Makkan, by the majority
The early years in Makkah
Most hold it to be Makkan — al-Ḥasan and ʿAṭāʾ among them, and Ibn al-Jawzī gives this as the view of the majority. That it is Madinan is reported from Ibn ʿAbbās and Qatādah. Its own third oath weighs for the first view: “by this secure city” is said of a place one is standing in, and the secure city is Makkah.
وَفِيها قَوْلانِ: أحَدُهُما: مَكِّيَّةٌ، قالَهُ الجُمْهُورُ، مِنهُمُ الحَسَنُ، وعَطاءٌ. والثّانِي: أنَّها مَدَنِيَّةٌ، حَكاهُ الماوَرْدِيُّ عَنِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ، وقَتادَةُمَكِّيَّةٌ فِي قَوْلِ الْأَكْثَرِ. وَقَالَ ابْنُ عَبَّاسٍ وَقَتَادَةُ: هِيَ مَدَنِيَّةٌ وَهِيَ ثَمَانِي آيَاتٍThe same, in other works
- al-BaghawīMaʿālim al-tanzīlAhl al-Sunnah in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
سُورَةُ التِّينِ 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: أُنْزِلَتْ سُورَةُ ﴿والتِّينِ﴾ بِمَكَّةَ
A report he gathers; its chain is not graded here.
- al-ShawkānīFatḥ al-qadīr→
Makkan, in the saying of the majority; al-Qurṭubī relates from Ibn ʿAbbās that it is Madinan.
هي مَكِّيَّةٌ في قَوْلِ الجُمْهُورِ، ورَوى القُرْطُبِيُّ عَنِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ أنَّها مَدَنِيَّةٌ
- al-RāzīMafātīḥ al-ghaybAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
وهِيَ ثَمانِ آياتٍ مَكِّيَّةٌ
- Abū al-SuʿūdIrshād al-ʿaql al-salīmMāturīdī in creedḤanafī in fiqh→
Makkan; Madinan is also said.
مَكِّيَّةٌ وقِيلَ مَدَنِيَّةٌ وآيُها ثَمانٍ
Each line of English says what the Arabic beneath it says.
What was happening
No occasion is reported for it. It belongs with the short surahs of the first Makkan years, whose argument is always the same and always brief: you were made, you will be brought back, and you will be judged.
What is particular to it is where it stands to say so. The fig and the olive were taken by many of the early commentators as the land of Shām, where ʿĪsā was sent; Mount Sinai is where Allah spoke to Mūsā; and the secure city is Makkah, where the last revelation was at that moment coming down. Ibn Kathīr gives this reading from some of the leading scholars: three places, in each of which Allah sent a messenger of the greatest resolve. Others, Ibn ʿAbbās among them, took the fig and the olive simply as the fruits. Either way the oath is by what Allah has honoured.
ذكر قيمة الإنسان وشرفه بدينه، وسفوله وهوانه بتخليه عنه، لذا أقسم بأماكن نزول الوحي.
To set out man’s worth and honour in his religion, and his lowness and disgrace in abandoning it — which is why it swears by the places where revelation came down.
The surah’s aim, as al-Mukhtaṣar fī al-Tafsīr states it
- The honour of the human being
- Faith and deeds
- Recompense
- Allah’s justice
Its aims, as Ibn ʿĀshūr sets them out
احتوت هذه السورة على التنبيه بأن الله خلق الإنسان على الفطرة المستقيمة ليعلموا أن الإسلام هو الفطرة كما قال في الآية الأخرى: فأقم وجهك للدين حنيفا فطرت الله التي فطر الناس عليها [الروم: 30] وأن ما يخالف أصوله بالأصالة أو بالتحريف فساد وضلال، ومتبعي ما يخالف الإسلام أهل ضلالة.
والتعريض بالوعيد للمكذبين بالإسلام.
From its first ayah to its last
- 1–33 ayat · 21% of the surahRead from ayah 1 →
Four oaths
By the fig and the olive, by Mount Sinai, and by this city made secure.
- 4–63 ayat · 56% of the surahRead from ayah 4 →
What they are sworn to
We created the human being in the finest form; then We brought him down to the lowest of the low — except those who believe and do righteous deeds, whose reward is never cut off. Read of this life, it is the decline of old age; read of the next, it is the Fire. The exception is the same in both.
- 7–82 ayat · 24% of the surahRead from ayah 7 →
The question
What, then, can make you deny the Recompense after this? Is Allah not the most just of judges?
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 8 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
The Prophet ﷺ was on a journey and recited “By the fig and the olive” in one of the two units of the night prayer. “I never heard anyone with a more beautiful voice, or a more beautiful recitation, than his.”The name it is known by
After the first thing it swears by. Al-Barāʾ ibn ʿĀzib refers to it by its opening words, wa-l-tīni wa-l-zaytūn, when he describes the Prophet ﷺ reciting it (al-Bukhārī 767).
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.