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Sūrah al-Nabaʾ: The Great News

Part A: The Sūrah

1. Where and When It Was Revealed

Revealed in the heart of Makkah, Sūrah Al-Nabaʾ speaks to those who doubt the great news of resurrection and the final judgment. Yet, it does not linger in the hollow echoes of mere debate. Instead, it gently turns the skeptic's gaze back to the breathing world they already walk. The firm earth beneath their feet, the quiet mystery of their own making, the heavy descent of sleep, the breaking of daylight, and the falling rain, all these are offered as silent witnesses, urging them to rethink what they have so easily cast aside.  The discord of competing voices fades, replaced by a profound invitation: the sūrah asks those who listen simply to look, to reflect, and to awaken to the inevitable truth that blossoms from what they see.[1]

That its roots lie in Makkah is a truth far firmer than any attempt to bind it to a precise hour. Tales linking its opening to the people's first, restless stirrings when the Prophet ﷺ began his call hint at an early dawn. Yet, an inherited memory of how men reacted is not a date carved in stone. The distinct stories of its arrival—and the weighing of their strength—we shall gather and hold, to unfold them when we sit with the first five verses.[2]

2. Its Place in the Order of Revelation

Ibn ʿĀshūr places al-Nabaʾ eightieth in the sequence attributed to Jābir ibn Zayd, after al-Maʿārij and before al-Nāziʿāt. That sequence should be identified as an attributed chronology, not treated as an undisputed historical timetable. Al-Suyūṭī transmits a Jābir sequence with those same neighbouring sūrahs, but expressly finds the presentation unusual and the order open to question. He also explains that al-Jaʿbarī based his poem about revelation order on this account. The poem repeats the account; it does not independently confirm it.[1]

There are also attempts to date the sūrah from its subject and manner of address. Mawdūdī sees its close resemblance to the sūrahs from al-Qiyāmah to al-Nāziʿāt as evidence of a very early Makkan setting. By contrast, the modern synthesis Bayān al-Naẓm places it late in the Makkan period. These are not two authenticated reports fixing competing dates. The first is a literary and thematic inference; the second is a later placement assessment. The appropriate conclusion is modest: the sūrah is Makkan, while its precise position within that period remains uncertain.[2]

3. Its Verse Count

This commentary follows the forty-verse numbering. The tafsīrs also preserve a count of forty-one. Al-Biqāʿī identifies the additional division as the words concerning a near punishment within what is numbered verse 40 here. The difference is simply where a verse ends.[1]

Al-Dānī, the specialist in Qurʾānic verse-counting, assigns forty-one verses to the Basran tradition and forty to the others. The additional Basran division falls after عَذَابًا قَرِيبًا, “a near punishment.” Some tafsīrs give different regional assignments; al-Dānī’s specialist account supplies the distinction followed here.[2]

4. Its Names

The familiar name, al-Nabaʾ, means “the news” and comes from verse 2. The opening identifies it as news of immense importance. In the explanation developed below, resurrection and judgment provide the leading contextual sense, while the commentary will examine the other explanations rather than treating the title itself as proof that the interpretive question is settled.

The sūrah is also called ʿAmma yatasaʾalūn, from its opening words, or more briefly ʿAmma. Al-Tasāʾul names the questioning with which it begins. Another recorded title, al-Muʿṣirāt, comes from verse 14 in the passage about rain and the life it brings. Ibn ʿĀshūr records these names and distinguishes the full opening title from its shortened form. Al-Suyūṭī's four-name list does not count that full form separately.[1]

5. Connection with al-Mursalāt

The question continues after the closing challenge

Al-Mursalāt issues relentless warnings to those who deny, ending with a piercing question: what message will they believe after this (77:50)? Al-Nabaʾ then immediately opens with a people still murmuring over the great news. The bond between them runs deeper than mere proximity. After all the evidence has been laid out, the questioning stubbornly lingers, and this new beginning steps directly into the heart of their denial.

Al-Biqāʿī traces this thread by pointing to the sheer force of the Qurʾān's proof. Its undeniable eloquence, its flawless order, its unveiling of the unseen, and its deep wisdom all bear witness to its source. To reject a message woven with such signs is not a matter of needing more proof. The renewed warning in Al-Nabaʾ confronts a heart that turns away even while standing in the full light of reason.[1]

The final mention of a “message” opens yet another door. Some voices, like Abū Ḥafṣ al-Nasafī, hear “the great news” as the Qurʾān itself, seeing a seamless thread from the close of one sūrah to the start of the next. Al-Ālūsī notes this harmony but leans toward the resurrection, a meaning that better anchors the worldly signs that follow. Yet even here, the bond holds fast: the Qurʾān delivers its closing challenge, and the people respond by disputing the very resurrection it foretells. The bridge between the two stands firm, requiring no forced symmetry of words.[2]

Where the Warning Leads

Abū Jaʿfar ibn al-Zubayr al-Gharnāṭī draws a steady line from the relentless warnings of al-Mursalāt to the echoing alarms of al-Nabaʾ. Those who deny will soon meet the bitter end of their rejection. Yet his explanation does not stop at matching words of dread. He follows the current of the sūrah forward: the signs of creation are not an empty display. Their quiet rhythm asks the mind to reflect, while the turning of seasons and the waking of the dead earth make the promise of a renewed life clear and sensible. The appointed Day of Decision is simply where this purposeful design inevitably leads, a time when all souls are weighed by how they answered the evidence around them, and their Lord.

He pulls this single thread through the later verses to prove its strength. The condemned are those who expected no reckoning and turned a blind eye to the signs, while the mindful step onto a vastly different shore. The closing words bring the true Day into stark relief, leaving each person to face exactly what they have done. The fierce opening, the breathing world, and the final judgment are therefore not scattered subjects. They are bound together as one unbroken argument.[3]

What was announced is now unfolded

Al-Suyūṭī traces two deeper threads between the sūrahs. First, the piercing questions of al-Mursalāt, speaking of earlier peoples, the origin of man, and the sweeping earth, find their reflection in the signs that open al-Nabaʾ. The voice of the address holds steady, urging the listener to finally face the realities they have long resisted. He likens this to the twin sūrahs of al-Ḍuḥā and al-Sharḥ, where questions of divine gifts echo seamlessly from one to the other.[4]

Second, where al-Mursalāt heralds the Day of Decision (77:12–14) and magnifies its immense weight, al-Nabaʾ steps further into the vision, unveiling its appointed hour, the sounding trumpet, and the great gathering (78:17–18). What the earlier sūrah announces, the later one vividly unfolds, an expansion, not a mere echo. Al-Marāghī, too, follows these shared currents: the undeniable proofs of divine power, the stern rebuke of those who deny, and the final, diverging destinies of the two groups. These threads weave together naturally, forming a single, profound bond.[5]

6. Its Weight and Its Place in Recitation

A warning that the Prophet ﷺ took seriously

Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما reports that Abū Bakr رضي الله عنه said to the Prophet ﷺ that he had grown grey. The Prophet ﷺ answered:

شَيَّبَتْني هُودٌ، والوَاقِعَةُ، والمُرْسَلاتُ، و ﴿عَمَّ يَتَسَاءَلُونَ﴾ و ﴿إِذَا الشَّمْسُ كُوِّرَتْ﴾.
“Hūd, al-Wāqiʿah, al-Mursalāt, ʿAmma yatasaʾalūn and Idhā al-shamsu kuwwirat have made me grow grey.”[1]

Al-Tirmidhī graded it ḥasan gharīb, and al-Ḥākim and al-Albānī accepted it as ṣaḥīḥ. Its connected chain was nevertheless disputed.

The report names al-Nabaʾ, yet it does not confine this heavy burden to its opening verses, nor does it bind these sūrahs to a single, shared reason. The scholars have long asked: what made their message weigh so heavily? One explanation concerns the events they describe. One answer looks to the horizons they unveil. Al-Zarkashī saw in these sūrahs a vivid and complete unfolding of the resurrection, not as a distant, abstract thought, but as a striking vision of the terrors to come. Ismāʿīl Ḥaqqī, too, traced this greying of hair to a soul bent under the shadow of the Hereafter and the gravity of its warnings.[2]

Yet another voice speaks not of the end, but of the agonizing narrowness of the path. To remain unbendingly upright, as commanded, is a heavy charge. Al-Rāghib draws the contrast: there is but one true center to strike, and a thousand ways to stray into the void. Here, the weight lies not merely in the fear of punishment, but in the grueling fidelity to the command itself. An echo of this appears in a dream related by Abū ʿAlī al-Shabbawī of Marw, in which the Prophet ﷺ was asked what in Hūd had greyed him, and named the command to be steadfast. Together, these voices illuminate the dual edge of the revelation: the fierce gaze toward the final reckoning, and the quiet, crushing strain of walking the straight path.[3]

Al-Nabaʾ in the Prophet’s ﷺ Recitation

Ibn Masʿūd رضي الله عنه recalled how the Prophet ﷺ brought certain sūrahs together in prayer:

قَدْ عَلِمْتُ النَّظَائِرَ الَّتِي كَانَ النَّبِيُّ ﷺ يَقْرَؤُهُنَّ اثْنَيْنِ اثْنَيْنِ فِي كُلِّ رَكْعَةٍ.
“I know the corresponding sūrahs that the Prophet ﷺ used to recite, two together in each rakʿah.”[4]

Al-Nabaʾ was among these twenty sūrahs, named in ʿAlqamah’s explanation by its opening words, ʿAmma yatasaʾalūn. What made them “corresponding” was their meaning. Ibn Ḥajar explains that they shared subjects such as admonition and accounts of earlier peoples; their correspondence was not a matter of having the same number of verses. The pairing thus draws attention to what the sūrahs say, not simply to how long they take to recite.[5]

Ibn Ḥajar quotes a fuller narration that pairs al-Nabaʾ with al-Mursalāt in a single rakʿah. The general practice of pairing sūrahs is established, but scholars differ over the reliability of this detailed list.[6]

Anas’s response to a question about prayer

Al-Bayhaqī records a weak account in which ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Qays asked Anas رضي الله عنه about the length of the Prophet’s ﷺ prayer. Anas responded by asking his son to lead them. Al-Naḍr ibn Anas, or another of his sons, then led Ẓuhr or ʿAṣr and recited al-Mursalāt and al-Nabaʾ.[7]

The claim of a special reward

The claim that reciting al-Nabaʾ brings a cool drink on the Day of Resurrection comes from a narration judged fabricated by Ṣalāḥ ibn Sālim BāʿUthmān, the editor of this volume of al-Thaʿlabī’s tafsīr. He grades its chain very weak.[8]

7. The Sūrah's Themes and Development

From disputed news to a world full of signs: verses 1–16

The opening verses step directly into the clamor of doubt. Yet, rather than immediately unveiling the events of the Last Day, the reply guides the hearer through the ordinary: the resting earth, the anchoring mountains, the pairing of souls, the heavy veil of sleep, the turning of day and night, the firmament above, and the life-giving rain. This familiarity is the very core of the proof. Those who scoff at resurrection still draw breath every day within the quiet, overwhelming reach of the Creator's power.

This draws the mind toward two inevitable truths. First, the One who wove such a vast and orderly world cannot possibly be too weak to restore human life. Second, a world so perfectly measured for life demands to know the purpose of the lives lived within it. Al-Ṣābūnī leans into the first, seeing the wonders of creation as a direct answer to those who call resurrection impossible. Al-Biqāʿī traces the second: the gifts, bonds, and ordered dwellings given to humanity make no sense if men can simply act as they please and dissolve into dust without ever answering to their Lord.[1]

Mawdūdī illuminates why resurrection dominates these early verses by looking at how the Prophet's message was first met. While the people already recognized a Creator and Provider (disputing only His partners), and while the Prophet’s lifelong honesty gave them pause, it was the promise of bodily resurrection that drew their ridicule. The claim that they and their ancestors would be pulled from the earth again was met with pure disbelief. This fierce resistance is why the early revelation returns so insistently to the life to come.

From this, Mawdūdī draws a moral line. To strip away the final reckoning is to alter the very scales of right, wrong, and responsibility. It defies reason to think we are handed such powers and duties in this world, only to never be asked what we did with them. The warning of the Last Day is born from the purposeful design of creation itself, not merely an appeal to fear. It proves why the resurrection is never a distant, abstract thought, but a profound weight that shapes how we live today.[2]

The appointed meeting and two different outcomes: verses 17–36

The sūrah then returns to the very news that provoked the questioning. The Day of Decision holds a fixed, inescapable hour. The sounding of the trumpet, the vast gathering, and the shattering of the known world all declare that the quiet rhythms of this present life will not stretch on forever.

The vision of ruin is tightly bound to its cause: the transgressors lived expecting no accounting, casting aside the signs, and now they are met with every deed, perfectly preserved. Then, the horizon shifts entirely toward the God-fearing. Against the preceding misery stand flourishing gardens, rich abundance, and words of unbroken peace. Al-Ṣābūnī pauses on this deliberate swing between fierce warning and profound hope. The sūrah refuses to make human choices hollow by forcing both paths to the same end, nor does it close on wrath, as if boundless mercy and generous reward had vanished. Quṭb, too, sees far more than a resting of the body in a realm free of lies and idle arguments, it is the deep, quiet peace of a people who have finally awakened to the truth.[3]

The final court and the decision still before the hearer: verses 37–40

The final movement gathers both outcomes before the Lord of the heavens and the earth. Here, speech waits upon His permission, and the true Day can no longer be bargained away by those who once argued against it. The warning still calls out to the living, urging them to turn toward their Lord. Yet the closing scene leaves us with the bitter regret of a soul staring at what its own hands have sent ahead, wishing it were nothing but dust.

Quṭb reflects on why the Lord, named as the Merciful, presides over both outcomes: to grant evil the same end as good would betray that very mercy. A judgment that divides them is not the absence of mercy, but its proof. He then unfolds the sheer majesty of that court. If even the favoured angels, free of sin, stand silent, waiting for leave to speak, there is simply no space left for human presumption. This permission to speak is also tightly bound to truth, the Divine does not grant a voice to one who will only utter falsehood.

The end answers the beginning. What was once treated as a rumor to debate becomes a crushing reality for the one who disputed it. ʿAṭiyyah Sālim observes how the opening murmurs over the "great news" finally harden into the undeniable truth of the Day in verse 39. Quṭb ties the closeness of this warning to the fleeting breath of human life, and the desperate wish to be dust to the profound shame of that final countdown. The early promise, that they will soon come to know, is not left hanging in the air; the sūrah pulls the reader directly into the scene where its weight is unmistakable.[4]

Why the message comes with such force

Sayyid Quṭb compares the short sūrahs of this section to a steady series of calls, reaching out to a people who startle awake only to drift back into sleep of heedlessness. This renewed address is deliberate: attention once gained is not necessarily attention retained. In al-Nabaʾ, the opening question stops the listener in their tracks. The ordinary world then steps forward to offer quiet proof, the stark scenes of judgment lay bare what is to come, and the final warning places the ultimate choice squarely back into the hands of the one who hears it.

In Quṭb's eyes, the profound beauty of creation and the fierce weight of the final hour stand side by side. Yet neither is meant to bypass the mind. The simple things that sustain our daily lives are transformed into undeniable evidence, and the closing encounter reveals exactly why that evidence demands an answer. Taken whole, the sūrah pulls the listener away from merely debating the great news, urging them instead to examine the very life for which that news will call them to account.[5]

And Allah knows best.

Notes

Where and When It Was Revealed

  1. Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-Tanwīr, 30:5–6; al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, 19:169; al-Ṣābūnī, Ṣafwat al-Tafāsīr, 3:493. Ibn ʿAṭiyyah says مكية بإجماع, “Makkan by consensus” (al-Muḥarrar al-wajīz, 5:423); Ibn ʿĀshūr says مَكِّيَّةٌ بِالِاتِّفَاقِ, “Makkan by agreement” (30:5). ↩

  2. Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-Tanwīr, 30:5; al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-Bayān, 24:5–6, account attributed to al-Ḥasan. Neither attribution by itself fixes a year or authenticates an occasion. The full report comparison belongs to “Historical Context and Reports” for 78:1–5. ↩

Its Place in the Order of Revelation

  1. Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr wa-l-Tanwīr, 30:5; al-Suyūṭī, al-Itqān fī ʿUlūm al-Qurʾān, 1:96–98. Al-Suyūṭī transmits the list through Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥārith ibn Abyaḍ, ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn Aʿyan, Ḥassān ibn Ibrāhīm, Umayyah al-Azdī and Jābir ibn Zayd. His reservation concerns the transmitted ordering despite Jābir's standing as a scholar of the Qurʾān. Al-Jaʿbarī's dependent Taqrīb al-Maʾmūl is a chronology mnemonic, not another chain of evidence. Al-Zarkashī, al-Burhān, 1:192–195, records al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥabīb al-Naysābūrī's sequence with the same three neighbouring sūrahs. The sequence is described there as the ordering upon which transmission from trustworthy narrators settled. Two further reports place al-Nabaʾ after al-Maʿārij: Ibn ʿAbbās through ʿAṭāʾ al-Khurāsānī, and al-Zuhrī (Mawsūʿat al-tafsīr al-maʾthūr, 22:593, citing respectively Ibn al-Ḍurays, Faḍāʾil al-Qurʾān, 1:33–35, and Tanzīl al-Qurʾān, pp.37–42). These are reported chronologies, not authenticated dates of revelation; they do not resolve al-Suyūṭī's reservation about the Jābir account. ↩

  2. Mawdūdī, Tafhīm al-Qurʾān, introduction to Sūrah 78, “Period of Revelation”; Fārūq Zayn, Bayān al-Naẓm fī al-Qurʾān al-Karīm, 4:272–274. The latter is a secondary synthesis, not an early revelation-order witness. ↩

Its Verse Count

  1. Al-Biqāʿī, Maṣāʿid al-Naẓar, 3:150. He identifies the extra division at عذاباً قريباً, the expression concerning a near punishment. Compare al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ, 19:169, which records forty or forty-one without assigning the totals there. ↩

  2. Al-Dānī, al-Bayān fī ʿadd āy al-Qurʾān, p. 262: forty-one in the Basran count and forty in the others. Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr, 30:5, assigns forty to Medina, Syria and Basra, and forty-one to Mecca and Kufa. Al-Ālūsī, Rūḥ al-Maʿānī, 15:201, assigns forty-one to Mecca and Basra and forty to the others. Al-Biqāʿī, Maṣāʿid, 3:150, assigns forty-one for Basra and forty for the others. Muḥammad Sayyid Ṭanṭāwī, al-Tafsīr al-Wasīṭ, 15:245, assigns forty for Kufa and Mecca and forty-one for the others. ↩

Its Names

  1. Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr, 30:5; al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ, 19:169; al-Biqāʿī, Maṣāʿid, 3:150; al-Ṣābūnī, Ṣafwat, 3:493. Ibn ʿĀshūr reports the four-name enumeration in al-Suyūṭī's al-Itqān and records the use of the opening title in al-Bukhārī and other works. ↩

Connection with al-Mursalāt

  1. Al-Biqāʿī, Naẓm al-Durar, 21:187–190, the close of al-Mursalāt and the opening of al-Nabaʾ. Muḥammad Shafīʿ, Maʿāriful Qurʾān, English translation, 8:679, likewise explains the force of 77:50 through the Qurʾān's clear and convincing message; that is support for the preceding challenge, not a separately asserted arrangement theory. ʿAṭiyyah Sālim's continuation of Aḍwāʾ al-Bayān, 8:404–405, also concerns that closing challenge and must not be attributed to al-Shinqīṭī. ↩

  2. Abū Ḥafṣ al-Nasafī, al-Taysīr fī al-Tafsīr, 15:177–178; al-Ālūsī, Rūḥ al-Maʿānī, 15:201. Al-Ālūsī reports the Qurʾān connection and makes his own resurrection preference. The final verse of al-Mursalāt is 77:50, notwithstanding the erroneous verse number printed beside it in this al-Ālūsī text. Muḥammad ʿAlī Ṭāhā al-Durrah, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-Karīm wa-Iʿrābuhu wa-Bayānuhu, 10:395–396, separately quotes al-Jamal for the closing-message/opening-question link. ↩

  3. Abū Jaʿfar ibn al-Zubayr al-Gharnāṭī, al-Burhān fī tanāsub suwar al-Qurʾān, pp. 354–355; quoted by al-Biqāʿī, Naẓm al-Durar, 21:192–193. The references are 78:6–17, 27–32, 39–40, with 7:57 as the comparison for the earth's revival and resurrection. ↩

  4. Al-Suyūṭī, Tanāsuq al-Durar fī Tanāsub al-Suwar, p. 152. His comparison joins 77:16–17, 20 and 25 with 78:6 and the following signs; the illustrative pair is 93:6 and following with 94:1. This is his proposed correspondence, not a transmitted revelation occasion. ↩

  5. Al-Suyūṭī, Tanāsuq, p. 152; al-Marāghī, Tafsīr al-Marāghī, 30:3. Al-Ālūsī, Rūḥ al-Maʿānī, 15:201, carries al-Suyūṭī's argument and is not an independent origin for it. A wider thematic comparison in Tanāsuq has an awkward qualification concerning al-Muddaththir, and al-Ālūsī's wording differs; it does not establish an identical list of features for every neighbouring sūrah. The secondary Bayān al-Naẓm, 4:272–274, additionally compares 77:38/78:17, 77:35–36/78:37 and 77:7/78:40: judgment, controlled speech and fulfilment. Those are further textual correspondences, not a separate historical explanation of placement. ↩

Its Weight and Its Place in Recitation

  1. Al-Tirmidhī, al-Jāmiʿ, ed. Bashshār, no.3297 (5:325), from Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما; he graded it ḥasan gharīb. Also recorded by al-Ḥākim, al-Mustadrak (al-Risālah), no.3353 (4:278–279), who graded it ṣaḥīḥ on al-Bukhārī’s condition. Al-Risālah’s editorial office grades it ḥasan li-ghayrihi, strengthened by other reports. The students of Abū Isḥāq al-Sabīʿī transmitted differing chains. Al-Dāraquṭnī sets them out in al-ʿIlal (Dār Ṭaybah), no.17 (1:194–211), and judges the version without Ibn ʿAbbās correct from Isrāʾīl (1:203). Abū Ḥātim preferred the version without Ibn ʿAbbās (Ibn Abī Ḥātim, al-ʿIlal, supervised by Saʿd al-Ḥumayd and Khālid al-Juraysī, no.1826, 5:88–89). Ibn Ḥajar presents it as an example of muḍṭarib, inconsistent transmission (al-Nukat ʿalā Kitāb Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ, 2:774–776). Al-Albānī includes it in al-Silsilah al-Ṣaḥīḥah (Maktabat al-Maʿārif), no.955 (2:639–642). He initially endorses al-Ḥākim’s authentication, arguing that Shaybān and Abū al-Aḥwaṣ agree on the connected chain and adding a narration through Isrāʾīl. On examining Abū Ḥātim’s contrary judgment, he calls the conflict difficult and in need of further investigation. He subsequently finds Ibn Saʿd’s narration showing that Abū al-Aḥwaṣ was also reported without Ibn ʿAbbās, and identifies this as the version Abū Ḥātim preferred. He then discusses supporting reports of differing wording and strength. The report of ʿUqbah ibn ʿĀmir رضي الله عنه says only “Hūd and its sisters,” not the five-sūrah list (al-Ṭabarānī, al-Muʿjam al-Kabīr, ed. Ḥamdī al-Salafī, Maktabat Ibn Taymiyyah, no.790, 17:286). ↩

  2. Al-Zarkashī, al-Burhān fī ʿUlūm al-Qurʾān, 1:444–445; Ismāʿīl Ḥaqqī, Rūḥ al-Bayān, 10:313. Al-Zarkashī also adduces the report about seeing the Resurrection as if with one’s eyes by reciting al-Takwīr. Al-Tirmidhī records the fuller wording, naming al-Takwīr, al-Infiṭār and al-Inshiqāq, from Ibn ʿUmar رضي الله عنهما: al-Jāmiʿ, ed. Bashshār, no.3333 (5:358). Al-Albānī quotes al-Tirmidhī’s judgment, ḥasan gharīb, and judges the isnad sound, explaining that its narrators are reliable and that Ibn Ḥibbān declared ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Yazīd reliable (al-Silsilah al-Ṣaḥīḥah, Maktabat al-Maʿārif, no.1081, 3:69–70). ↩

  3. Al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī, al-Mufradāt fī Gharīb al-Qurʾān, pp.240–241, entry “ḥ-ṣ-y”; Ṣafwān Dāwūdī's note refers to al-Bayhaqī. The dream is related through al-Sulamī in al-Bayhaqī, Shuʿab al-īmān, al-Rushd edition, no.2215, 4:82–83. Al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ, 9:107, explicitly says في المنام, “in a dream.” A dream establishes no hadith. In his note to al-Rāfiʿī, al-Amālī al-shāriḥa, p.320, Wāʾil Muḥammad Bakr Zahrān identifies Muḥammad b. ʿUmar b. Shabbūyah al-Shabbawī al-Marwazī and calls “al-Sarrī” a تصحيف, a copying error in the name. ↩

  4. Al-Bukhārī, al-Ṣaḥīḥ, al-Sulṭāniyyah printing, no.4996 (6:186), through Shaqīq from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd رضي الله عنه. After Ibn Masʿūd went inside, ʿAlqamah accompanied him and returned with the explanation identifying the twenty sūrahs. Al-Bukhārī’s no.775 (1:155) gives the occasion: a man said that he had recited the Mufaṣṣal in one rakʿah. Ibn Masʿūd rebuked his haste, هَذًّا كَهَذِّ الشِّعْرِ, “Rushing through it as poetry is rushed through?” Ibn Ḥajar identifies the man as Nahīk b. Sinān and explains the rebuke as a criticism of excessive speed (Fatḥ al-Bārī, 2:258–259). ↩

  5. Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ al-Bārī, 2:259, commentary on hadith 775; al-Bukhārī, al-Ṣaḥīḥ, al-Sulṭāniyyah printing, no.4996 (6:186). Al-Muḥibb al-Ṭabarī had initially understood the correspondence as equal verse counts, but abandoned that explanation after comparing the sūrahs and finding that their counts differed. ↩

  6. Abū Dāwūd, al-Sunan, ed. Muḥyī al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd, no.1396 (2:56), from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd رضي الله عنه. Al-Albānī grades the hadith ṣaḥīḥ “apart from the list of sūrahs” in Ṣaḥīḥ Sunan Abī Dāwūd (Ghirās), no.1262, 5:140–142. He explains that Isrāʾīl heard from Abū Isḥāq al-Sabīʿī after Abū Isḥāq’s memory had deteriorated. He authenticates the general practice through other routes but excludes the detailed list. He also identifies differences in the list narrated through Muḥammad ibn Salamah ibn Kuhayl, whom he calls weak. Al-Risālah’s editorial office, led by Shuʿayb al-Arnaʾūṭ, grades the isnad ṣaḥīḥ in its edition of Sunan Abī Dāwūd, no.1396, 2:543–544 (editorial responsibility identified in the publisher’s introduction, p.3).

    Al-Albānī gives a different assessment in Aṣl Ṣifat Ṣalāt al-Nabī, 1:402–405. There he records the detailed list through Abū Khālid al-Aḥmar from al-Aʿmash, and through Muḥammad ibn Salamah ibn Kuhayl from his father from Abū Wāʾil; he calls the latter isnad jayyid, good. He also includes the full list, with al-Nabaʾ and al-Mursalāt paired, in Ṣifat Ṣalāt al-Nabī, pp.104–105. The publisher of Ṣaḥīḥ Sunan Abī Dāwūd, 5:142, draws attention to that different treatment. Neither passage establishes which assessment came later.

    Ibn Ḥajar, Fatḥ al-Bārī, 2:259–260, quotes Abū Isḥāq’s narration from ʿAlqamah and al-Aswad with the explicit al-Nabaʾ/al-Mursalāt pairing. ʿIyāḍ understood the narration as showing the Prophet’s ﷺ usual amount of recitation. Ibn Ḥajar replies that it describes the pairings he used when reciting from this group, rather than establishing an unvarying amount for his prayer.

    Al-Bukhārī’s shorter account names al-Dukhān and ʿAmma at the end of its description. The fuller lists end with al-Takwīr and al-Dukhān; Ibn Ḥajar therefore understands the reference to ʿAmma as covering the final two rakʿahs, rather than pairing it with al-Dukhān. In the printed Abū Isḥāq list, ʿAmma stands seventeenth, although Ibn Ḥajar’s subsequent explanation calls it eighteenth. The text leaves that numerical discrepancy unresolved.

    Two further expressions concern how the group is described. Only al-Dukhān among these twenty sūrahs begins with Ḥā Mīm. Ibn Ḥajar explains the reference to two sūrahs “from Āl Ḥām” either as naming the pair after one member or as leaving “one of them” understood. Likewise, calling all twenty part of the Mufaṣṣal, the final division of shorter sūrahs, is approximate if that division begins at Qāf, since al-Dukhān comes earlier. It is literal on an earlier starting point. A different list in al-Ṭabarānī has omissions and changes of order; Ibn Ḥajar identifies Muḥammad ibn Salamah ibn Kuhayl, a transmitter of that account, as weak. ↩

  7. Al-Bayhaqī, al-Sunan al-Kubrā (Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah), no.5283 (3:169), from Anas رضي الله عنه through Sukayn ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, al-Muthannā al-Aḥmar and ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Qays. Al-Nasāʾī calls Sukayn “not strong” in al-Ḍuʿafāʾ wa-l-matrūkūn (Dār al-Waʿy, 1396 AH), entry 287, p.54. Al-Dhahabī repeats this criticism and identifies Sukayn’s teacher, al-Muthannā, as unknown (al-Muhadhdhab, Dār al-Waṭan, 2:1049–1050). The narration leaves two details uncertain: which of Anas’s sons led the prayer, and whether it was Ẓuhr or ʿAṣr. Al-Suyūṭī, al-Durr al-Manthūr, 8:389, attributes the account to al-Bayhaqī but names no son and says “Ẓuhr and ʿAṣr.” Neither wording specifies how the two sūrahs were distributed between rakʿahs. ↩

  8. Al-Thaʿlabī, al-Kashf wa-l-bayān, ed. Ṣalāḥ ibn Sālim BāʿUthmān, no.3332, 28:301–302, from Ubayy b. Kaʿb رضي الله عنه. Ṣalāḥ grades its isnad very weak and calls the report fabricated. Al-Munāwī likewise calls it mawḍūʿ, fabricated, in al-Fatḥ al-samāwī, no.979, 3:1078. Ibn Ḥajar calls the Ubayy sūrah-merit chains sāqiṭah, unsound, and records the forger’s confession (al-Kāfī al-shāf, printed with al-Kashshāf, 1:19). Al-Ṭībī also quotes the cool-drink report from al-Kashshāf in Futūḥ al-ghayb, 16:262.

    The claim that a hypocrite cannot memorize Hūd, Barāʾah, Yāsīn, al-Dukhān and al-Nabaʾ is attributed to the Prophet ﷺ through ʿAlī رضي الله عنه: al-Ṭabarānī, al-Muʿjam al-awsaṭ, ed. Ṭāriq b. ʿAwaḍ Allāh and ʿAbd al-Muḥsin al-Ḥusaynī (Dār al-Ḥaramayn, 1415 AH), no.7570, 7:305–306. Al-Ṭabarānī says that ʿĀmir b. Ibrāhīm alone transmitted this route from Qanbar through ʿAlī. Al-Haythamī identifies Nahshal b. Saʿīd as matrūk, abandoned as a transmitter (Majmaʿ al-zawāʾid, Maktabat al-Qudsī, 1414 AH, 7:157–158). Wasīm ʿIṣām Shiblī grades the chain very weak: Nahshal is abandoned, Qanbar is weak, and he describes Sufyān b. al-Layl as an extreme Rāfiḍī whose hadith is unsound. He also notes an unresolved difference: al-Ṭabarānī’s route includes al-Ḍaḥḥāk between Nahshal and Sufyān, while the other routes he compares do not (his notes to Ibn Ḥajar, Zahr al-Firdaws, Jamʿiyyat Dār al-Birr, 1439 AH, no.2893, 7:404–405).

    The promise that learning al-Nabaʾ, Qāf, al-Najm, al-Burūj and al-Ṭāriq brings forgiveness of every sin except shirk is likewise attributed to the Prophet ﷺ, through Abū al-Dardāʾ رضي الله عنه: al-Daylamī, al-Firdaws bi-maʾthūr al-khiṭāb (Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah, 1406 AH), no.2242, 2:42; Ibn Ḥajar, Zahr al-Firdaws, Jamʿiyyat Dār al-Birr, 1439 AH, no.1161, 3:482–484. Ibn Ḥajar calls its transmitter Isḥāq b. Bishr al-Kāhilī abandoned. Khayrī Ḥusaynī Jamīl grades the report fabricated in his notes to that passage. Abū Zurʿah said that Isḥāq lied and narrated fabricated reports from Mālik and Abū Maʿshar; Abū Ḥātim likewise called him a liar (Ibn Abī Ḥātim, al-Jarḥ wa-l-taʿdīl, 2:214). ↩

The Sūrah's Themes and Development

  1. Al-Ṣābūnī, Ṣafwat al-Tafāsīr, 3:493; al-Biqāʿī, Maṣāʿid al-Naẓar, 3:151–152, and Naẓm al-Durar, 21:189. Al-Biqāʿī reasons from the ordered dwelling, its provisions and creatures' relationships to the unfittingness of leaving injustice and ingratitude without judgment. This is his argument from divine wisdom, not an independently imposed obligation upon God. Compare al-Zuḥaylī, al-Tafsīr al-Munīr, 30:5–6, on resurrection, power and recompense. ↩

  2. Mawdūdī, Tafhīm al-Qurʾān, introduction to Sūrah 78, “Theme and Subject Matter.” The three-declaration comparison and the account of resistance to resurrection and its practical consequences are his explanatory analysis, not a newly authenticated report describing every Makkan hearer. His analogy of entrusted powers and accountability develops the purpose argument rather than adding a separate revelation occasion. ↩

  3. Al-Ṣābūnī, Ṣafwat, 3:493; al-Zuḥaylī, al-Munīr, 30:5–6; Ibn ʿĀshūr, al-Taḥrīr, 30:6; Ṭanṭāwī, al-Tafsīr al-Wasīṭ, 15:245–249. Quṭb, In the Shade of the Qurʾān, English vol. 18, p. 15, connects peaceful speech with the knowledge of reality. He also qualifies the physical descriptions: they help human understanding, but the precise mode of that life remains unknown. ↩

  4. ʿAṭiyyah Sālim, continuation of Aḍwāʾ al-Bayān, 8:413, on 78:39; al-Ṣābūnī, Ṣafwat, 3:493; Quṭb, In the Shade of the Qurʾān, English vol. 18, pp. 15–16. The reference to the distant Day can mark its remoteness or its elevated importance in ʿAṭiyyah's explanation; neither possibility changes his connection with the opening news. Quṭb's mercy/punishment and angels/permission arguments concern the closing court, not merely his earlier overview on pp. 4–9. His identification of the Spirit as Gabriel belongs to his explanation; it does not settle all interpretations of 78:38. Compare Mawdūdī's introduction on the closing court and permitted intercession: his restriction concerning rebellious rejecters is his doctrinal explanation, not a new promise that any hearer can demand intercession. ↩

  5. Sayyid Quṭb, In the Shade of the Qurʾān, English text, vol. 18, pp. 4–9, opening discussion of this part of the Qurʾān and al-Nabaʾ; translator unidentified in the consulted volume. His image describes the recurring force of the address, not a claim that every short sūrah has identical subject matter: his discussion also recognizes sūrahs of consolation, refuge and the foundations of faith. ↩

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