Makkan, by agreement — the first to come down
The first revelation: the cave of Ḥirāʾ, in Ramaḍān, thirteen years before the Hijrah
It is Makkan without disagreement, and its first five ayat are the first of the Qurʾan to be revealed, as ʿĀʾishah relates in the two Ṣaḥīḥs. The rest of the surah came later, once the Prophet ﷺ had begun to pray openly at the Kaʿbah and Abū Jahl had set himself to stop him. So the surah that stands first in the order of revelation was itself completed in two parts.
وهي مَكِّيَّةٌ بِإجْماعِهِمْ وَهِيَ أوَّلُ ما نَزَلَ مِنَ القُرْآنِ. وقِيلَ: إنَّها نَزَلَتْ عَلَيْهِ في أوَّلِ الوَحْيِ خَمْسُ آياتٍ مِنها، ثُمَّ نَزَلَ باقِيها في أبِي جَهْلٍوَهِيَ مَكِّيَّةٌ بِإِجْمَاعٍ وَهِيَ أَوَّلُ مَا نَزَلَ مِنَ الْقُرْآنِ فِي قَوْلِ أَبِي مُوسَى وَعَائِشَةِ رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُمَا. وَهِيَ تِسْعَ عشرة آيةThe same, in other works
- al-BaghawīMaʿālim al-tanzīlAhl al-Sunnah in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
سُورَةُ الْعَلَقِ مَكِّيَّةٌ
- al-Suyūṭīal-Durr al-manthūrAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Ibn ʿAbbās: the first of the Qurʾan to come down, in Makkah, was “Recite in the name of your Lord who created.” Recorded by Ibn Mardawayh, through several chains.
أخْرَجَ ابْنُ مَرْدُويَهَ مِن طُرُقٍ عَنِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ قالَ: أوَّلُ ما نَزَلَ مِنَ القُرْآنِ بِمَكَّةَ ﴿اقْرَأْ بِاسْمِ رَبِّكَ الَّذِي خَلَقَ
A report he gathers; its chain is not graded here.
- al-ShawkānīFatḥ al-qadīr→
Makkan, by agreement; and it is the first of the Qurʾan to come down.
هي مَكِّيَّةٌ بِلا خِلافٍ، وهي أوَّلُ ما نَزَلَ مِنَ القُرْآنِ
- al-RāzīMafātīḥ al-ghaybAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
تِسْعَ عَشْرَةَ آيَةً مَكِّيَّةٌ
- Abū al-SuʿūdIrshād al-ʿaql al-salīmMāturīdī in creedḤanafī in fiqh→
Makkan.
سُورَةُ العَلَقِ مَكِّيَّةٌ وآيُها تِسْعَ عَشْرَةَ
Each line of English says what the Arabic beneath it says.
What was happening
ʿĀʾishah tells how it began. The first sign of revelation to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was true dreams: he would see nothing in his sleep that did not come about like the break of day. Then solitude was made dear to him, and he would withdraw to the cave of Ḥirāʾ and give himself to worship there for nights on end, taking provisions with him, before going back to Khadījah for more.
So it was until the truth came to him in the cave. The angel came and said, “Read.” He said, “I am not one who reads.” The angel took hold of him and pressed him until he could bear no more, then released him and said, “Read.” He gave the same answer, and was pressed a second time, and a third. Then the angel said: “Read, in the name of your Lord who created — created the human being from a clinging clot. Read, and your Lord is the Most Generous, who taught by the pen, taught the human being what he did not know.”
He went home with his heart pounding and said, “Cover me, cover me.” When the fear had left him he told Khadījah what had happened and said, “I feared for myself.” She said: “No, by Allah — Allah will never disgrace you. You keep the ties of kinship, you carry the weak, you give to the one who has nothing, you honour the guest, and you help those struck by misfortune.” Then she took him to her cousin Waraqah ibn Nawfal, an old man who had become a Christian and read the scriptures, and he said: “This is the Nāmūs that Allah sent down upon Mūsā.”
The second half of the surah is from a different day. The Prophet ﷺ was by then praying at the Kaʿbah in the sight of Quraysh, and Abū Jahl swore that if he saw Muḥammad put his face to the ground there he would tread on his neck. He came towards him as he prayed — and they saw him fall back, shielding himself with his hands. “Between me and him,” he said, “was a trench of fire, and terror, and wings.”
What came down about what
The beginning of revelation
ʿĀʾishah said: the first of revelation to come to the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was the true dream in sleep; he saw no dream but it came like the breaking of the dawn. Then solitude was made dear to him. He would withdraw to the cave of Ḥirāʾ and give himself to worship there for a number of nights before going back to his family, taking provision for it; then he would return to Khadījah and take provision for the like again — until the truth came to him while he was in the cave of Ḥirāʾ.
The angel came to him and said: “Read.” He said: “I am not one who reads.” “He took hold of me and pressed me until I could bear no more. Then he released me and said: Read. I said: I am not one who reads. He took hold of me and pressed me a second time until I could bear no more, then released me and said: Read. I said: I am not one who reads. He took hold of me and pressed me a third time, then released me and said: Read, in the name of your Lord who created — created man from a clinging clot. Read, and your Lord is the Most Generous.”
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ went back with it, his heart trembling, and came in to Khadījah bint Khuwaylid: “Wrap me up, wrap me up.” They wrapped him until the fear had left him. He told Khadījah what had happened, and said: “I feared for myself.” She said: “Never. By Allah, Allah will never disgrace you. You keep the ties of kinship, you bear the burden of the weak, you give to the one who has nothing, you honour the guest, and you help in the hardships that fall on those in the right.”
She took him to her cousin Waraqah ibn Nawfal, who had become a Christian in the days of ignorance and used to write the Hebrew script, copying from the Gospel in Hebrew what Allah willed him to copy. He was a very old man and had gone blind. “Cousin,” she said, “listen to your brother’s son.” The Messenger of Allah ﷺ told him what he had seen, and Waraqah said: “This is the Nāmūs that Allah sent down upon Mūsā. Would that I were young in that day; would that I were alive when your people drive you out.” — “Will they drive me out?” — “Yes. No man has ever brought the like of what you have brought without being treated as an enemy. If your day finds me alive, I shall help you with all my strength.” It was not long before Waraqah died; and the revelation paused.
ʿĀʾishah: al-Bukhārī (3) and Muslim (160).
Ṣaḥīḥ
عَنْ عَائِشَةَ قَالَتْ: أَوَّلُ مَا بُدِئَ بِهِ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ ﷺ مِنَ الْوَحْيِ الرُّؤْيَا الصَّادِقَةُ فِي النَّوْمِ، فَكَانَ لَا يَرَى رُؤْيَا إِلَّا جَاءَتْ مِثْلَ فَلَق الصُّبْحِAbū Jahl at the Kaʿbah
Abū Jahl said: “Does Muḥammad put his face in the dust among you? By al-Lāt and al-ʿUzzā, if I see him doing that I will tread on his neck.” He came to do it while the Prophet ﷺ was praying, and suddenly turned on his heels. The Prophet ﷺ said: “Had he come near me, the angels would have torn him limb from limb.” And Allah sent down: “No! Man transgresses…” to the end of the surah.
Abū Hurayrah: Muslim (2797). Ibn ʿAbbās reports the same threat in al-Bukhārī (4958).
Ṣaḥīḥ
بيان كمال الإنسان بالعلم والوحي الباعث على تعلق العبد بربه وخضوعه له، ونقصه بمخالفة ذلك.
To show that the human being is made complete by knowledge and revelation, which bind the servant to his Lord in humility — and is diminished by going against them.
The surah’s aim, as al-Mukhtaṣar fī al-Tafsīr states it
- Revelation
- Knowledge
- Creation
- Arrogance
- Prostration
Its aims, as Ibn ʿĀshūr sets them out
تلقين محمد صلى الله عليه وسلم الكلام القرآني وتلاوته إذ كان لا يعرف التلاوة من قبل.
والإيماء إلى أن علمه بذلك ميسر لأن الله الذي ألهم البشر العلم بالكتابة قادر على تعليم من يشاء ابتداء.
وإيماء إلى أن أمته ستصير إلى معرفة القراءة والكتابة والعلم.
وتوجيهه إلى النظر في خلق الله الموجودات وخاصة خلقه الإنسان خلقا عجيبا مستخرجا من علقة فذلك مبدأ النظر.
From its first ayah to its last
- 1–55 ayat · 28% of the surahRead from ayah 1 →
Read
The first revelation. Read in the name of your Lord who created, who made the human being from a clinging clot; read, and your Lord is the Most Generous, who taught by the pen what man did not know. The first thing said to the last Prophet ﷺ is a command to read, and the first favours named are creation and teaching.
- 6–83 ayat · 15% of the surahRead from ayah 6 →
What goes wrong
No — man oversteps all bounds, once he sees himself as needing no one. The cure is one sentence: to your Lord is the return.
- 9–146 ayat · 32% of the surahRead from ayah 9 →
The one who forbids a servant from praying
Have you seen him — the one who forbids a servant when he prays? What if that servant is upon guidance, or enjoins piety? What if this one denies and turns away? Does he not know that Allah sees?
- 15–195 ayat · 25% of the surahRead from ayah 15 →
The threat, and the last command
If he does not stop, We will seize him by the forelock — a lying, sinful forelock. Let him call his council; We will call the guards of Hell. No: do not obey him. Prostrate, and draw near. It is an ayah of prostration, and the Prophet ﷺ prostrated at 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 47% of its ayat, and the rhyme turns 4 times. 2 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
“We prostrated with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ in ‘When the sky is split open’ and ‘Read, in the name of your Lord’.”أَقْرَبُ مَا يَكُونُ الْعَبْدُ مِنْ رَبِّهِ وَهُوَ سَاجِدٌ
“The nearest a servant comes to his Lord is when he is prostrating, so make much supplication then.” The surah’s last words are: prostrate, and draw near.The names it is known by
Its first word, and the name Ibn Kathīr heads it with. The Companions called it by its opening: “We prostrated with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ in ‘Idhā l-samāʾu nshaqqat’ and ‘Iqraʾ bi-smi rabbik’” (Muslim 578).
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.