Makkan, by agreement
The first years in Makkah, after a pause in the revelation
Ibn al-Jawzī and al-Qurṭubī both record agreement that it is Makkan, and the commentators are also agreed on its occasion: it came down after the revelation had been withheld for a time. They differ only over why the pause happened and how long it lasted — reports range from a few nights to forty days.
وَهِيَ مَكِّيَّةٌ كُلُّها بِإجْماعِهِمْ اتَّفَقَ المُفَسِّرُونَ: عَلى أنَّ هَذِهِ [السُّورَةَ] نَزَلَتْ بَعْدَ انْقِطاعِ الوَحْيِ مُدَّةًمَكِّيَّةٌ بِاتِّفَاقٍ. وَهِيَ إِحْدَى عَشْرَةَ آيَةًThe same, in other works
- al-BaghawīMaʿālim al-tanzīlAhl al-Sunnah in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
سُورَةُ الضُّحَى 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 الضُّحى 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 عَشْرَةَ آيَةً، مَكِّيَّةٌ
- Abū al-SuʿūdIrshād al-ʿaql al-salīmMāturīdī in creedḤanafī in fiqh→
Makkan.
مَكِّيَّةٌ وآيُها إحْدى عَشْرَةَ
Each line of English says what the Arabic beneath it says.
What was happening
The first revelations had come, and with them a way of living: he ﷺ would stand in prayer through part of the night, and Jibrīl would come to him. Then, for a stretch of nights, Jibrīl did not come.
It did not go unnoticed. Makkah was a small town and his enemies were watching for exactly this. Jundub ibn Sufyān tells it: the Messenger of Allah ﷺ fell ill and did not rise for two or three nights, and a woman came to him and said, “Muḥammad, I think your devil has left you; I have not seen him near you for two or three nights.” In another wording the idolaters said, “Muḥammad has been bidden farewell.”
The answer came by an oath — by the brightness of the morning, and by the night when it grows still — as if to say that the pause was to revelation what the night is to the day: not an ending, and not a sign of displeasure. Then the denial, in so many words: your Lord has not taken leave of you, and He does not hate you.
What came down about what
“I think your devil has left you”
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ was unwell and did not stand in prayer for two or three nights. A woman came and said: “Muḥammad, I hope your devil has left you; I have not seen him come near you for two or three nights.” So Allah sent down: “By the morning brightness, and by the night when it is still: your Lord has not forsaken you, nor does He hate you.”
Jundub ibn Sufyān al-Bajalī: al-Bukhārī (4950) and Muslim (1797).
Ṣaḥīḥ
ذكر رعاية الله لنبيه ﷺ والامتنان عليه بنعمة الوحي ودوامها له، تأنيسًا له، وتذكيرًا للمؤمنين بالشكر.
To recall Allah’s care for His Prophet ﷺ and His favour to him in the gift of revelation and its continuing — a comfort to him, and a reminder to the believers to give thanks.
The surah’s aim, as al-Mukhtaṣar fī al-Tafsīr states it
- Consolation
- Allah’s care
- Gratitude
- The orphan and the poor
Its aims, as Ibn ʿĀshūr sets them out
إبطال قول المشركين إذ زعموا أن ما يأتي من الوحي للنبيء صلى الله عليه وسلم قد انقطع عنه.
وزاده بشارة بأن الآخرة خير له من الأولى على معنيين في الآخرة والأولى. وأنه سيعطيه ربه ما فيه رضاه. وذلك يغيظ المشركين.
ثم ذكره الله بما حفه به من ألطافه وعنايته في صباه وفي فتوته وفي وقت اكتهاله وأمره بالشكر على تلك النعم بما يناسبها من نفع لعبيده وثناء على الله بما هو أهله.
From its first ayah to its last
- 1–33 ayat · 23% of the surahRead from ayah 1 →
The oath, and the denial
By the morning brightness and by the night when it settles: your Lord has not left you, and He is not displeased with you. The day and the night are sworn by together because both are His, and one follows the other.
- 4–52 ayat · 23% of the surahRead from ayah 4 →
The promise
What is to come is better for you than what has been, and your Lord will give to you until you are content (93:5). It is said of the next life first of all, and it held in this one too: every later stage of his mission was better than the one before it.
- 6–83 ayat · 25% of the surahRead from ayah 6 →
Three reminders
Did He not find you an orphan, and give you shelter? Find you unaware of the Book and the faith, and guide you? Find you in need, and make you self-sufficient? The proof that He will not abandon him is that He never has.
- 9–113 ayat · 30% of the surahRead from ayah 9 →
Three duties
Each answers one of the favours. So the orphan — do not oppress him. The one who asks — do not turn him away. And the favour of your Lord — speak of it.
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 73% 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
When Muʿādh led his people in the night prayer and made it long, the Prophet ﷺ said to him: “Recite ‘By the sun and its brightness’, ‘By the morning brightness’, ‘By the night when it covers’ and ‘Glorify the name of your Lord, the Most High’.”The name it is known by
After the oath it opens with: the forenoon, when the sun has risen high and the day is at its clearest. It is the name the Prophet ﷺ used when he told Muʿādh which surahs to lead the people with (Muslim 465).
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.