Makkan, by the majority
Makkah: a cave at Minā, with the Prophet ﷺ and a group of his Companions
The majority hold all of it to be Makkan. It is related from Ibn ʿAbbās, Qatādah and Muqātil that one ayah is Madinan: “When it is said to them, ‘Bow’, they do not bow” (77:48). Its place of revelation is known more exactly than that of almost any other surah: Ibn Masʿūd was there.
سُورَةُ المُرْسَلاتِ مَكِّيَّةٌ كُلُّها في قَوْلِ الجُمْهُورِ وَحُكِيَ عَنِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ، وقَتادَةَ، ومُقاتِلٍ أنَّ فِيها آيَةً مَدَنِيَّةًعَنْ عَبْدِ اللَّهِ -هُوَ ابْنُ مَسْعُودٍ-قَالَ: بَيْنَمَا نَحْنُ مَعَ النَّبِيِّ ﷺ، فِي غَارٍ بِمِنًى، إِذْ نَزَلَتْ عَلَيْهِ: وَالْمُرْسَلاتِ فَإِنَّهُ لَيَتْلُوهَاThe same, in other works
- al-BaghawīMaʿālim al-tanzīlAhl al-Sunnah in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
سُورَةُ الْمُرْسَلَاتِ 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 مَرْدُويَهَ والبَيْهَقِيُّ عَنِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ قالَ: نَزَلَتْ سُورَةُ المُرْسَلاتِ 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 خَمْسُونَ آيَةً؛ مَكِّيَّةٌ
- Abū al-SuʿūdIrshād al-ʿaql al-salīmMāturīdī in creedḤanafī in fiqh→
Makkan, with the exception he names.
سُورَةُ المُرْسَلاتِ مَكِّيَّةٌ إلّا آيَةَ ثَمانٍ وأرْبَعِينَ فَمَدَنِيَّةٌ، وآياتُها خَمْسُونَ
Each line of English says what the Arabic beneath it says.
What was happening
ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd tells it. “We were with the Prophet ﷺ in a cave at Minā when ‘Wa-l-mursalāt’ came down upon him. He was reciting it, and I was taking it from his mouth while his mouth was still moist with it, when a snake sprang out at us. The Prophet ﷺ said, ‘Kill it.’ We rushed at it and it got away. He said: ‘It has been spared your harm, as you have been spared its harm.’”
So we know the place, and who was present, and that the surah was learned by its first hearers at the very moment of its arrival.
Its construction is unlike anything else in the Qurʾan. A short passage — the end of the stars and the mountains; the destruction of earlier peoples; the making of man from a lowly fluid; the earth that holds the living and the dead; the shadow of the Fire that gives no shade; the gardens of the mindful — and after each one the same sentence: “Woe, that Day, to the deniers.” Ten times. The effect is of a case being made point by point before a court, with the verdict read out after every piece of evidence.
And it ends with a question that has never been answered: in what message, after this one, will they believe?
What came down about what
The cave at Minā
“While we were with the Prophet ﷺ in a cave at Minā, ‘Wa-l-mursalāt’ was sent down upon him. He was reciting it and I was receiving it from his mouth, his mouth still moist with it, when a snake leapt out at us…”
ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd: al-Bukhārī (1830, 4930) and Muslim (2234).
Ṣaḥīḥ
إثبات القيامة من خلال محاجة المكذبين بالأدلة، وتتابعها بالوعيد والتهديد.
To establish the Resurrection by confronting the deniers with proofs — each followed by threat and warning.
The surah’s aim, as al-Mukhtaṣar fī al-Tafsīr states it
- The Day of Decision
- The destroyed nations
- The creation of man
- The Fire and the Garden
- The refrain of woe
Its aims, as Ibn ʿĀshūr sets them out
اشتملت على الاستدلال على وقوع البعث عقب فناء الدنيا ووصف بعض أشراط ذلك.
والاستدلال على إمكان إعادة الخلق بما سبق من خلق الإنسان وخلق الأرض.
ووعيد منكريه بعذاب الآخرة ووصف أهواله.
والتعريض بعذاب لهم في الدنيا كما استؤصلت أمم مكذبة من قبل. ومقابلة ذلك بجزاء الكرامة للمؤمنين.
وإعادة الدعوة إلى الإسلام والتصديق بالقرآن لظهور دلائله.
From its first ayah to its last
- 1–77 ayat · 9% of the surahRead from ayah 1 →
The oath
By those sent forth one after another, storming on with force; by those that scatter far and wide, then separate one thing from another, then deliver a reminder — to excuse or to warn: what you are promised will surely come to pass.
- 8–158 ayat · 14% of the surahRead from ayah 8 →
The Day of Decision
When the stars are put out, the sky is torn open, the mountains are blown away and the messengers are given their appointed time — for what Day has it been deferred? For the Day of Decision. Woe, that Day, to the deniers.
- 16–2813 ayat · 25% of the surahRead from ayah 16 →
Three proofs
Did We not destroy the earlier peoples, and then send the later ones after them? Did We not create you from a lowly fluid, lodged in a secure place for a known term? Did We not make the earth a container for the living and the dead, and set on it lofty mountains, and give you sweet water to drink? After each: woe, that Day, to the deniers.
- 29–4012 ayat · 29% of the surahRead from ayah 29 →
“Go to what you used to deny”
Go to a shadow of three columns, which gives no shade and no defence against the flame; it throws out sparks like fortresses, like tawny camels. This is a Day they will not speak, nor be allowed to make excuses. This is the Day of Decision; We have gathered you and those of old. If you have any plot, then plot against Me.
- 41–5010 ayat · 23% of the surahRead from ayah 41 →
The mindful, and the last question
The mindful will be among shades and springs, with whatever fruit they desire. As for you: eat and enjoy yourselves a little — you are guilty. When they are told to bow, they do not bow. In what message, after this, will they believe?
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 9 times. One of those turns comes 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
Umm al-Faḍl heard her son Ibn ʿAbbās reciting “Wa-l-mursalāti ʿurfan” and said: “My son, by your recitation of this surah you have reminded me: it is the last thing I heard from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. He was reciting it in the sunset prayer.”“Hūd, al-Wāqiʿah, al-Mursalāt, ‘ʿAmma yatasāʾalūn’ and ‘Idhā l-shamsu kuwwirat’ have turned me grey.”The name it is known by
After the oath it opens with. Ibn Masʿūd, Ibn ʿAbbās, Mujāhid and Qatādah said they are the winds, sent one after another; others, the angels sent with Allah’s command. The Companions called the surah Wa-l-mursalāt, or Wa-l-mursalāti ʿurfan.
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; Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī
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.