but something that has newly happened. Travel the east of the earth and its west, and see what it is.”
Those of them who had set out towards Tihāmah came upon the Prophet ﷺ at Nakhlah, on his way to ʿUkāẓ, as he was leading his Companions in the dawn prayer. When they heard the Qurʾan they listened to it closely, and said: “This, by Allah, is what has come between you and the news of heaven.” And so they went back to their people and said: “Our people, we have heard a wondrous Qurʾan. It guides to right conduct, and we have believed in it, and we shall never associate anyone with our Lord.” Then Allah sent down upon His Prophet ﷺ: “Say: it has been revealed to me that a group of the jinn listened.” What was revealed to him was what the jinn had said.
Ibn ʿAbbās: al-Bukhārī (773, 4921) and Muslim (449).
Ṣaḥīḥ
تصديق نزول القرآن وأنه من عند الله، من خلال إيمان الجن به، وإبطال مزاعم المشركين فيهم.
To confirm that the Qurʾan was sent down and is from Allah, through the belief of the jinn in it — and to refute what the idolaters claimed about them.
The surah’s aim, as al-Mukhtaṣar fī al-Tafsīr states it
- The jinn
- The Qurʾan
- Tawḥīd
- The guarded heaven
- The unseen belongs to Allah
- The mosques are for Allah
Its aims, as Ibn ʿĀshūr sets them out
إثبات كرامة للنبيء صلى الله عليه وسلم بأن دعوته بلغت إلى جنس الجن وإفهامهم فهم معان من القرآن الذي استمعوا للنبيء صلى الله عليه وسلم وفهم ما يدعو إليه من التوحيد والهدى، وعلمهم بعظمة الله وتنزيهه عن الشريك والصاحبة والولد.
وإبطال عبادة ما يعبد من الجن.
وإبطال الكهانة وبلوغ علم الغيب إلى غير الرسل الذين يطلعهم الله على ما يشاء.
From its first ayah to its last
- 1–77 ayat · 24% of the surahRead from ayah 1 →
What they said on hearing it
Say: it has been revealed to me that a group of jinn listened and said, “We have heard a wondrous Qurʾan that guides to right conduct; we believe in it, and will never associate anyone with our Lord. Exalted is His majesty — He has taken neither wife nor son. Our foolish ones used to say outrageous things about Allah. Men among humankind used to seek refuge with men among the jinn, and it increased them in wrong.”
- 8–103 ayat · 12% of the surahRead from ayah 8 →
The sky closed
“We sought to reach the heaven and found it filled with stern guards and shooting flames. We used to take up positions there to listen; but whoever listens now finds a flame lying in wait. And we do not know whether harm is intended for those on earth, or whether their Lord intends for them right guidance.”
- 11–155 ayat · 17% of the surahRead from ayah 11 →
Jinn like men
“Among us are the righteous and those who are otherwise; we are of differing ways. We know we cannot escape Allah on earth or by flight. When we heard the guidance, we believed in it. Among us are those who have submitted and those who are unjust: those who submit have sought out right guidance, and the unjust will be fuel for Hell.”
- 16–194 ayat · 12% of the surahRead from ayah 16 →
The mosques are for Allah
Had they kept to the way, We would have given them abundant water, to test them by it. The places of prostration belong to Allah, so call on no one along with Allah. And when the servant of Allah stood calling on Him, they nearly pressed upon him in crowds.
- 20–289 ayat · 35% of the surahRead from ayah 20 →
What the Messenger ﷺ is to say of himself
Say: I call only upon my Lord and associate no one with Him. Say: I have no power to harm you or to guide you. Say: no one can protect me from Allah; mine is only to convey from Allah. He is the Knower of the unseen and discloses it to no one, except a messenger He has chosen — and then He sets guards before him and behind him.
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 28 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
“The Prophet ﷺ did not recite to the jinn, nor did he see them. He set out with a group of his Companions for the market of ʿUkāẓ…” — and the jinn came upon him as he led the dawn prayer at Nakhlah, and listened.The name it is known by
After the party of jinn whose words make up most of it. It is also called by its opening, Qul ūḥiya ilayya.
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
- Ibn Isḥāq’s account, as the commentators relay it
- 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.