Makkan, by agreement
The first years in Makkah
It is Makkan in the saying of all: Ibn al-Jawzī and al-Qurṭubī both say so. The traditional order places it seventh, among the very first surahs — when the charge it answers in its second half, that the Messenger ﷺ was possessed, was new.
سُورَةُ التَّكْوِيرِ وَهِيَ مَكِّيَّةٌ كُلُّها بِإجْماعِهِمْسُورَةُ التَّكْوِيرِ مَكِّيَّةٌ فِي قَوْلِ الْجَمِيعِ. وَهِيَ تِسْعٌ وَعِشْرُونَ آيَةًThe same, in other works
- al-BaghawīMaʿālim al-tanzīlAhl al-Sunnah in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
سُورَةُ التَّكْوِيرِ 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 ﴿إذا الشَّمْسُ كُوِّرَتْ﴾ بِمَكَّةَ
A report he gathers; its chain is not graded here.
- al-ShawkānīFatḥ al-qadīr→
Makkan, by agreement.
هي مَكِّيَّةٌ بِلا خِلافٍ
- al-RāzīMafātīḥ al-ghaybAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
عِشْرُونَ وتِسْعُ آياتٍ مَكِّيَّةٌ
- Abū al-SuʿūdIrshād al-ʿaql al-salīmMāturīdī in creedḤanafī in fiqh→
Makkan.
سُورَةُ التَّكْوِيرِ مَكِّيَّةٌ وآياتُها تِسْعٌ وعِشْرُونَ
Each line of English says what the Arabic beneath it says.
What was happening
When the Prophet ﷺ first recited the Qurʾan in public, the people of Makkah had to call it something. It was not poetry as they knew poetry. So they reached for the two explanations their world offered for a man who suddenly spoke in a way no one else could: he was a soothsayer, to whom a jinn brought words from the sky — or he was majnūn, possessed.
This surah is an answer to both, and it gives the answer in an order worth noticing. First, the end of the world, in a single unbroken sentence fourteen ayat long. Among its scenes is one aimed straight at Arabian custom: the infant girl, buried alive by her father for shame or for fear of poverty, is asked for what crime she was killed. She is asked — not he. He is not worth addressing.
Then come three oaths, by the stars as they withdraw, the night as it lifts, the dawn as it breathes; and then the chain by which these words have arrived. They are the speech of a noble messenger — Jibrīl — strong, established with the Lord of the Throne, obeyed in the heavens, trustworthy. Your companion is not mad. He saw him on the clear horizon. And this is not the word of any devil.
تصوير القيامة بانفراط الكون بعد إحكامه.
To picture the Resurrection as the unravelling of a universe that had been so firmly made.
The surah’s aim, as al-Mukhtaṣar fī al-Tafsīr states it
- The Last Day
- The buried infant girl
- Jibrīl
- The truth of the revelation
- Allah’s will
Its aims, as Ibn ʿĀshūr sets them out
اشتملت على تحقيق الجزاء صريحا.
وعلى إثبات البعث وابتدئ بوصف الأهوال التي تتقدمه وانتقل إلى وصف أهوال تقع عقبه.
وعلى التنويه بشأن القرآن الذي كذبوا به لأنه أوعدهم بالبعث زيادة لتحقيق وقوع البحث إذا رموا النبيء صلى الله عليه وسلم بالجنون والقرآن بأنه يأتيه به شيطان.
From its first ayah to its last
- 1–1414 ayat · 41% of the surahRead from ayah 1 →
Twelve signs, and one result
When the sun is folded up, the stars fall, the mountains are set moving; when the camels ten months pregnant are left untended, the wild beasts are herded together, the seas set boiling; when the souls are paired, and the girl buried alive is asked for what sin she was killed; when the records are laid open, the sky is stripped away, Hell is set ablaze and Paradise brought near — a soul will know what it has brought.
- 15–217 ayat · 23% of the surahRead from ayah 15 →
Who carried these words
I swear by the stars that slip back, that run and hide; by the night as it departs, and the dawn as it draws breath: this is the word of a noble messenger, possessed of strength, secure in rank with the Owner of the Throne, obeyed there, and trusted.
- 22–254 ayat · 16% of the surahRead from ayah 22 →
And who received them
Your companion is not mad. He did see him, on the clear horizon. He does not grudge what he knows of the unseen. And it is not the word of an accursed devil.
- 26–294 ayat · 19% of the surahRead from ayah 26 →
So where are you going?
It is nothing but a reminder to all the worlds — to whoever among you wills to take a straight path. And you do not will, unless Allah wills, the Lord of the worlds.
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 48% of its ayat, and the rhyme turns 2 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
مَنْ سَرَّهُ أَنْ يَنْظُرَ إِلَى يَوْمِ الْقِيَامَةِ كَأَنَّهُ رَأْىُ عَيْنٍ
“Whoever would be glad to look at the Day of Resurrection as though seeing it with his own eyes, let him recite ‘When the sun is folded up’, ‘When the sky breaks apart’ and ‘When the sky is split open’.”مِن حَدِيثِ عَبْدِ اللهِ بْنِ عُمَرَ، قالَ: قالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ ﷺ: مَن أحَبَّ أنْ يَنْظُرَ إلى يَوْمِ القِيامَةِ فَلْيَقْرَأْ قَوْلَهُ تَعالى: ﴿إذا الشَّمْسُ كُوِّرَتْ“Hūd, al-Wāqiʿah, al-Mursalāt, ‘ʿAmma yatasāʾalūn’ and ‘Idhā l-shamsu kuwwirat’ have turned me grey.”The name it is known by
From its first ayah: when the sun is kuwwirat — wound up like a turban, its light gone. In the hadith it is called by its opening words, Idhā l-shamsu kuwwirat.
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
- 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.