Madinan, by the majority — and differed over
Madinah, on the majority’s view; Makkah on the other
Ibn al-Jawzī gives two views. That it is Madinan is the saying of Ibn ʿAbbās, Qatādah and Muqātil, and he attributes it to the majority; it is how the muṣḥaf heads the surah. That it is Makkan is the saying of Ibn Masʿūd, Jābir and ʿAṭāʾ — and its manner is that of the Makkan surahs: short, rhymed, and wholly about the Last Day. Ibn Kathīr gives it as Makkan.
وَفِيها قَوْلانِ: أحَدُهُما: أنَّها مَدَنِيَّةٌ، قالَهُ ابْنُ عَبّاسٍ، وقَتادَةُ، ومُقاتِلٌ، والجُمْهُورُ. والثّانِي: مَكِّيَّةٌ، قالَهُ ابْنُ مَسْعُودٍ، وجابِرٌ، وعَطاءٌمَدَنِيَّةٌ فِي قَوْلِ ابْنِ عَبَّاسٍ وَقَتَادَةَ. وَمَكِّيَّةٌ فِي قَوْلِ ابْنِ مَسْعُودٍ وَعَطَاءٍ وَجَابِرٍThe same, in other works
- al-BaghawīMaʿālim al-tanzīlAhl al-Sunnah in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
سُورَةُ الزَّلْزَلَةِ 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 ﴿إذا زُلْزِلَتِ﴾ بِالمَدِينَةِ
A report he gathers; its chain is not graded here.
- al-ShawkānīFatḥ al-qadīr→
Madinan in the saying of Ibn ʿAbbās and Qatādah; Makkan in the saying of Ibn Masʿūd, ʿAṭāʾ and Jābir.
هي مَدَنِيَّةٌ في قَوْلِ ابْنِ عَبّاسٍ، وقَتادَةَ، ومَكِّيَّةٌ في قَوْلِ ابْنِ مَسْعُودٍ، وعَطاءٍ، وجابِرٍ
- al-RāzīMafātīḥ al-ghaybAshʿarī in creedShāfiʿī in fiqh→
Makkan.
وهِيَ ثَمانِ آياتٍ مَكِّيَّةٌ
- 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
No occasion is transmitted for the surah as a whole. Its hearers were people who did not believe that anything they did would be remembered: a deed was done, the day passed, and the earth closed over it.
The surah takes that earth and makes it the witness. On that day it will be shaken with its final shaking and throw out its burdens — its dead, and all it hid — and the human being will say, “What is the matter with it?” Then it will tell its news, because its Lord has inspired it to.
Its closing pair of ayat changed how the Companions thought about small things. The Prophet ﷺ was asked about the reward for keeping donkeys, and said that nothing had been revealed to him about them except “this single, all-embracing ayah” — and recited: whoever does an atom’s weight of good will see it, and whoever does an atom’s weight of evil will see it.
قرع القلوب الغافلة لليقين بالحساب والإحصاء الدقيق.
To shake heedless hearts into certainty of the Reckoning, and of how exact its count is.
The surah’s aim, as al-Mukhtaṣar fī al-Tafsīr states it
- The Last Day
- The earth as witness
- The weighing of deeds
Its aims, as Ibn ʿĀshūr sets them out
إثبات البعث وذكر أشراطه وما يعتري الناس عند حدوثها من الفزع.
وحضور الناس للحشر وجزائهم على أعمالهم من خير أو شر وهو تحريض على فعل الخير واجتناب الشر.
From its first ayah to its last
- 1–33 ayat · 31% of the surahRead from ayah 1 →
The shaking
When the earth is shaken with its shaking, and brings out its burdens, and man says: what is wrong with it?
- 4–52 ayat · 19% of the surahRead from ayah 4 →
The witness
On that day it will report its news — because your Lord has inspired it.
- 6–83 ayat · 50% of the surahRead from ayah 6 →
The showing of deeds
On that day people will come forward in scattered groups to be shown their deeds. Whoever has done an atom’s weight of good will see it; whoever has done an atom’s weight of evil will see 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 63% 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
مَا أَنْزَلَ اللَّهُ عَلَيَّ فِيهَا إِلاَّ هَذِهِ الآيَةَ الْفَاذَّةَ الْجَامِعَةَ
The Prophet ﷺ was asked about donkeys, and said: “Nothing has been sent down to me concerning them except this single, all-embracing ayah: ‘Whoever does an atom’s weight of good will see it, and whoever does an atom’s weight of evil will see it.’”The name it is known by
After the shaking it opens with. It is also called al-Zilzāl, and in the hadith by its first words, Idhā zulzilat.
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.