Madinan, by the majority
Madinah, where the message was now being put to Jews and Christians as well as to the Arabs
Ibn al-Jawzī gives the view that it is Madinan as that of the majority, and al-Qurṭubī attributes it to Ibn ʿAbbās and most of the scholars. That it is Makkan is reported by Abū Ṣāliḥ from Ibn ʿAbbās and was the choice of Yaḥyā ibn Sallām. Its subject favours Madinah: it addresses the People of the Book first and the idolaters second, and speaks of prayer and zakāh together as the upright religion.
وَفِيها قَوْلانِ أحَدُهُما: مَدَنِيَّةٌ، قالَهُ الجُمْهُورُ. والثّانِي: مَكِّيَّةٌ، قالَهُ أبُو صالِحٍ عَنِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ، واخْتارَهُ يَحْيى بْنُ سَلامٍوَهِيَ مَكِّيَّةٌ فِي قَوْلِ يَحْيَى بْنُ سَلَّامٍ. وَمَدَنِيَّةٌ، فِي قَوْلِ ابْنِ عَبَّاسٍ وَالْجُمْهُورِThe same, in other works
- al-BaghawīMaʿālim al-tanzīlAhl al-Sunnah in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
سُورَةُ الْبَيِّنَةِ مَكِّيَّةٌ
- al-Suyūṭīal-Durr al-manthūrAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Ibn ʿAbbās: it came down in Madinah. Recorded by Ibn Mardawayh.
أخْرَجَ ابْنُ مَرْدُويَهَ عَنِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ قالَ: نَزَلَتْ سُورَةُ ﴿لَمْ يَكُنِ﴾ بِالمَدِينَةِ
A report he gathers; its chain is not graded here.
- al-ShawkānīFatḥ al-qadīr→
Madinan, in the saying of the majority; a saying that it is Makkan is also mentioned.
هي مَدَنِيَّةٌ في قَوْلِ الجُمْهُورِ، وقِيلَ مَكِّيَّةٌ
- al-RāzīMafātīḥ al-ghaybAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Madinan.
وهِيَ ثَمانِ آياتٍ مَدَنِيَّةٌ
- Abū al-SuʿūdIrshād al-ʿaql al-salīmMāturīdī in creedḤanafī in fiqh→
Madinan, with a difference over it.
مَدَنِيَّةٌ مُخْتَلَفٌ فِيها، وآيُها ثَمانٍ
Each line of English says what the Arabic beneath it says.
What was happening
In Makkah the argument had been with people who had no scripture. In Madinah the Prophet ﷺ lived beside people who did: the Jewish tribes of the oasis, who had been telling their Arab neighbours for years that a prophet was about to appear, and Christians who came to him from Najrān and elsewhere.
This surah speaks to that meeting. Both groups, it says, would not have been parted from their state until a clear proof reached them — and the proof is described exactly: a Messenger from Allah, reciting purified pages in which are upright writings. And yet those who had been given scripture did not split among themselves until after it had come. What they were being asked for was nothing new. It was what they had been commanded from the start: to worship Allah, making the religion His alone, to keep up the prayer and to give the zakāh.
ذكر منزلة رسالة الرسول ﷺ، ووضوحها وكمالها.
To set out the standing of the Messenger’s ﷺ message — its clarity and its completeness.
The surah’s aim, as al-Mukhtaṣar fī al-Tafsīr states it
- The Messenger ﷺ
- The People of the Book
- Sincerity in worship
- The best and worst of creation
Its aims, as Ibn ʿĀshūr sets them out
توبيخ المشركين وأهل الكتاب على تكذيبهم بالقرآن والرسول صلى الله عليه وسلم.
والتعجيب من تناقض حالهم إذ هم ينتظرون أن تأتيهم البينة فلما أتتهم البينة كفروا بها.
وتكذيبهم في ادعائهم أن الله أوجب عليهم التمسك بالأديان التي هم عليها.
ووعيدهم بعذاب الآخرة.
والتسجيل عليهم بأنهم شر البرية.
والثناء على الذين آمنوا وعملوا الصالحات.
From its first ayah to its last
- 1–33 ayat · 22% of the surahRead from ayah 1 →
The proof
Those who disbelieved among the People of the Book and the idolaters were not going to leave off until the clear proof came to them: a Messenger from Allah, reciting pages made pure, containing writings that are upright.
- 4–52 ayat · 29% of the surahRead from ayah 4 →
What they did, and what they were asked
Those given the scripture did not divide until after the proof had come to them. Yet they were commanded only this: to worship Allah, sincere to Him in religion, inclining to the truth, to establish the prayer and to give the zakāh — and that is the religion of uprightness (98:5).
- 6–83 ayat · 49% of the surahRead from ayah 6 →
Two ends
Those who disbelieve, of the People of the Book and the idolaters, are in the fire of Hell for ever: they are the worst of creatures. Those who believe and do right are the best of creatures: their reward with their Lord is gardens of lasting stay — Allah pleased with them and they with Him. That is for whoever fears his Lord.
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 said to Ubayy ibn Kaʿb: “Allah has commanded me to recite to you ‘Lam yakuni lladhīna kafarū’.” Ubayy said: “And did He name me?” He said: “Yes.” And Ubayy wept.The names it is known by
After the word that ends its first ayah: they were not going to leave what they were upon until the clear proof came to them.
Its opening words, and the name it has in the hadith: the Prophet ﷺ told Ubayy ibn Kaʿb, “Allah has commanded me to recite to you ‘Lam yakuni lladhīna kafarū’” (al-Bukhārī 4959). Al-Qurṭubī heads it with this name.
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.