Makkan, by agreement
The first years in Makkah, when the weakest believers were being tortured and Abū Bakr was buying their freedom
Ibn al-Jawzī records agreement that all of it is Makkan. Al-Qurṭubī gives it as Makkan and mentions, without naming who, a saying that it is Madinan. The traditional order places it ninth, and the event its closing ayat are tied to — Abū Bakr buying the freedom of tortured slaves — belongs to the first years of the call.
سُورَةُ اللَّيْلِ وَهِيَ مَكِّيَّةٌ كُلُّها بِإجْماعِهِمْمَكِّيَّةٌ. وَقِيلَ: مَدَنِيَّةٌ. وَهِيَ إِحْدَى وَعِشْرُونَ آيَةً بإجماعThe same, in other works
- al-BaghawīMaʿālim al-tanzīlAhl al-Sunnah in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
سُورَةُ اللَّيْلِ 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 ﴿واللَّيْلِ إذا يَغْشى﴾ بِمَكَّةَ
A report he gathers; its chain is not graded here.
- al-ShawkānīFatḥ al-qadīr→
Makkan, in the saying of the majority; a saying that it is Madinan is also mentioned.
هي مَكِّيَّةٌ عِنْدَ الجُمْهُورِ، وقِيلَ مَدَنِيَّةٌ
- al-RāzīMafātīḥ al-ghaybAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
إحْدى وعِشْرُونَ آيَةً مَكِّيَّةً
- Abū al-SuʿūdIrshād al-ʿaql al-salīmMāturīdī in creedḤanafī in fiqh→
Makkan.
مَكِّيَّةٌ وآيُها إحْدى وعِشْرُونَ
Each line of English says what the Arabic beneath it says.
What was happening
In the first years in Makkah the Muslims with no clan to defend them were at the mercy of their owners. Bilāl was dragged out to the midday sand by Umayyah ibn Khalaf with a boulder set on his chest, and answered every demand with one word: Aḥad, Aḥad — One, One.
Abū Bakr was a merchant, and he began to spend his fortune buying such people and setting them free: Bilāl, ʿĀmir ibn Fuhayrah, Zinnīrah, al-Nahdiyyah and her daughter, and others. His father, Abū Quḥāfah, who had not yet accepted Islam, is reported to have said to him: I see you freeing weak slaves — why not free strong men who could protect you?◇ He answered that he was only seeking what is with Allah.
The last five ayat of the surah describe a man who gives his wealth to purify himself, who owes no one a favour that he is repaying, and who seeks nothing but the Face of his Lord, the Most High. Ibn Kathīr writes that more than one of the commentators said these ayat came down about Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq, and that some reported the agreement of the commentators on it; and he adds that the wording is general, and Abū Bakr is simply the first of the community to whom it applies.◇
- Related, not gradedRelated by the commentators without a graded chain; not established as authentic.
What came down about what
Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq
More than one of the commentators has said that these ayat came down about Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq — may Allah be pleased with him — so much so that some of them reported agreement on it. There is no doubt that he is included in them, and is the foremost of the community in their general meaning.
Ibn Kathīr, on these ayat.
Related, not gradedRelated by the commentators without a graded chain; not established as authentic.
وَقَدْ ذَكَرَ غَيْرُ وَاحِدٍ مِنَ الْمُفَسِّرِينَ أَنَّ هَذِهِ الْآيَاتِ نَزَلَتْ فِي أَبِي بَكْرٍ الصِّدِّيقِ، رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُ، حَتَّى إِنَّ بَعْضَهُمْ حَكَى الْإِجْمَاعَ مِنَ الْمُفَسِّرِينَ عَلَى ذَلِكَ. وَلَا شَكَّ أَنَّهُ دَاخِلٌ فِيهَا، وَأَوْلَى الْأُمَّةِ بِعُمُومِهَابيان الاختلاف بين الآيات والأنفس وأعمالها، إظهارًا للتفاضل بين المؤمنين والكافرين.
To show the difference between souls and their deeds — and so the difference in rank between believers and disbelievers.
The surah’s aim, as al-Mukhtaṣar fī al-Tafsīr states it
- Giving and withholding
- Ease and hardship
- Guidance belongs to Allah
- Sincerity
- Abū Bakr
Its aims, as Ibn ʿĀshūr sets them out
احتوت على بيان شرف المؤمنين وفضائل أعمالهم ومذمة المشركين ومساويهم وجزاء كل.
وأن الله يهدي الناس إلى الخير فهو يجزي المهتدين بخير الحياتين والضالين بعكس ذلك.
وأنه أرسل رسوله صلى الله عليه وسلم للتذكير بالله وما عنده فينتفع من يخشى فيفلح ويصدف عن الذكرى من كان شقيا فيكون جزاؤه النار الكبرى وأولئك هم الذين صدهم عن التذكر إيثار حب ما هم فيه في هذه الحياة.
وأدمج في ذلك الإشارة إلى دلائل قدرة الله تعالى وبديع صنعه.
From its first ayah to its last
- 1–44 ayat · 18% of the surahRead from ayah 1 →
The oath
By the night as it covers, by the day as it shines out, and by the One who created the male and the female: your striving is of many kinds.
- 5–117 ayat · 31% of the surahRead from ayah 5 →
Two ways of living
As for the one who gives, and is mindful of Allah, and affirms the best reward — We shall ease his way to ease. As for the one who is miserly, and thinks himself in need of nothing, and denies the best reward — We shall ease his way to hardship; and his wealth will not help him when he falls.
- 12–165 ayat · 24% of the surahRead from ayah 12 →
The warning
Guidance is upon Us, and to Us belong the last life and the first. So I have warned you of a fire that blazes, which none will enter but the most wretched: he who denied and turned away.
- 17–215 ayat · 27% of the surahRead from ayah 17 →
The most mindful
And the most mindful will be kept far from it — he who gives his wealth to purify himself, with no favour owed to anyone to be repaid, seeking only the Face of his Lord, the Most High. And he will be well pleased.
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 21 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
اعْمَلُوا فَكُلٌّ مُيَسَّرٌ لِمَا خُلِقَ لَهُ
At a funeral in Baqīʿ the Prophet ﷺ said: “There is not one of you whose place in Paradise or in the Fire has not been written.” They said: “Messenger of Allah, shall we not then rely on what is written, and leave off working?” He said: “Work, for everyone is eased towards what he was created for,” and recited: “As for the one who gives, and is mindful, and affirms the best reward — We shall ease his way to ease.”The name it is known by
After the first thing it swears by: the night as it covers. The Prophet ﷺ named it by its opening, Wa-l-layli idhā yaghshā (al-Bukhārī 705).
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.