Madinan, by agreement — about Badr
Madinah, after Badr — Ramaḍān of the second year
Ibn al-Jawzī records agreement that it is Madinan; al-Qurṭubī calls it “Madinan, of Badr,” in the saying of al-Ḥasan, ʿIkrimah, Jābir and ʿAṭāʾ. Ibn ʿAbbās, asked about it, said simply that it came down about Badr. The battle was fought on the seventeenth of Ramaḍān in the second year after the Hijrah. A report from Ibn ʿAbbās counts seven of its ayat, from “When those who disbelieved plotted against you” (8:30), as Makkan; they recall a Makkan event, but belong with the rest. The traditional order places it eighty-eighth, directly after al-Baqarah.
سُورَةُ الأنْفالِ وَهِيَ مَدَنِيَّةٌ بِإجْماعِهِمْقُلْتُ لِابْنِ عَبَّاسٍ: سُورَةُ الْأَنْفَالِ؟ قَالَ نَزَلَتْ فِي بَدْرٍسُورَةُ الْأَنْفَالِ مَدَنِيَّةٌ بَدْرِيَّةٌ فِي قَوْلِ الْحَسَنِ وَعِكْرِمَةَ وَجَابِرٍ وَعَطَاءٍThe same, in other works
- al-BaghawīMaʿālim al-tanzīlAhl al-Sunnah in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Madinan.
سُورَةُ الْأَنْفَالِ مَدَنِيَّةٌ وَهِيَ خَمْسٌ وَسَبْعُونَ آيَةً
- al-Suyūṭīal-Durr al-manthūrAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Ibn ʿAbbās: it came down in Madinah. Recorded by al-Naḥḥās, Abū al-Shaykh and Ibn Mardawayh, through several chains.
أخْرَجَ النَّحّاسُ في ناسِخِهِ وأبُو الشَّيْخِ، وابْنُ مَرْدُويَهْ مِن طُرُقٍ عَنِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ قالَ: نَزَلَتْ سُورَةُ الأنْفالِ بِالمَدِينَةِ
A report he gathers; its chain is not graded here.
- al-ShawkānīFatḥ al-qadīr→
Many of the commentators state that it is Madinan and except nothing from it; so said al-Ḥasan, ʿIkrimah, Jābir ibn Zayd and ʿAṭāʾ.
صَرَّحَ كَثِيرٌ مِنَ المُفَسِّرِينَ بِأنَّها مَدَنِيَّةٌ ولَمْ يَسْتَثْنُوا مِنها شَيْئًا، وبِهِ قالَ الحَسَنُ وعِكْرِمَةُ وجابِرُ بْنُ زَيْدٍ وعَطاءٌ
- Abū al-SuʿūdIrshād al-ʿaql al-salīmMāturīdī in creedḤanafī in fiqh→
Madinan.
سُورَةُ الأنْفالِ مَدَنِيَّةٌ، وهي خَمْسٌ وسَبْعُونَ آيَةً
Each line of English says what the Arabic beneath it says.
What was happening
They had not gone out to fight. The Prophet ﷺ left Madinah with a little over three hundred men, two horses and seventy camels shared between them, to intercept a caravan of Quraysh returning from Syria. The caravan slipped away along the coast; what came up from Makkah instead was an army of about a thousand. At the wells of Badr the two met.
ʿUmar describes what happened before the fighting began. The Prophet ﷺ looked at the idolaters, a thousand of them, and at his own companions, and turned to face the qiblah. He stretched out his hands and began calling on his Lord: “O Allah, fulfil for me what You have promised me. O Allah, if this band of the people of Islam is destroyed, You will not be worshipped on the earth.” He went on, hands outstretched, until his cloak slipped from his shoulders. Abū Bakr came, put it back, and held him from behind: “Prophet of Allah, enough of your pleading with your Lord; He will fulfil what He has promised you.” And there came down: “When you sought help from your Lord, and He answered you: I shall reinforce you with a thousand of the angels, rank on rank.”
It was over in a morning. Seventy of Quraysh were killed — Abū Jahl among them — and seventy taken captive. And then the winners began to argue. ʿUbādah ibn al-Ṣāmit, who was there, says there were three groups: those who had chased the enemy, those who had stood guard round the Prophet ﷺ, and those who had gathered up the camp; and each said the spoils were theirs.
The surah opens with their question and disposes of it in half a line: “They ask you about the spoils. Say: the spoils are for Allah and the Messenger.” It does not say how they are to be divided until forty ayat later. First it has something else to settle — what a believer is. “The believers are only those whose hearts tremble when Allah is mentioned; and when His ayat are recited to them, it increases them in faith; and upon their Lord they rely.”
Then it goes back over the battle and corrects their memory of it. You went out unwillingly, some of you, as though being driven to death. You wanted the unarmed party. You were made drowsy, and rained on, to steady you. “You did not kill them, but Allah killed them; and you did not throw, when you threw, but Allah threw.” It turns to Quraysh — who had prayed, “O Allah, if this is the truth from You, then rain down stones upon us” — and at the end to the captives, over whom the Prophet ﷺ and Abū Bakr were found weeping the next day.
What came down about what
The quarrel over the spoils
On the day of Badr the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: “Whoever does such-and-such shall have such-and-such of the spoils.” The young men went forward, and the elders kept to the banners. When Allah gave them victory, the elders said: “We were your support; had you been driven back, you would have fallen back on us. Do not take the spoils and leave us out.” The young men refused: “The Messenger of Allah ﷺ assigned it to us.” Then Allah sent down: “They ask you about the spoils…”
Ibn ʿAbbās: Abū Dāwūd (2737); ṣaḥīḥ according to al-Albānī. Saʿd ibn Abī Waqqāṣ relates it of a sword he asked for that day: Muslim (1748).
Graded ṣaḥīḥ
فَأمّا المَشْيَخَةُ، فَثَبَتُوا تَحْتَ الرّاياتِ، وأمّا الشُّبّانُ، فَسارَعُوا إلى القَتْلِ والغَنائِمِ، فَقالَ المَشْيَخَةُ لَلشُّبّانِ: أشْرِكُونا مَعَكم، فَإنّا كُنّا لَكم رِدَءًاThe plea before the battle
ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb said: on the day of Badr the Messenger of Allah ﷺ looked at the idolaters, and they were a thousand, and his Companions were three hundred and nineteen men. He turned to face the qiblah, stretched out his hands and began to call upon his Lord: “O Allah, fulfil for me what You have promised me. O Allah, give me what You have promised me. O Allah, if this band of the people of Islam is destroyed, You will not be worshipped on the earth.”
He went on calling upon his Lord, his hands outstretched, facing the qiblah, until his cloak slipped from his shoulders. Abū Bakr came, picked up the cloak and laid it back on his shoulders, then held him from behind and said: “Prophet of Allah, this pleading with your Lord is enough. He will fulfil for you what He has promised you.” And Allah sent down: “When you called upon your Lord for help, and He answered you: I shall reinforce you with a thousand of the angels, rank after rank.”
Ibn ʿAbbās said: a man of the Muslims that day was running hard after one of the idolaters in front of him, when he heard the crack of a whip above him and the voice of a rider saying, “On, Ḥayzūm!” He looked at the idolater ahead of him, and he had fallen on his back; his nose was broken and his face split open as if by the stroke of a whip, and all of it had turned livid. The man, one of the Helpers, came and told the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, who said: “You have spoken the truth. That was of the reinforcement from the third heaven.” They killed seventy that day, and took seventy captive.
ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb: Muslim (1763).
Ṣaḥīḥ
Abū Jahl’s prayer
Abū Jahl said: “O Allah, if this is the truth from You, then rain down upon us stones from the sky, or bring us a painful punishment.” Then there came down: “Allah would not punish them while you were among them; and Allah would not punish them while they seek forgiveness.”
Anas ibn Mālik: al-Bukhārī (4648) and Muslim (2796).
Ṣaḥīḥ
One against ten, lightened to one against two
When “If there are twenty of you who are patient, they will overcome two hundred” came down, it bore hard on the Muslims that one should not flee from ten. Then the lightening came: “Now Allah has lightened it for you, knowing that there is weakness in you: if there are a hundred of you who are patient, they will overcome two hundred.”
Ibn ʿAbbās: al-Bukhārī (4653).
Ṣaḥīḥ
The captives
When the captives of Badr had been taken, the Messenger of Allah ﷺ asked Abū Bakr and ʿUmar: “What do you think should be done with these captives?” Abū Bakr said: “Prophet of Allah, they are our cousins and our kin. I think you should take a ransom from them. It will be a strength to us against the disbelievers, and perhaps Allah will guide them to Islam.” He ﷺ said: “And what do you think, Ibn al-Khaṭṭāb?”
ʿUmar said: “No, by Allah, Messenger of Allah, I do not think as Abū Bakr thinks. I think you should give them into our hands and we strike their necks: give ʿAqīl to ʿAlī, and give me so-and-so” — a kinsman of his own — “for these are the leaders of disbelief and its chiefs.” The Messenger of Allah ﷺ inclined to what Abū Bakr had said, and not to what ʿUmar had said.
“The next day I came,” ʿUmar said, “and there were the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and Abū Bakr, sitting and weeping. I said: Messenger of Allah, tell me what it is that makes you and your companion weep. If I find tears I shall weep, and if I find none I shall make myself weep for your weeping.” He ﷺ said: “I weep for what your companions put to me about taking the ransom. Their punishment was shown to me, nearer than this tree” — a tree close to where he sat. And Allah sent down: “It is not for a prophet to hold captives until he has thoroughly subdued the land…” as far as “So eat of what you have taken as spoil, lawful and good.” So Allah made the spoils lawful to them.
ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb: Muslim (1763).
Ṣaḥīḥ
بيان أحكام الجهاد وعوامل النصر والهزيمة من خلال غزوة بدر.
To set out the rulings of striving in the way of Allah, and what brings victory and what brings defeat — through the battle of Badr.
The surah’s aim, as al-Mukhtaṣar fī al-Tafsīr states it
- The spoils belong to Allah and the Messenger
- What a believer is
- The help that came at Badr
- “You did not throw when you threw”
- Obedience and unity
- The plot against the Prophet ﷺ in Makkah
- Treaties and their keeping
- The captives
- Emigrants and Helpers
Its aims, as Ibn ʿĀshūr sets them out
ابتدأت ببيان أحكام الأنفال وهي الغنائم وقسمتها ومصارفها.
والأمر بتقوى الله في ذلك وغيره.
والأمر بطاعة الله ورسوله، في أمر الغنائم وغيرها.
وأمر المسلمين بإصلاح ذات بينهم، وأن ذلك من مقومات معنى الإيمان الكامل.
وذكر الخروج إلى غزوة بدر وبخوفهم من قوة عددهم وما لقوا فيها من نصر وتأييد من الله ولطفه بهم.
وامتنان الله عليهم بأن جعلهم أقوياء.
From its first ayah to its last
- 1–44 ayat · 4% of the surahRead from ayah 1 →
The question, and the real answer
They ask you about the spoils. Say: the spoils are for Allah and the Messenger; so be mindful of Allah, and set things right between you. The believers are only those whose hearts tremble when Allah is mentioned; and when His ayat are recited to them, it increases them in faith; and upon their Lord they rely — who keep up the prayer, and spend of what We have provided them. Those are the believers, truly.
- 5–1915 ayat · 18% of the surahRead from ayah 5 →
How Badr was won
As your Lord brought you out of your home in truth, though a party of the believers were unwilling. You wished that the unarmed one should be yours. When you sought help from your Lord and He answered: “I shall reinforce you with a thousand of the angels.” He covered you with drowsiness as security from Him, and sent down water upon you from the sky. Do not turn your backs to them. You did not kill them, but Allah killed them; and you did not throw, when you threw, but Allah threw (8:17).
- 20–2910 ayat · 11% of the surahRead from ayah 20 →
Respond to what gives you life
O you who believe, obey Allah and His Messenger. Respond to Allah and to the Messenger when he calls you to what gives you life; and know that Allah comes between a man and his heart. Beware a trial that will not strike only those of you who do wrong. Remember when you were few, held weak in the land, afraid that people would snatch you away — and He sheltered you. Do not betray Allah and the Messenger. If you are mindful of Allah, He will give you a criterion.
- 30–4011 ayat · 15% of the surahRead from ayah 30 →
Quraysh
When those who disbelieved plotted against you, to confine you, or kill you, or drive you out — they plotted, and Allah plotted, and Allah is the best of plotters. They said: “O Allah, if this is the truth from You, rain down stones upon us.” Allah would not punish them while you were among them. Their prayer at the House was nothing but whistling and clapping. They spend their wealth to bar people from the way of Allah; they will spend it, then it will be a regret for them. Say to those who disbelieve: if they desist, what is past will be forgiven them.
- 41–5414 ayat · 22% of the surahRead from ayah 41 →
The fifth, and the day of the Criterion
Know that whatever you gain, a fifth of it is for Allah and the Messenger, the near kin, the orphans, the needy and the traveller. You were on the near bank and they on the far, and the caravan below you — that he who perished might perish upon clear proof. When you meet a force, stand firm and remember Allah much. Obey Allah and His Messenger, and do not quarrel, or you will lose heart and your strength will depart. Allah would not change a favour He had bestowed on a people until they change what is in themselves.
- 55–6612 ayat · 15% of the surahRead from ayah 55 →
Treaties, strength and peace
Those with whom you made a covenant, and they break it every time. If you fear treachery from a people, throw their treaty back to them on equal terms. Prepare against them what force you can. If they incline to peace, incline to it, and rely on Allah. He it is who strengthened you with His help and with the believers, and joined their hearts: had you spent all that is on the earth, you could not have joined their hearts. O Prophet, Allah is enough for you, and those of the believers who follow you.
- 67–759 ayat · 14% of the surahRead from ayah 67 →
The captives, and who belongs to whom
It is not for a prophet to have captives until he has thoroughly subdued the land. O Prophet, say to the captives in your hands: if Allah knows any good in your hearts, He will give you better than what was taken from you. Those who believed, emigrated and strove, and those who gave shelter and help — they are allies of one another. If they seek your help in religion, you must help. Those who disbelieve are allies of one another. And those bound by kinship are nearer to one another in the Book of Allah.
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 75% of its ayat, and the rhyme turns 20 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
Saʿīd ibn Jubayr said: I said to Ibn ʿAbbās: “Sūrat al-Anfāl?” He said: “It came down about Badr.”Abū Saʿīd ibn al-Muʿallā said: I was praying, and the Messenger of Allah ﷺ passed by and called me; I did not go to him until I had finished. He said: “What kept you from coming? Has Allah not said: ‘O you who believe, respond to Allah and to the Messenger when he calls you’?”أَلاَ إِنَّ الْقُوَّةَ الرَّمْىُ
ʿUqbah ibn ʿĀmir said: I heard the Messenger of Allah ﷺ say, upon the pulpit: “‘Prepare against them what force you can.’ Truly, force is archery. Truly, force is archery. Truly, force is archery.”The names it is known by
From its first ayah: “They ask you about the spoils.” Anfāl are what is gained over and above the purpose — and the surah treats them as exactly that.
Saʿīd ibn Jubayr said to Ibn ʿAbbās: “Sūrat al-Anfāl?” He said: “That is Sūrat Badr.”
Its place in the muṣḥaf
Ayat you will hear named
- 8:2–4Who the believers are
- 8:9A thousand angels
- 8:17“You did not throw when you threw”
- 8:24Respond to what gives you life
- 8:30The plot in Makkah
- 8:33Not punished while seeking forgiveness
- 8:41The fifth
- 8:46Do not quarrel, or you will lose heart
- 8:53Until they change what is in themselves
- 8:60–61Prepare — and incline to peace
- 8:63He joined their hearts
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 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; Sunan Abī Dāwūd
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.