Differed over
Madinah, on the majority’s view; Makkah, on that of Ibn Kathīr and others
Ibn al-Jawzī gives three views. That all of it is Madinan — the saying of the majority, Mujāhid and Qatādah among them. That it is Makkan — the saying of Ibn Yasār and Muqātil, and reported from Ibn ʿAbbās; Ibn Kathīr gives it as Makkan. And that it is part one and part the other. Al-Qurṭubī records the same difference. The muṣḥaf heads it Madinan, and the traditional order places it ninety-eighth; but its manner — short ayat, the next life, patience under the taunts of the disbelievers — is that of the Makkan surahs around it.
وَفِيها ثَلاثَةُ أقْوالٍ. أحَدُها: أنَّها مَدَنِيَّةٌ كُلُّها، قالَهُ الجُمْهُورُ مِنهُمْ، مُجاهِدٌ وقَتادَةُ. والثّانِي: مَكِّيَّةٌ، قالَهُ ابْنُ يَسارٍ، ومُقاتِلٌ، وحُكِيَ عَنِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ. والثّالِثُ: أنَّ فِيها مَكِّيًّا ومَدَنِيًّاوَهِيَ إِحْدَى وَثَلَاثُونَ آيَةً مَكِّيَّةٌ فِي قَوْلِ ابْنِ عَبَّاسٍ وَمُقَاتِلٍ وَالْكَلْبِيِّ. وَقَالَ الْجُمْهُورُ: مَدَنِيَّةٌThe same, in other works
- al-BaghawīMaʿālim al-tanzīlAhl al-Sunnah in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
ʿAṭāʾ said: Makkan. Mujāhid and Qatādah said: Madinan. Al-Ḥasan and ʿIkrimah said: Madinan, except one ayah.
سُورَةُ الْإِنْسَانِ قَالَ عَطَاءٌ: هِيَ مَكِّيَّةٌ وَقَالَ مُجَاهِدٌ وَقَتَادَةُ: مَدَنِيَّةٌ وَقَالَ الْحَسَنُ وَعِكْرِمَةُ: هِيَ مَدَنِيَّةٌ إِلَّا آيَةً
- al-Suyūṭīal-Durr al-manthūrAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Ibn ʿAbbās: it came down in Makkah. Recorded by al-Naḥḥās.
أخْرَجَ النَّحّاسُ عَنِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ قالَ: نَزَلَتْ سُورَةُ الإنْسانِ بِمَكَّةَ
A report he gathers; its chain is not graded here.
- al-ShawkānīFatḥ al-qadīr→
Madinan, in the saying of the majority.
قالَ الجُمْهُورُ: هي مَدَنِيَّةٌ
- al-RāzīMafātīḥ al-ghaybAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
إحْدى وثَلاثُونَ آيَةً مَكِّيَّةً
- Abū al-SuʿūdIrshād al-ʿaql al-salīmMāturīdī in creedḤanafī in fiqh→
Madinan.
سُورَةُ الإنْسانِ مَدَنِيَّةٌ، وآياتُها إحْدى وثَلاثُونَ
Each line of English says what the Arabic beneath it says.
What was happening
No occasion is soundly reported for the surah as a whole. What is certain is where the Prophet ﷺ placed it in the life of his community: in the first unit of the dawn prayer every Friday he recited al-Sajdah, and in the second, this surah. The two together tell the story of the human being from first to last — creation, the test, the Hour, the two abodes — on the morning of the day on which, he said, Ādam was created and the Hour will come.
It begins before the beginning. Has there not passed over man a stretch of time in which he was not a thing worth mention? Then: a drop of mingled fluid, made to hear and see, shown the way, and left to be grateful or ungrateful. The ungrateful get one ayah. The rest of the page belongs to the others.
The description of them is the most extended picture of Paradise in the Qurʾan, and it is tied at every point to what they did. They kept their vows. They feared a Day whose evil spreads far. And they gave food, though they loved it themselves, to the poor, the orphan and the captive — saying, not aloud but in their hearts, as Mujāhid and Saʿīd ibn Jubayr explained: “We feed you only for the Face of Allah. We want from you neither reward nor thanks.”
The captive, in the Arabia of the time, was an idolater taken in war. Feeding him was not owed to him as a brother in faith. It was done for the sake of Allah alone.
تذكير الإنسان بأصله وحكمة خلقه ومصيره في الدارين، وإظهار نعيم الجنة، تثبيتًا للمؤمنين ودعوة للكافرين.
To remind man of his origin, the purpose of his creation and his end in the two abodes — and to display the bliss of Paradise, steadying the believers and calling the disbelievers.
The surah’s aim, as al-Mukhtaṣar fī al-Tafsīr states it
- The origin of man
- Gratitude and ingratitude
- Feeding the poor, the orphan and the captive
- Sincerity
- Paradise
- Patience and night worship
Its aims, as Ibn ʿĀshūr sets them out
التذكير بأن كل إنسان كون بعد أن لم يكن فكيف يقضي باستحالة إعادة تكوينه بعد عدمه.
وإثبات أن الإنسان محقوق بإفراد الله بالعبادة شكرا لخالقه ومحذر من الإشراك به.
وإثبات الجزاء على الحالين مع شيء من وصف ذلك الجزاء بحالتيه والإطناب في وصف جزاء الشاكرين.
وأدمج في خلال ذلك الامتنان على الناس بنعمة الإيجاد ونعمة الإدراك والامتنان بما أعطيه الإنسان من التمييز بين الخير والشر وإرشاده إلى الخير بواسطة الرسل فمن الناس من شكر نعمة الله ومنهم من كفرها فعبد
From its first ayah to its last
- 1–44 ayat · 14% of the surahRead from ayah 1 →
From nothing, to a choice
Has there come upon man a period of time when he was not a thing mentioned? We created him from a drop of mingled fluid, to test him, and made him hearing and seeing. We showed him the way: grateful, or ungrateful. For the disbelievers We have prepared chains, shackles and a blaze.
- 5–128 ayat · 24% of the surahRead from ayah 5 →
The righteous, and what they did
The righteous will drink from a cup flavoured with camphor — a spring from which the servants of Allah drink, making it flow as they please. They fulfil their vows and fear a Day whose harm is widespread. They give food, despite their love of it, to the needy, the orphan and the captive: “We feed you only for the Face of Allah; we want from you neither reward nor thanks.” So Allah has shielded them from the evil of that Day, and given them radiance and joy, and rewarded them, for their patience, with a garden and silk.
- 13–2210 ayat · 31% of the surahRead from ayah 13 →
What is prepared for them
Reclining there on couches, seeing neither burning sun nor biting cold; its shade close over them and its fruit hung low. Vessels of silver passed among them, and goblets of crystal — crystal of silver. A cup flavoured with ginger, from a spring named Salsabīl. Youths who never age, like scattered pearls. When you look there, you see delight and a great kingdom. Garments of green silk and brocade, bracelets of silver, and a pure drink given them by their Lord. “This is your reward; your striving has been accepted.”
- 23–264 ayat · 11% of the surahRead from ayah 23 →
To the Prophet ﷺ
It is We who have sent down the Qurʾan to you in stages. So be patient for your Lord’s judgement, and do not obey any sinner or ingrate among them. Remember the name of your Lord morning and evening; prostrate to Him in the night, and glorify Him through the long night.
- 27–315 ayat · 19% of the surahRead from ayah 27 →
The choice, again
These people love the fleeting life and leave behind them a heavy Day. We created them and made firm their frame. This is a reminder: let whoever wills take a way to his Lord. And you do not will unless Allah wills. He admits whom He wills into His mercy; and for the wrongdoers He has prepared a painful punishment.
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 31 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 used to recite, in the dawn prayer on Friday, “Alif Lām Mīm, the sending down” — al-Sajdah — and “Has there come upon man”.The names it is known by
After the human being named in its first ayah, and the name it carries in the muṣḥaf.
Its opening words, and the name it has in the hadith: the Prophet ﷺ used to recite Hal atā ʿalā l-insān in the dawn prayer on Fridays (Muslim 879).
After the “stretch of time” of its first ayah. Ibn al-Jawzī heads it with this name.
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
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.