Makkan, by agreement
The later years in Makkah
It is Makkan in the saying of all, as both Ibn al-Jawzī and al-Qurṭubī state. The traditional order places it eighty-third, among the last surahs before the Hijrah.
سُورَةُ الِانْشِقاقِ وَهِيَ مَكِّيَّةٌ كُلُّها بِإجْماعِهِمْسُورَةُ الِانْشِقَاقِ مَكِّيَّةٌ فِي قَوْلِ الْجَمِيعِ وَهِيَ خَمْسٌ وَعِشْرُونَ آيَةًThe same, in other works
- al-BaghawīMaʿālim al-tanzīlAhl al-Sunnah in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
سُورَةُ الِانْشِقَاقِ 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 الِانْشِقاقُ 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.
وهِيَ عِشْرُونَ وخَمْسُ آياتٍ مَكِّيَّةٍ
- Abū al-SuʿūdIrshād al-ʿaql al-salīmMāturīdī in creedḤanafī in fiqh→
Makkan.
مَكِّيَّةٌ وآيُها خَمْسٌ وعِشْرُونَ
Each line of English says what the Arabic beneath it says.
What was happening
No occasion is transmitted for it. It completes the group the Prophet ﷺ named together — al-Takwīr, al-Infiṭār and this — as the surahs that set the Day of Resurrection before the eyes.
Each of the three takes the same opening and draws a different lesson from it. This one draws obedience. The sky “listens to its Lord, as it must”; the earth throws out what is in it and “listens to its Lord, as it must.” Then the address turns: O human being, you are labouring towards your Lord, labouring hard, and you will meet Him.
The Quraysh who first heard it lived, as the surah says of the one given his book behind his back, “happy among his people”, sure that he would never be brought back. It ends by asking what is the matter with them: they do not believe, and when the Qurʾan is recited to them they do not prostrate. The Prophet ﷺ prostrated at that ayah, and Abū Hurayrah said he would go on doing so until he met him.
تصوير القيامة باستسلام الكون وخضوعه لربه في أمره، إلزامًا بالاستسلام، واستنكارًا للجحود.
To picture the Resurrection as the whole universe yielding and submitting to its Lord’s command — which obliges submission, and condemns refusal.
The surah’s aim, as al-Mukhtaṣar fī al-Tafsīr states it
- The Last Day
- Submission to Allah
- Meeting the Lord
- The two records
- Prostration
Its aims, as Ibn ʿĀshūr sets them out
ابتدئت بوصف أشراط الساعة وحلول يوم البعث واختلاف أحوال الخلق يومئذ بين أهل نعيم وأهل شقاء.
From its first ayah to its last
- 1–55 ayat · 15% of the surahRead from ayah 1 →
The sky and the earth obey
When the sky is split open, and listens to its Lord as it must; when the earth is stretched flat, and casts out what is in it and is emptied, and listens to its Lord as it must.
- 6–1510 ayat · 45% of the surahRead from ayah 6 →
The meeting, and the two books
O human being, you are toiling towards your Lord and will meet Him. The one given his record in his right hand will have an easy reckoning and go back to his people rejoicing. The one given his record behind his back will cry out for destruction and enter a blaze: he used to be glad among his people, and thought he would never return. Yes — his Lord was always watching him.
- 16–194 ayat · 12% of the surahRead from ayah 16 →
Stage after stage
I swear by the afterglow of sunset, by the night and what it gathers in, and by the moon when it is full: you will surely pass from stage to stage.
- 20–256 ayat · 28% of the surahRead from ayah 20 →
Why do they not prostrate?
What is wrong with them, that they do not believe, and when the Qurʾan is recited to them they do not prostrate? The disbelievers deny, and Allah knows best what they hold inside. Give them news of a painful punishment — except those who believe and do right: theirs is a reward that never fails.
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 24% of its ayat, and the rhyme turns 8 times. 3 of those turns come 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
Abū Rāfiʿ said: I prayed the night prayer behind Abū Hurayrah and he recited “When the sky is split open” and prostrated. I asked him about it, and he said: “I prostrated at it behind Abū al-Qāsim ﷺ, and I will not stop prostrating at it until I meet him.”The Prophet ﷺ said: “Whoever is called to account will be punished.” ʿĀʾishah said: “Does Allah not say, ‘He will be given an easy reckoning’?” He said: “That is only the presentation. But whoever is examined closely in the reckoning is ruined.”The name it is known by
From its first ayah: when the sky is split. In the hadith it is called by its opening words, Idhā l-samāʾu nshaqqat.
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.