An Introduction to the Sciences of the Qurʾān

Contents (Fihris)

This edition is issued in instalments; the Contents here covers Volume One.

Introduction (al-Muqaddima)

In the Name of Allah, the All-beneficent, the All-merciful. To proceed: the study of the concerns of the Noble Qurʾān in its varied and manifold aspects is a delightful study, and at the same time a pressing Islamic necessity to which every conscious Muslim responds — one who has found in this his blessed and everlasting Book a shining truth and a veracious proof from God, in which is the exposition of all things, and guidance, and mercy for the worlds.

It is the living support of Islam and its abiding miracle, by which Islam continues to challenge the whole of humankind — in an open, ringing summons: produce the like of it, if you can! Yet humankind, in all candour and humility, confesses its continuing incapacity as the ages revolve:

“Say, ‘Should all humans and jinn rally to bring the like of this Qurʾān, they will not bring the like of it, even if they assisted one another.’” (17:88)¹

Again, it is the comprehensive constitution of Islam, the guarantor of humanity’s felicity in every field of social, administrative, and political life without exception. And this radiant reality was in fact achieved on the day the caravan of humankind set out in the light of this luminous torch:

“O you who have faith! Answer Allah and the Apostle when he summons you to that which will give you life.” (8:24)²

There is, further, its intimate accord with man’s original nature (fiṭra) — a harmony interwoven with the primordial disposition upon which he was created. This accord governs every provision of the Qurʾān, all its legislation, its ordering institutions, and the whole body of its comprehensive rulings; and it is this that makes of this all-embracing heavenly law a system springing from the very core of humanity, come to secure for man all his wholesome needs in the various concerns of life:

“So set your heart on the religion as a people of pure faith, the origination of Allah according to which He originated mankind (There is no altering Allah’s creation; that is the upright religion, but most people do not know).” (30:30)³

Moreover, it endowed humanity generously with truths and sublime teachings to which the human level of attainment fell short — and still falls short — of rising, had the Qurʾān not bestowed their like with open liberality and placed them within near reach, in the most telling exposition and the most wondrously wise style:

“Allah has sent down to you the Book and wisdom, and He has taught you what you did not know, and great is Allah’s grace upon you.” (4:113)⁴

“[He] taught man what he did not know.” (96:5)⁵

“Neither you nor your people used to know them before this.” (11:49)⁶

And lastly, there is its extraordinary ascendancy over great human souls that refused to bow to anything but the plain truth: it brought them to the summit of a witnessed reality upon whose face the marks of truthfulness stood written, so that they yielded to its sublime teachings with willing submission until they found their way to the wellsprings of unclouded certainty:

“But those of them who are firmly grounded in knowledge and the faithful believe in what has been sent down to you…” (4:162)⁷

Such are the characteristics and salient distinctions of this mighty divine Book — a Book from whose radiant dawning scarcely half a century had passed before it had won the allegiance of great nations and gained sway over a vast expanse of the earth that had been the cradle of human civilization from remotest antiquity; its echo rolled through the horizons, and its just authority spread through the quarters of the inhabited world. All of this made the Qurʾān the object of the scholars’ concern and the focus of the researchers’ attention throughout the ages and epochs.

The Qurʾān and Its Names

“Al-Qurʾān” is a proper name (ʿalam) for the Book sent down upon the Prophet of Islam, replete with the foundations of his Law, an abiding sign of the truthfulness of his mission, an exposition of all things, and a guidance and mercy for the worlds.

Its designation by this name, adorned with the article,⁸ occurs in the Qurʾān more than fifty times — “And this Qurʾān has been revealed to me that I may warn thereby you and whomever it may reach” (6:19)⁹ — and it occurs without the article in places where it stands in an indefinite or annexed position, as in: “We have sent the Qurʾān in [discrete] parts (wa-qurʾānan faraqnāhu) so that you may read it to the people a little at a time, and We have sent it down piecemeal” (17:106).¹⁰ It is applied both to the whole and to the part: “You do not engage in any work, neither do you recite any part of the Qurʾān, nor do you perform any deed without Our being witness over you when you are engaged therein” (10:61)¹¹ — and this because in the naming the descriptive sense (its being maqrūʾ, “recited”) was kept in view, whence the soundness of its unrestricted application.

The word is of deep-rooted Arabic stock: in origin it is the verbal noun of qaraʾa, yaqraʾu, qirāʾatan wa-qurʾānan, on the pattern of ghufrān, rujḥān, and kufrān. It is used in the Qurʾān as a verbal noun in the words of the Most High: “and [observe particularly] the dawn recital (qurʾāna l-fajr); indeed the dawn recital is attended [by angels]” (17:78),¹² and: “Indeed it is up to Us to put it together and to recite it (qurʾānahu). And when We have recited it, follow its recitation (qurʾānahu)” (75:17–18).¹³ Derivation, and the abundance of a word’s inflected forms — above all the triliteral ones — are proof of its native standing in the language.

Ibn Fāris said: the qāf, the rāʾ, and the weak radical form a sound root denoting gathering and collection. From it comes al-qarya (village), so called from the gathering of people in it… From this root also is al-qarā, the back, so named for the bones assembled in it… And when this root is made to yield the hamza, it comes to the same as the first: they say mā qaraʾat hādhihi l-nāqatu salan qaṭṭ¹⁴ — “this she-camel has never gathered a foetus,” that is, has never held young in her womb. ʿAmr ibn Kulthūm says in his famous Muʿallaqa:

ذِراعَيْ عَيْطَلٍ أَدْماءَ بِكْرٍ — هِجانِ اللَّونِ لَمْ تَقْرَأْ جَنِينا
— the two forelegs of a long-necked, white, young she-camel, pure of colour, that has never gathered a foetus in her womb.¹⁵

They said: and hence “al-Qurʾān,” as though it were so named for its gathering of what it contains of ordinances, narratives, and other matter.¹⁶

Al-Khalīl ibn Aḥmad said: “I recited (qaraʾtu) the Qurʾān by heart, or looked into it… and so-and-so recited with a beautiful recitation; the Qurʾān is the thing recited (maqrūʾ) and he is the reciter (qāriʾ).”¹⁷

Al-Rāghib said: “Al-qirāʾa is the joining of letters and words one to another in measured recitation (tartīl); and al-qurʾān is in origin a verbal noun like kufrān and rujḥān [and ghufrān]. The Most High said: ‘Indeed it is up to Us to put it together and to recite it; and when We have recited it, follow its recitation.’¹⁸ It has been appropriated to the Book sent down upon Muḥammad (ṣ), so that it has become for it like a proper name — as al-Tawrāt for what was sent down upon Moses and al-Injīl for what was sent down upon Jesus (ʿa). Some of the scholars have said that this Book is named qurʾān among the Books of God because it gathers the fruit of His [other] Books — nay, gathers the fruit of all the sciences, as the Most High intimated in His words ‘…and an elaboration of all things’¹⁹ and His words ‘…as a clarification of all things.’²⁰”²¹

Some, however, have taken a different course, attempting to trace the word to a foreign loan of Syriac origin: qeryānā, meaning the reading of liturgical texts²² — as though it were any wonder that cognates should co-exist in the Eastern tongues, above all the Semitic ones, as is well known! There is no room for this conjecture once the Arabic character of the word and its native derivation in the language have been established. As for the nearness or correspondence of word-roots and their counterparts in other languages, this is accounted for by the kinship in the roots of the Eastern tongues, the Semitic ones especially — as with Hebrew and Arabic, where a close correspondence runs through the greater part of their vocabulary. Such kinship of common descent leaves no ground for supposing borrowing.

Al-Furqān is another name of the Qurʾān. In origin it is a verbal noun bearing the sense of the active participle, inasmuch as it is speech that separates (fāriq) truth from falsehood. The Most High said: “Blessed is He who sent down the Criterion (al-furqān) to His servant that he may be a warner to all the nations” (25:1).²³ This descriptive force appears plainly in His words: “The month of Ramaḍān is one in which the Qurʾān was sent down as guidance to mankind, with manifest proofs of guidance and the Criterion (al-furqān)” (2:185)²⁴ — with al-furqān in the genitive, coordinated with al-hudā: that is, manifest proofs of the Criterion. Imam Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad al-Ṣādiq (ʿa) said: “The Qurʾān is the totality of the Book; and the Furqān is the unequivocal (muḥkam) whose observance is obligatory.”²⁵

By this same description the name was applied to the Book of Moses as well: “And when We gave Moses the Book and the Criterion so that you might be guided” (2:53)²⁶ — taking the second term as an explicative coordination — and more explicit still: “Certainly We gave Moses and Aaron the Criterion, a light and reminder for the Godwary” (21:48).²⁷ Hence “al-Furqān” is not a name peculiar to the Qurʾān; rather it was applied to it, and to the Covenants before it, with its descriptive sense kept in view.

These two names — al-Qurʾān and al-Furqān — are the most famous names of the Wise Remembrance. Next to them in currency stand two others: al-Kitāb, a verbal noun in the passive sense, a generic name; and al-Dhikr, in view of its being a reminder and admonition.

The author of al-Burhān and others have overstepped the bounds of naming, relying upon usages that occur in the Qurʾān as epithets describing it — such as His words “Indeed it is a noble Qurʾān” (56:77)²⁸ and the like — until they counted the names of the Qurʾān by the score, as the author of al-Burhān did, some carrying the tally past fifty:²⁹ manifest strain (takalluf)! The matter in itself is simple, but it is prolix and long-drawn to no profit — some have even devoted independent works to it. What we have mentioned suffices: “With Allah rests guidance to the straight path.” (16:9)³⁰

The Sciences of the Qurʾān (ʿUlūm al-Qurʾān)

“ʿUlūm al-Qurʾān” — in this construct form — is a special term for a body of inquiries that revolve around the various concerns of the Noble Qurʾān, with the aim of knowing those concerns in a technical manner, according to principles and rules. Since these concerns differ from one another in their very substance, the inquiries that turn upon each of them differ in their foundations and their proofs, and likewise in their results; they meet neither in principles nor in derivatives. Each inquiry is therefore an independent science in its subject-matter, its problems, and its proofs; and the whole body of those inquiries has become a set of varied sciences, united only in this: that all of them investigate the concerns of the Noble Qurʾān.

For example, the inquiry into the readings (qirāʾāt) is one thing, and the inquiry into abrogation (naskh) in the Qurʾān is another; so too the inquiry into its inimitability (iʿjāz), and the inquiry into its collection and its revelation, and the rest. Every inquiry is independent in itself, tied to the others by nothing except that all together are directed toward knowing the various aspects of this precious and praiseworthy Book.

The History of the Qurʾānic Sciences

From the very first age, the great Companions and the most excellent of the Followers devoted their earnest attention to research into the various concerns of the Noble Qurʾān: they occupied themselves with its recitation and its melodious rendering (tajwīd), with its abrogating and abrogated, its unequivocal and its ambiguous, its revelation (tanzīl) and its interpretation (taʾwīl), its general and its particular, its absolute and its qualified — with all its far-reaching concerns. And so the circle of Qurʾānic studies never ceased to advance and to widen across the centuries and the ages, and the fruits of those researches and studies overflowed into the great collections of ḥadīth and exegesis in every period.

As for the age of written composition, it goes back to the latter part of the first century. The first to compose on the recitation (qirāʾa) was Yaḥyā ibn Yaʿmar (d. 89/708), one of the pupils of Abū al-Aswad al-Duʾalī, who composed his book on the qirāʾa in the village of Wāsiṭ, assembling in it the divergences that had been observed among the well-known copies of the Qurʾān — as recorded in Fuʾād Sezgin’s Tārīkh al-turāth al-ʿarabī (Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums).

In the second century, al-Ḥasan ibn Abī al-Ḥasan Yasār al-Baṣrī (d. 110/728) composed his book on the number of the verses of the Qurʾān (ʿAdad āy al-Qurʾān), together with works on the divergences of the codices of the Ḥijāz, Syria, and Iraq, and on “the separated and the joined” in stopping and continuing (waqf and waṣl). Abū Muḥammad Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Suddī the Elder (d. 128/745) has a book on the abrogating and the abrogated. Shayba ibn Niṣāḥ al-Madanī (d. 130/748) has the Kitāb al-wuqūf. Abān ibn Taghlib (d. 141/758), the companion of Imam ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Sajjād (ʿa), was the first to compose on the readings (qirāʾāt) after Ibn Yaʿmar, and he has also a Maʿānī al-Qurʾān. Muḥammad ibn al-Sāʾib al-Kalbī (d. 146/763) was the first to compose on the legal rulings of the Qurʾān (aḥkām al-Qurʾān). Muqātil ibn Sulaymān the exegete (d. 150/767) has the book al-Āyāt al-mutashābihāt. Abū ʿAmr ibn al-ʿAlāʾ, Zabbān ibn ʿAmmār al-Tamīmī (d. 154/771), has al-Waqf wa-l-ibtidāʾ and a book of Qirāʾāt. Ḥamza ibn Ḥabīb (d. 156/773), one of the seven reciters and a companion of Imam al-Ṣādiq (ʿa), has a book on the qirāʾa. Mūsā ibn Hārūn, of the pupils of Abān ibn Taghlib (d. towards 170/786), has the book al-Wujūh wa-l-naẓāʾir. ʿAlī ibn Ḥamza al-Kisāʾī (d. 189/805) has a book of Qirāʾāt and the book of the hāʾ-pronouns by which reference is made in the Qurʾān (al-Hāʾāt al-mukannā bihā fī l-Qurʾān), among others. Yaḥyā ibn Ziyād al-Farrāʾ (d. 207/822) has Maʿānī al-Qurʾān, printed in three volumes, and The Divergences of the People of Kūfa, Baṣra, and Syria concerning the Codices, and The Plural and the Dual in the Qurʾān, and other works. Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar al-Wāqidī, the learned scribe and celebrated historian (d. 207/822), has the book al-Raghīb on the sciences of the Qurʾān and the errors of men. Abū ʿUbayda Maʿmar ibn al-Muthannā (d. 209/824) has Majāz al-Qurʾān, printed in two parts, and Maʿānī al-Qurʾān.

In the third century, Abū ʿUbayd al-Qāsim ibn Sallām (d. 224/838) composed his Faḍāʾil al-Qurʾān, and al-Maqṣūr wa-l-mamdūd on the readings, and Gharīb al-Qurʾān, and al-Nāsikh wa-l-mansūkh, among others. Al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī ibn Faḍḍāl (d. 224/838), of the companions of Imam al-Riḍā (ʿa), has a book on the abrogating and the abrogated. ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī (d. 234/849) composed on the occasions of revelation (asbāb al-nuzūl). Abū al-Faḍl Jaʿfar ibn Ḥarb (d. 236/850) has the book Mutashābih al-Qurʾān. Al-Ḥārith ibn Asad al-Muḥāsibī (d. 243/857) has the book al-ʿAql wa-fahm al-Qurʾān. Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿĪsā al-Ashʿarī, the shaykh and foremost figure of the Qummīs (d. towards 250/864), has a book on the abrogating and the abrogated. Abū ʿUthmān ʿAmr ibn Baḥr al-Jāḥiẓ (d. 255/869) has the book Naẓm al-Qurʾān. Abū Ḥātim Sahl ibn Muḥammad al-Sijistānī al-Baṣrī (d. 255/869) has a book of Qirāʾāt and The Divergences of the Codices of the Garrison Cities. Abū ʿAbd Allāh Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Sayyār (d. 268/882), scribe to the house of Ṭāhir and an associate of the two Imams al-Hādī and al-ʿAskarī (ʿa), has the book Thawāb al-Qurʾān and a book of Qirāʾāt, also called al-Tanzīl wa-l-taḥrīf. Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muslim ibn Qutayba (d. 276/889) has Taʾwīl mushkil al-Qurʾān, Tafsīr gharīb al-Qurʾān, Iʿrāb al-Qurʾān, and his book on the readings. Abū al-ʿAbbās Muḥammad ibn Yazīd al-Mubarrad the grammarian (d. 286/899) has Iʿrāb al-Qurʾān. Muḥammad ibn Ayyūb ibn al-Ḍurays (d. 294/907) has a book on what was revealed at Mecca and what was revealed at Medina, and a Faḍāʾil al-Qurʾān. And Abū al-Qāsim Saʿd ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Ashʿarī al-Qummī (d. 299/912) composed a comprehensive treatise on the categories of the Qurʾān’s verses, upon which al-ʿAllāma al-Majlisī came, and which he transcribed, in separate portions, into his great compendium, Biḥār al-anwār.³¹ And Abū ʿAmr Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar ibn Saʿīd al-Bāhilī (d. 300/913) has the book Iʿjāz al-Qurʾān — the first book to appear under this title, its inquiries devoted specifically to the aspects of the Qurʾān’s inimitability.

The fourth century is distinguished by its flowering in the varieties of the Islamic sciences and learning and the several arts, and above all in what concerns the Qurʾān and its manifold dimensions. Among those who wrote on the sciences of the Qurʾān at the opening of this century is Muḥammad ibn Yazīd al-Wāsiṭī (d. 306/918), one of the most eminent of the theologians and author of the book al-Imāma; Ibn al-Nadīm records for him a book on the inimitability of the Qurʾān in its composition and arrangement (Iʿjāz al-Qurʾān fī naẓmihi wa-taʾlīfih). It is said that he was the first to expound the question of the Qurʾān’s inimitability at length; Shaykh ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī wrote two elegant commentaries upon it. Muḥammad ibn Khalaf ibn Ḥayyān (d. 306/918) has a book on the number of the verses of the Qurʾān. Muḥammad ibn Khalaf ibn al-Marzubān (d. 309/921) has the book al-Ḥāwī fī ʿulūm al-Qurʾān in twenty-seven parts. Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan ibn Mūsā al-Nawbakhtī (d. towards 310/922) has the book al-Tanzīh wa-dhikr mutashābihāt al-Qurʾān. Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī al-Ṭūsī (d. 312/924) has the book Naẓm al-Qurʾān. Abū Bakr ibn Abī Dāwūd, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sulaymān al-Sijistānī (d. 316/929), has the book al-Maṣāḥif, and al-Nāsikh wa-l-mansūkh, and a treatise on the readings. Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Ḥazm al-Andalusī (d. 320/932) has a book on the abrogating and the abrogated. The literary scholar and philologist Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Azdī, known as Ibn Durayd (d. 321/933), has a book on the rare words (gharīb) of the Qurʾān. Abū Zayd Aḥmad ibn Sahl al-Balkhī (d. 322/934) has Mā ughliqa min gharīb al-Qurʾān, and a book on the detached letters at the openings of the sūras, and an inquiry into the manner of interpretations (taʾwīlāt), among others. Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn Mūsā, known as Ibn Mujāhid (d. 324/936), composed his book al-Sabʿa on the seven readings — it was he who confined them to seven! Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Ikhshīd (d. 326/938) has the book Naẓm al-Qurʾān. Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn al-ʿAzīz al-Sijistānī (d. 330/942) is famed for his book on the rare words of the Qurʾān, which he entitled Nuzhat al-qulūb: he arranged it alphabetically and perfected it over fifteen years. Abū Jaʿfar Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Naḥḥās (d. 338/950) has Iʿrāb al-Qurʾān, al-Nāsikh wa-l-mansūkh, and Maʿānī al-Qurʾān. Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm, known as Ibn Abī Zaynab, the scribe, al-Nuʿmānī (d. towards 350/961), composed on the categories of the Qurʾān’s verses, which al-ʿAllāma al-Majlisī transcribed in Biḥār al-anwār;³² he was closely attached to al-Kulaynī, for whom he used to write out the book al-Kāfī. Muḥammad al-Qaṣṣāb, Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Karkhī (d. towards 360/971), has Nukat al-Qurʾān. Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī al-Rāzī al-Jaṣṣāṣ (d. 370/981) composed on the legal rulings of the Qurʾān — a rich, comprehensive, and large work, printed in three great volumes, the most complete and most useful book in its field. Abū ʿAlī al-Fārisī (d. 377/987), a luminary of the Imāmiyya by whom the fourth century was made to flourish in excellence, nobility, and letters, has the book al-Ḥujja fī l-qirāʾāt — the finest, most comprehensive, and most exact book in its field. Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn ʿĪsā al-Rummānī (d. 384/994) has al-Nukat fī iʿjāz al-Qurʾān, a concise treatise over which presides a theological cast deep-rooted in Muʿtazilī dialectic. Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAbbād ibn ʿAbbās al-Ṭālaqānī, the father of al-Ṣāḥib (d. 385/995), has a book on the legal rulings of the Qurʾān. Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Qayrawānī (d. 386/996), one of the eminent jurists of the Maghrib, has a book on the inimitability of the Qurʾān. Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Udfuwī (d. 388/998) has al-Istighnāʾ on the sciences of the Qurʾān, in one hundred parts, of which the author of al-Ṭāliʿ al-saʿīd saw twenty. Abū Sulaymān Ḥamd ibn Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Khaṭṭābī (of the descendants of Zayd ibn al-Khaṭṭāb), al-Bustī — after Bust, in the lands of Kabul — (d. 388/998), has a concise treatise, Bayān iʿjāz al-Qurʾān, in which he treated the subject with technical mastery, seeking to exhibit the ground of the inimitability from the angle of expression: the composition, the ordering, and the selection of words perfectly suited to their places. It is perhaps the most adequate study that has appeared addressing this weighty aspect of the Qurʾān’s inimitability. Abū al-Fatḥ ʿUthmān ibn Jinnī (d. 392/1002) has al-Muḥtasab, on setting forth the grounds of the anomalous readings and their elucidation. The judge Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn al-Ṭayyib al-Bāqillānī (d. 403/1013) has Iʿjāz al-Qurʾān and Nukat al-Intiṣār on the readings and the collection and composition of the Qurʾān. And Abū al-Ḥasan Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Sharīf al-Raḍī (d. 406/1015) has the book Talkhīṣ al-bayān fī majāzāt al-Qurʾān and Ḥaqāʾiq al-taʾwīl fī mutashābih al-tanzīl, of which only the fifth part has been found; it was brought to light and printed at Najaf and Beirut.

In the fifth century, the judge ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad, known as Ibn Zanjala (d. towards 410/1019), composed the book Ḥujjat al-qirāʾāt, framing his book after al-Ḥujja fī l-qirāʾāt of Abū ʿAlī al-Fārisī and upon his manner and method; it was printed at the University of Benghazi and then at Beirut in several printings. Abū al-Qāsim Hibat Allāh ibn Salāma (d. 410/1019) has al-Nāsikh wa-l-mansūkh. Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Nuʿmān, surnamed al-Shaykh al-Mufīd (d. 413/1022), has a book on the inimitability of the Qurʾān and the book al-Bayān on the kinds of the sciences of the Qurʾān. Abū al-Ḥasan ʿImād al-Dīn the judge ʿAbd al-Jabbār, the Muʿtazilī theologian (d. 415/1025), has Mutashābih al-Qurʾān in two parts, and Tanzīh al-Qurʾān ʿan al-maṭāʿin. Abū al-Qāsim al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī, the Imāmī vizier al-Maghribī (d. 418/1027), grandson of Ibn Abī Zaynab al-Nuʿmānī and of Persian stock, has the book Khaṣāʾiṣ al-Qurʾān. Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Iskāfī, the well-guided ʿallāma (d. 421/1030), has the book Durrat al-tanzīl wa-ghurrat al-taʾwīl on the ambiguous verses of the Qurʾān, embracing the aphorisms, the parables, and the repeated verses. Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Saʿīd al-Ḥūfī (d. 430/1039) has al-Burhān fī ʿulūm al-Qurʾān, which is closer to an exegesis and an inquiry into the recesses of the Qurʾān. Abū al-Maʿālī al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā ʿAlam al-Hudā, ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Mūsawī (d. 436/1044), has the book al-Durar wa-l-ghurar and the book al-Mūḍiḥ ʿan jihat iʿjāz al-Qurʾān, in which he treated the aspect of the ṣarfa. Abū Muḥammad Makkī ibn Abī Ṭālib (d. 437/1045) has al-Kashf ʿan wujūh al-qirāʾāt al-sabʿ in two large parts, investigating the grounds and proofs of the readings exhaustively — a fine and delightful work. Abū ʿAmr al-Dānī (d. 444/1053) has al-Taysīr on the seven readings, al-Muḥkam on the pointing (naqṭ), and al-Muqniʿ on the orthography of the codices of the garrison cities — books of great authority in this field. Abū Muḥammad ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad ibn Saʿīd, known as Ibn Ḥazm al-Ẓāhirī al-Andalusī (d. 456/1064), has a treatise on the well-known readings transmitted by uninterrupted concurrence. Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Ṭūsī (d. 460/1067) has, in the introduction to his exegesis al-Tibyān, weighty inquiries into the various concerns of the Qurʾān, in which he demolished the alleged claim of textual corruption (taḥrīf) and exposed as counterfeit its attribution to the innocent Imāmiyya, and investigated other concerns in the light of sound demonstration. The preacher (khaṭīb) al-Nīsābūrī, al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Khuzāʿī (d. in the latter part of the century), has a book on the inimitability of the Qurʾān. Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad al-Wāḥidī (d. 468/1076) has Asbāb al-nuzūl, Faḍāʾil al-Qurʾān, and The Denial of Taḥrīf in the Qurʾān, besides other treatises in which he investigated the concerns of the Qurʾān. Abū Bakr ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Jurjānī (d. 471/1078) has Asrār al-balāgha and Dalāʾil al-iʿjāz, and a third, al-Shāfiya, in which he followed the way of the challenge (taḥaddī) that lays bare the Arabs’ incapacity to match the Qurʾān. Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Shurayḥ al-Ruʿaynī (d. 476/1083), one of the notables of Seville, abridged the al-Ḥujja of Abū ʿAlī al-Fārisī, and has the book al-Kāfī on the readings. Abū Maʿshar ʿAbd al-Karīm ibn ʿAbd al-Ṣamad al-Ṭabarī (d. 478/1085) has the book al-Talkhīṣ on the eight readings — adding the reading of Yaʿqūb — together with works on the pause, on the codices, and on the number of the verses, among others. Abū al-Qāsim al-Ḥusayn ibn Muḥammad al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī (d. 502/1108) has al-Mufradāt fī gharīb al-Qurʾān, in which he achieved rare and admirable things; and he has also al-Muqaddima, in which he investigated the various concerns of the Qurʾān, above all the inquiries pertaining to exegesis, its conditions and its proprieties — a fine and delightful book, standing as an introduction to his comprehensive exegesis. Abū al-Qāsim Maḥmūd ibn Ḥamza al-Kirmānī (d. towards 505/1111) has the book Asrār al-tikrār fī l-Qurʾān, the book ʿAjāʾib al-Qurʾān, and Lubāb al-taʾwīl. And Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111) has Jawāhir al-Qurʾān, in which he investigated the bond between the Qurʾān, the human sciences, and the secrets of nature — besides the chapter he devoted in his Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn to the concerns of the Qurʾān.

In the sixth century, Abū Muḥammad al-Qāsim ibn ʿAlī al-Ḥarīrī (d. 516/1122) composed his book on the difficulties of the iʿrāb of the Qurʾān. Muḥammad ibn Barakāt ibn Hilāl the grammarian (d. 520/1126) has al-Ījāz on knowing the abrogating from the abrogated. Abū al-ʿIzz Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Wāsiṭī al-Qalānisī (d. 521/1127) has Kifāyat al-mubtadī on the ten readings, and The Divergences of the Reciters of the Ḥijāz, Syria, and Iraq. Abū al-Faḍl Muḥammad ibn Abī al-Qāsim, known as Zayn al-Mashāyikh (d. 562/1167), of the pupils of al-Zamakhsharī, has the book al-Tanbīh on the inimitability of the Qurʾān. Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn ʿUbayd Allāh al-Zāghūnī (d. 527/1133) has al-Wujūh wa-l-naẓāʾir fī l-Qurʾān. ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Bāqūlī al-Iṣfahānī (d. towards 543/1148) has the book Kashf al-mushkilāt ʿan al-Qurʾān and al-Bayān fī shawāhid al-Qurʾān. The master of letters and rhetoric, Jār Allāh al-Zamakhsharī (d. 538/1144), has a concise exegesis of Sūrat al-Kawthar, in which he displayed the eminence of this majestic portion of the speech of God, the August, the All-laudable — and he informed and excelled, as in the rest of his precious compositions whose fame has flown through the horizons; al-ʿAllāma al-Ṭabrisī epitomized it, after his habit, in a compact exposition. Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh, known as Ibn al-ʿArabī (d. 543/1148), has Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, printed in four volumes. The judge Abū al-Faḍl ʿIyāḍ ibn Mūsā al-Yaḥṣubī (d. 544/1149) has a treatise doing full justice to the establishment of the Qurʾān’s inimitability. The judge Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq ibn Ghālib ibn ʿAṭiyya al-Andalusī (d. 546/1151) has an ample inquiry into the various concerns of the Qurʾān in the introduction to his exegesis al-Muḥarrar al-wajīz. Amīn al-Islām Abū ʿAlī al-Faḍl ibn al-Ḥasan al-Ṭabrisī (d. 548/1153) has varied studies of the concerns of the Qurʾān, which he set in the introduction to his exegesis Majmaʿ al-bayān. Abū al-Faḍl Ḥubaysh ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad al-Tiflīsī (d. 558/1163) has Wujūh al-Qurʾān, in Persian. Abū al-Ḥasan Ẓahīr al-Dīn ʿAlī ibn Zayd al-Bayhaqī al-Anṣārī, known as Farīd Khurāsān (d. 565/1170), has Asʾilat al-Qurʾān maʿa l-ajwiba on the ambiguous verses, Iʿjāz al-Qurʾān, and Qarāʾin āyāt al-Qurʾān; and he has an elegant commentary on the Nahj al-balāgha entitled Maʿārij Nahj al-balāgha. Quṭb al-Dīn Abū al-Ḥusayn Saʿīd ibn Hibat Allāh al-Rāwandī (d. 573/1177) is the first of our Imāmī scholars to compose on the jurisprudence of the Qurʾān (fiqh al-Qurʾān) and to expound the discussion of the legal verses in a manner ordered upon the chapters of jurisprudence, each verse set under the heading of its ruling — an arrangement easing the student’s way to what the Qurʾān contains on each question in particular; and those of our jurists who wrote on the legal verses after him proceeded on his pattern. (What Muḥammad ibn al-Sāʾib al-Kalbī and ʿAbbād ibn ʿAbbās al-Ṭālaqānī had written earlier on the legal verses followed the general method and was not so arranged.) Abū al-Barakāt ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad ibn Saʿīd al-Anbārī (d. 577/1181) has al-Bayān on the iʿrāb of the rare words of the Qurʾān, printed in two volumes, and The Wonders of the Sciences of the Qurʾān. Abū al-Qāsim ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, known as al-Suhaylī (d. 581/1185), the author of al-Rawḍ al-unuf, composed on the unnamed persons of the Qurʾān: al-Taʿrīf wa-l-iʿlām bi-mā ubhima fī l-Qurʾān min al-asmāʾ wa-l-aʿlām. Rashīd al-Dīn Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Shahrāshūb (d. 588/1192), the pupil of Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāwandī, composed his precious book Mutashābihāt al-Qurʾān in two parts — the finest book in its field. Abū Muḥammad al-Qāsim ibn Fīrruh al-Shāṭibī (d. 590/1194) composed his famous ode on the readings, Ḥirz al-amānī wa-wajh al-tahānī, known as al-Shāṭibiyya. Abū al-Faraj ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAlī, known as Ibn al-Jawzī (d. 597/1201), composed Funūn al-afnān fī ʿajāʾib ʿulūm al-Qurʾān and al-Mujtabā on sciences pertaining to the Qurʾān. And the Imam al-Rāzī, the author of the great exegesis (d. 606/1209), has a valuable book on the inimitability of the Qurʾān.

In the seventh century, Abū al-Baqāʾ ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ḥusayn al-ʿUkbarī (d. 616/1219) composed his valuable book on the iʿrāb of the Qurʾān, Imlāʾ mā manna bihi l-Raḥmān, on the modes of iʿrāb and the readings — a fine and pleasing book uniting concision and sufficiency. Muḥammad ibn Sulaymān al-Zuhrī (d. 617/1220) has al-Bayān on the unnamed persons of the Qurʾān. Muḥammad ibn Abī al-Faraj al-Mawṣilī (d. 621/1224) has Nubdhat al-murīd, on the science of tajwīd. Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Surāqa (d. 622/1225) has Amthāl al-Qurʾān. Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Khīmī (d. 642/1244) has Amthāl al-Qurʾān. Al-Ḥusayn ibn Abī al-ʿIzz al-Hamadānī (d. 643/1245) has the book al-Farīd on the iʿrāb of the Glorious Qurʾān. ʿAlam al-Dīn ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Sakhāwī (d. 643/1245) has Jamāl al-qurrāʾ wa-kamāl al-iqrāʾ. Abū al-Qāsim Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh (d. towards 650/1252), the pupil of Sharaf al-Dīn Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn al-Mufaḍḍal al-Maqdisī, composed a concise treatise comprising the tribal dialects occurring in the Qurʾān — a pleasing piece, which Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī epitomized in the thirty-seventh “type” of his al-Itqān. Kamāl al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Wāḥid ibn ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Zamalkānī (d. 651/1253) has the book al-Burhān, disclosing the aspects of the Qurʾān’s inimitability. Ibn Abī al-Iṣbaʿ ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm ibn ʿAbd al-Wāḥid (d. 654/1256) has Badīʿ al-Qurʾān, a pleasing work expounding the kinds of rhetorical embellishment occurring in the Qurʾān, and the book Amthāl al-Qurʾān. Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn ʿAbd al-Salām, famed as al-ʿIzz (d. 660/1262), has a book on the figurative usage (majāz) of the Qurʾān. The exemplar of the gnostics, Raḍī al-Dīn Abū al-Qāsim ʿAlī ibn Mūsā ibn Jaʿfar ibn Ṭāwūs (d. 664/1266), composed his enduring, tradition-founded book Saʿd al-suʿūd: small in bulk, great in profit — in truth a technical inventory of all that had been composed in the exegesis of the Qurʾān and its history down to his time; it has been translated into several languages, and this book has been our ample fund for the knowledge of many books and authors, with a pearl of his own creative exposition. Abū Shāma Shihāb al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Ismāʿīl (d. 665/1267) has the book al-Murshid al-wajīz fī mā yataʿallaq bi-l-Qurʾān al-ʿazīz. Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr al-Rāzī (d. 666/1268) has Asʾilat al-Qurʾān al-majīd wa-ajwibatuhā, containing one thousand two hundred questions and answers on the singular points of the Qurʾān’s verses. Jamāl al-Dīn Aḥmad ibn Mūsā ibn Jaʿfar ibn Ṭāwūs al-Ḥillī (d. 673/1275) has the book Shawāhid al-Qurʾān in two volumes. Yaḥyā ibn Sharaf al-Nawawī (d. 676/1277) has the book al-Tibyān fī ādāb ḥamalat al-Qurʾān. And Ibn al-Naqīb, Jamāl al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Sulaymān ibn al-Ḥasan (d. 698/1299), has an expansive book on the exegesis of the ambiguous verses of the Qurʾān.

In the eighth century, Ibn al-Zubayr, Aḥmad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Thaqafī (d. 708/1308), composed his book al-Burhān on the correspondence of the ordering of the sūras of the Qurʾān. Sulaymān ibn ʿAbd al-Qawī ibn ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Ṣarṣarī al-Ṭūfī al-Baghdādī (d. 716/1316) composed al-Iksīr fī ʿilm al-tafsīr, in which he addressed the various concerns of the Noble Qurʾān, its exegesis, and its interpretation. Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Sharīshī al-Fāsī, famed as al-Kharrāz (d. 718/1318), composed his well-known rhymed poem Mawrid al-ẓamʾān on the orthography of the letters of the Qurʾān according to the reading of Nāfiʿ; it became, and remains, an object of the scholars’ attention. Muḥammad ibn al-Muṭahhar ibn Yaḥyā al-Zaydī (d. 728/1328) has a versification of the abrogating and abrogated in the Qurʾān, setting in verse what Abū al-Qāsim Hibat Allāh ibn Salāma (d. 410/1019) had recorded, then commenting on it and clarifying its materials. Ibn Taymiyya, Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm ibn ʿAbd al-Salām al-Ḥarrānī al-Dimashqī (d. 728/1328), has a concise introduction to the principles of exegesis, and al-Tibyān fī nuzūl al-Qurʾān, and al-Iklīl fī l-mutashābih wa-l-taʾwīl. Al-Sayyid Muḥammad ibn Idrīs al-Ṣanʿānī (d. 730/1330) has a treatise on the abrogating and the abrogated which he named al-Durra al-muḍīʾa fī l-āyāt al-mansūkha al-fiqhiyya. Burhān al-Dīn Ibrāhīm ibn ʿUmar al-Jaʿbarī (d. 732/1332) has a rhymed poem setting out the Meccan and Medinan sūras and verses, and Kanz al-maʿānī fī sharḥ Ḥirz al-amānī — one of the fullest commentaries on the Shāṭibiyya. Ibn Jamāʿa, Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm (d. 733/1333), composed the book Kashf al-maʿānī fī l-mutashābih al-mathānī. Hibat Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥīm al-Bārizī al-Ḥamawī (d. 738/1338) has Badīʿ al-Qurʾān and The Abrogating and Abrogated of the Qurʾān. The Amīr Yaḥyā ibn Ḥamza al-ʿAlawī al-Zaydī (d. 745/1344) composed his valuable book al-Ṭirāz, comprising the secrets of eloquence and the sciences of the realities of iʿjāz, in three volumes. Abū Ḥayyān Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf al-Andalusī (d. 745/1344) has Tuḥfat al-arīb bi-mā fī l-Qurʾān min al-gharīb and other treatises on the readings. Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn al-Labbān (d. 749/1348) has Mutashābih al-Qurʾān wa-l-ḥadīth. Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr (d. 751/1350), has al-Tibyān fī aqsām al-Qurʾān, Amthāl al-Qurʾān, and Aʿlām al-muwaqqiʿīn. Ibn Hishām al-Anṣārī, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Yūsuf ibn Aḥmad, the author of Mughnī al-labīb (d. 761/1360), has a book on the iʿrāb of passages of the Qurʾān. Abū al-Fidāʾ Ismāʿīl ibn ʿUmar, known as Ibn Kathīr al-Dimashqī (d. 774/1373), has a treatise on the excellences of the Qurʾān in which he investigated its various concerns. Ibn al-ʿAtāʾiqī, Kamāl al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad al-Ḥillī (d. 781/1379), has a book on the abrogating and the abrogated. And the Imam Badr al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Zarkashī (d. 794/1392) has his precious book al-Burhān fī ʿulūm al-Qurʾān, whose like was never written, and which became the exemplar for all who came after; he framed it upon forty-seven “types,” in which he gathered up the arts of this science — and he informed and excelled.

In the ninth century comes the learned man of letters Sirāj al-Dīn ʿUmar ibn ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad al-Anṣārī al-Andalusī, known as Ibn al-Mulaqqin (d. 804/1401), writing on the exegesis of the rare words of the Qurʾān — a pleasing work in which he covered every side of the subject and left no stray point ungathered. Abū Zurʿa al-ʿIrāqī, ʿAbd al-Raḥīm ibn al-Ḥusayn (d. 826/1423), versified his alfiyya on the exegesis of the rare words of the Qurʾān. Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Samhūdī, known as Ibn al-Qaṭṭān (d. 813/1410), has a book on the seven readings. Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Maqdisī, known as Ibn al-Hāʾim (d. 815/1412), has al-Tibyān fī tafsīr gharīb al-Qurʾān. The great philologist Majd al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb al-Fīrūzābādī, author of al-Qāmūs al-muḥīṭ (d. 817/1415), has a fine and pleasing work investigating the various concerns of the Noble Qurʾān with detail and depth, which he named Baṣāʾir dhawī l-tamyīz fī laṭāʾif al-Kitāb al-ʿazīz — a comprehensive, encompassing book in six volumes, useful and of great profit. Jalāl al-Dīn al-Bulqīnī, Abū al-Faḍl ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿUmar ibn Ruslān al-Kinānī al-ʿAsqalānī (d. 824/1421), has the book Mawāqiʿ al-ʿulūm min mawāqiʿ al-nujūm, which he framed upon six divisions, each division containing types varying in number, the sum of the types being fifty, in which he investigated the various concerns of the Noble Qurʾān. (Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī at first took this book as a comprehensive groundwork for the arts of this science, revising and refining it in a book he named al-Taḥbīr fī ʿulūm al-tafsīr, in one hundred and two types, which he finished in the year 872/1468.) In this century, too, the eminent and erudite al-Fāḍil al-Suyūrī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Miqdād ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥillī al-Asadī (d. 826/1423), composed his precious book Kanz al-ʿirfān fī fiqh al-Qurʾān. Abū al-Khayr Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Jazarī, of Shiraz and then Damascus (d. 833/1429), left his enduring monument al-Nashr fī l-qirāʾāt al-ʿashr in two massive volumes — a rich work, unique in its field; and he has other valuable books on the subject in which he displayed his mastery and the breadth of his reach, such as Taḥbīr al-Taysīr, al-Durra al-muḍiyya, Munjid al-muqriʾīn, and Murshid al-ṭālibīn; among the greatest of them is Ghāyat al-nihāya fī ṭabaqāt al-qurrāʾ, a useful, comprehensive book in two large volumes; and he has a treatise on the inimitability. Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Saʿīd al-Baḥrānī, known as Ibn al-Mutawwaj (d. towards 820/1417), one of the notables of the Imāmiyya, a contemporary and pupil of al-Shahīd al-Awwal, has the book al-Nāsikh wa-l-mansūkh, which al-Sayyid ʿAbd al-Jalīl al-Ḥusaynī al-Qārī (d. 940/1534) commented upon and presented to the Amīr Aḥmad, ruler of Gīlān; Dr. Muḥammad Jaʿfar al-Islāmī, our contemporary, translated the whole into Persian under the supervision of Dr. al-Sayyid Muḥammad Mishkāt, and the collection was printed and published at Tehran. Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, Abū al-Faḍl Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad (d. 852/1449), has concise treatises on Qurʾānic subjects such as the occasions of revelation, the rare words of the Qurʾān, the excellences of the Qurʾān, and what occurs in the Qurʾān from other than the speech of the Arabs. Muḥammad ibn Sulaymān al-Kāfiyajī (d. 879/1474) has al-Taysīr fī qawāʿid ʿilm al-tafsīr. And Burhān al-Dīn Ibrāhīm ibn ʿUmar al-Biqāʿī (d. 885/1480) has the book al-Ḍawābiṭ wa-l-ishārāt li-ajzāʾ ʿilm al-qirāʾāt and al-Qawl al-mufīd fī uṣūl ʿilm al-tajwīd; and, most important, his exegesis of the Qurʾān addressing the correspondence of the verses and the sūras, which he named Naẓm al-durar fī tanāsub al-āy wa-l-suwar, of large compass, and his other book Maṣāʿid al-naẓar lil-ishrāf ʿalā maqāṣid al-suwar — in both of which he brought forth subtleties the Qurʾān holds in its recesses.

In the tenth century comes the turn of the great ʿallāma, the champion of this field, the Imam and ḥāfiẓ Jalāl al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, son of the ʿallāma Kamāl al-Dīn al-Khuḍayrī, al-Suyūṭī (d. 911/1505), publishing precious works in ḥadīth, exegesis, and the sciences of the Qurʾān. Among the most important of his compositions in exegesis is al-Durr al-manthūr, and in the sciences of the Qurʾān al-Itqān; by these two his fame took wing and his rank rose high in the world of Islam. As we have noted, he began with the book of al-Bulqīnī, revising and refining it; but thereafter he came upon the al-Burhān of the Imam Badr al-Dīn al-Zarkashī, judged it excellent, and found it the best that had been composed in this field. So he turned his attention to its revision and redaction, to build upon it his enduring book, rich with the arts of this science — al-Itqān — which he framed upon eighty types. It was the seal of the expansive compositions upon this admirable, comprehensive pattern; the later centuries permitted no more than treatises and epitomes handling this or that side of the concerns of the Qurʾān. As for the rest of his books, they are: al-Taḥbīr fī ʿilm al-tafsīr — the refinement of al-Bulqīnī’s Mawāqiʿ al-ʿulūm — and Muʿtarak al-aqrān fī iʿjāz al-Qurʾān, and Lubāb al-nuqūl fī asbāb al-nuzūl, and Mufḥamāt al-aqrān fī mubhamāt al-Qurʾān, and al-Muhadhdhab on the Arabicized loanwords occurring in the Qurʾān, and al-Mutawakkilī on the [foreign] tongues occurring in the Qurʾān, which he presented to the ʿAbbāsid caliph ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Yaʿqūb al-Mutawakkil ʿalā Allāh (d. 903/1497), and Qaṭf al-azhār on the exposition of the secrets of the revelation, and Tanāsuq al-durar fī tanāsub al-āy wa-l-suwar, and al-Iklīl fī istinbāṭ al-tanzīl, and Marāṣid al-maṭāliʿ fī tanāsub al-maqāṭiʿ wa-l-maṭāliʿ, and Khamāʾil al-zahr fī faḍāʾil al-suwar, and the commentary on the Shāṭibiyya, among others.

Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Miknāsī (d. 919/1513) has the book Inshād al-sharīd on the orthography of the Qurʾān. The judge Zakariyyā ibn Muḥammad al-Anṣārī (d. 926/1520) has the book Fatḥ al-Raḥmān bi-kashf mā yaltabis fī l-Qurʾān. Abū ʿAbd Allāh Jamāl al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Saʿīd al-Makkī (d. 930/1524) has the book al-Iḥsān fī ʿulūm al-Qurʾān. Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Qasṭallānī, author of the great commentary on al-Bukhārī (d. 923/1517), has a beautiful book on the readings which he named Laṭāʾif al-ishārāt li-funūn al-qirāʾāt. Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā al-Ḥalabī al-Tādhifī (d. 963/1556) has the book al-Qawl al-mudhahhab fī bayān mā fī l-Qurʾān min al-Rūmī al-muʿarrab — apparently drawn from al-Muhadhdhab of Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī. Aḥmad ibn Aḥmad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Ṭībī (d. 981/1573) has his enduring rhymed poem on the readings, with his own commentary upon it. And al-Mawlā Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad, famed as al-Muqaddas al-Ardabīlī (d. 993/1585), has his precious book Zubdat al-bayān fī aḥkām al-Qurʾān, a scholarly composition set upon the foundation of verification and precision.

In the eleventh century, the judge, the Imam and ḥāfiẓ Abū al-Faḍl ʿIyāḍ ibn Mūsā al-Yaḥṣubī, the author of al-Shifā bi-taʿrīf ḥuqūq al-Muṣṭafā (d. 1014/1605 [sic]),³³ wrote his Ḥadath al-amānī, a commentary on the Ḥirz al-amānī, and al-Fayḍ al-samāwī on the sourcing of the readings cited by al-Bayḍāwī, and al-Minaḥ al-fikriyya, a commentary on the Jazariyya introduction, and other works on the various concerns of the Noble Qurʾān. Sayf al-Dīn ibn ʿAṭāʾ Allāh al-Baṣrī (d. 1020/1611) has, on the readings, al-Uṣūl al-mukhtaṣara and al-Jawāhir al-muḍīʾa. The accomplished jurist Marʿī ibn Yūsuf ibn Abī Bakr al-Karmī al-Maqdisī (d. 1033/1624) has the book Qalāʾid al-marjān fī l-nāsikh wa-l-mansūkh min al-Qurʾān and al-Āyāt al-muḥkamāt wa-l-mutashābihāt. ʿAbd al-Wāḥid ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿĀshir al-Anṣārī al-Fāsī al-Andalusī (d. 1040/1631) has the book Fatḥ al-Mannān, a fine commentary on the Mawrid al-ẓamʾān; and since that rhymed poem was confined to the reading of Nāfiʿ, Ibn ʿĀshir completed it for the orthography of the remaining of the seven Imams, naming his completion al-Iʿlān bi-takmīl al-Ẓamʾān. Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-ʿAwfī (d. towards 1050/1640) has al-Jawāhir al-mukallala and Baḥr al-maʿānī on the readings, and al-Jawāhir al-yamāniyya on the ʿUthmānic orthography. Al-Mawlā Ṣadr al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Shīrāzī (d. 1050/1640) has his concise treatise on the ambiguous verses of the Qurʾān, written in the light of the philosophy of Illumination. Al-Mawlā Muḥsin al-Fayḍ al-Kāshānī (d. 1091/1680), the great ʿallāma and expert traditionist, author of numerous delightful and useful compositions in the various fields of the Islamic sciences, set in the introduction to his precious exegesis al-Ṣāfī twelve “arts” (fann) of thorough inquiry into weighty aspects of the concerns of the Qurʾān. Al-Fāḍil al-Jawād al-Kāẓimī, one of the notables of the eleventh century, has his precious book Aḥkām al-Qurʾān. And ʿImād al-Dīn ʿAlī ibn Maḥmūd, known as ʿImād al-Dīn Sharaf al-Qārī al-Astarābādī, one of the notables of the eleventh century (he died in its closing years), has his precious book Irshād al-adhhān ilā tajwīd al-Qurʾān, and al-Tuḥfa al-Shāhiyya, which he presented to Shāh Ṭahmāsp the Ṣafavid, and books on the principles of the readings of Abū ʿAmr, Ḥamza, al-Kisāʾī, and Nāfiʿ, among other principles of the readings according to the transmissions of the masters. He was reckoned the pride of his age in the art of the readings and tajwīd and the rest of the sciences of the Qurʾān, and has excellent compositions along this path.

In the twelfth century, al-Sayyid Hāshim ibn Sulaymān al-Ḥusaynī al-Baḥrānī (d. 1107/1696) prefaced his tradition-based exegesis al-Burhān with a discussion of a portion of the concerns of the Noble Qurʾān in a series of prefatory chapters. Al-Mawlā Muḥammad Bāqir al-Majlisī the Great (d. 1110/1699) devoted, of his vast ḥadīth encyclopaedia Biḥār al-anwār — which exceeds a hundred volumes — two volumes (89 and 90 of the Beirut printing) to the investigation of the various concerns of the Noble Qurʾān in the light of the school of the Ahl al-Bayt (ʿa), with a critique of contrary opinions; he settled the questions that had been raised in this field, and reproduced a debate that passed between one of the heretics (zanādiqa) and the Imam Amīr al-Muʾminīn (ʿa), acquaintance with which is rewarding. This is besides his prefacing every chapter of his Biḥār with a cluster of Qurʾānic verses bearing on its subject, chosen with surpassing exactness and out of encompassing command — thereby producing the first classification of the verses by their several subjects.

Shihāb al-Dīn Ibn al-Bannāʾ Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Dimyāṭī (d. 1117/1705) composed his book Itḥāf fuḍalāʾ al-bashar fī l-qirāʾāt al-arbaʿat ʿashar. Al-Mawlā Abū al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad Ṭāhir ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd al-Nabāṭī al-Fatūnī (d. 1138/1726) has the book Mirʾāt al-anwār wa-mishkāt al-asrār, which he set upon three prefaces, each preface containing discourses varying in number, and beneath every discourse chapters likewise varying in number — the sum of the chapters in which he spoke of the concerns of the Qurʾān being fifty-five. In the second discourse of the third preface he undertook the interpretation of words occurring in the Qurʾān, arranged alphabetically, their number approaching a thousand, treating of their interpretation one by one; and he set the conclusion of his book upon eight “benefits.” ʿAbd al-Ghanī ibn Ismāʿīl al-Nābulusī (d. 1143/1731) has the book al-Qawl al-qāsim fī qirāʾat Ḥafṣ ʿan ʿĀṣim, in which he set forth the ground of its preference over the other readings. Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr Sājaqlī-zāda al-Marʿashī (d. 1145/1732) has the book Nahr al-najāt on the exposition of the ambiguous verses of the Book. Al-Shaykh Muṣṭafā ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Izmīrī (d. 1155/1742) has the book Badāʾiʿ al-burhān on the description of the letters of the Qurʾān. Al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad al-Manṭāwī (d. 1170/1757) has Itḥāf fuḍalāʾ al-umma on the seven readings. And al-Shaykh ʿAṭiyya al-Ujhūrī (d. 1190/1776) has the book Irshād al-Raḥmān on the occasions of revelation, the abrogating and the abrogated, the unequivocal and the ambiguous, and the principles of the science of tajwīd.

In the thirteenth century, al-Waḥīd al-Bihbahānī, al-Mawlā Muḥammad Bāqir ibn Muḥammad Akmal, known as al-Ustādh al-Akbar (d. 1206/1791), composed his treatise of verification on the probative authority of the apparent meanings of the Book (ḥujjiyyat ẓawāhir al-Kitāb). Al-Mawlā Muḥammad Jaʿfar ibn Sayf al-Dīn al-Astarābādī (d. 1263/1847) has Ḥall mashākil al-Qurʾān. The seal of the jurists, al-Shaykh Murtaḍā ibn Muḥammad Amīn al-Anṣārī (d. 1281/1864), has a treatise on the probative authority of the apparent meanings of the Book. And al-Mawlā Muḥammad Taqī al-Harawī al-Iṣbahānī (d. 1299/1882) has Khulāṣat al-bayān fī ḥall mushkilāt al-Qurʾān.

In the fourteenth century, al-Mīrzā Muḥammad ibn Sulaymān al-Tunikābunī (d. 1302/1885) composed his book Ḥujjiyyat al-qirāʾāt al-sabʿ and Ḥujjiyyat ẓawāhir al-Kitāb. Al-Mawlā Muḥammad Taqī ibn Muḥammad Ḥusayn al-Kāshānī (d. towards 1321/1903) has the book Īḍāḥ al-mushtabihāt on the exegesis of the difficult passages of the Qurʾān.

And in this most recent century a great number of scholars have turned to composing books and treatises on the history of the Qurʾān, its sciences, and its other concerns. Thus al-Sayyid Aḥmad Ḥusayn ibn Raḥīm ʿAlī al-Amrūhī (d. 1348/1929) has the book Manāhij al-ʿirfān fī ʿulūm al-Qurʾān; and al-Shaykh Muḥammad ʿAlī Salāma composed Manhaj al-Furqān fī ʿulūm al-Qurʾān; and Muḥammad Ghawth al-Nāʾiṭī has Nathr al-marjān fī rasm al-Qurʾān in seven volumes; and Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad al-Mārghinī al-Tūnisī has the book Dalīl al-ḥayrān ʿalā Mawrid al-ẓamʾān — a commentary on the rhymed poem of al-Kharrāz on the orthography of the codex according to the reading of Nāfiʿ — which he completed with his further commentary, on the al-Iʿlān bi-takmīl Mawrid al-ẓamʾān of Ibn ʿĀshir al-Andalusī, for the remaining readings, naming it Tanbīh al-khillān; he finished the two commentaries in the closing part of the year 1350/1931. The Ustādh Muḥammad ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm al-Zurqānī has Manāhil al-ʿirfān fī ʿulūm al-Qurʾān. The verifying scholar al-Mawlā Ḥaydar-Qulī ibn Nūr Muḥammad, known as Sardār Kābulī, has Tuḥfat al-aḥbāb on the exposition of the verses of the Qurʾān and its sūras, the Meccan and the Medinan, and other matters. Dr. Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh Darrāz has al-Nabaʾ al-ʿaẓīm: new perspectives on the Qurʾān. The ʿallāma al-Sayyid Hibat al-Dīn al-Shahrastānī has Iʿjāz al-Qurʾān and Tanzīh al-tanzīl. The Ustādh Muḥammad al-Ghazālī has Naẓarāt fī l-Qurʾān. The verifying Ustādh al-Shaykh Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Zanjānī has Tārīkh al-Qurʾān. The eminent Ustādh Muṣṭafā Ṣādiq al-Rāfiʿī has Iʿjāz al-Qurʾān. Al-Shaykh Khalīl Yāsīn al-ʿĀmilī has Aḍwāʾ ʿalā mutashābihāt al-Qurʾān, containing a thousand questions and answers. Dr. Ṣubḥī al-Ṣāliḥ has Mabāḥith fī ʿulūm al-Qurʾān. The Ustādh Sayyid Quṭb has al-Taṣwīr al-fannī fī l-Qurʾān and Mashāhid al-qiyāma fī l-Qurʾān. Dr. ʿAbd Allāh Maḥmūd Shiḥāta has The Aims and Purposes of Every Sūra. The mujāhid Imam, al-ʿAllāma al-Shaykh Muḥammad Jawād al-Balāghī, set at the head of his exegesis Ālāʾ al-Raḥmān a lofty introduction containing the most important Qurʾānic inquiries, bringing to them fresh perspectives with which acquaintance is a necessity; this introduction has also been printed together with the exegesis of al-Sayyid ʿAbd Allāh Shubbar. The eminent authority of religion (marjaʿ al-dīn) the greatest, our master the Imam al-Khūʾī — may his shade endure — set in his book of exegesis, al-Bayān, ample chapters in which he verified weighty aspects of the concerns of the Qurʾān, of standing value and great effect in the present learned circles; no researcher can dispense with recourse to them. And his eminence the great ʿallāma al-Sayyid Muḥammad Ḥusayn al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī has Qurʾān dar Islām (“The Qurʾān in Islam”), a study rich in the most important Qurʾānic questions, besides the inquiries with which he has adorned his precious exegesis al-Mīzān.

This is but a drop in the ocean (ghayḍun min fayḍ); I have not pursued the books composed on the sciences of the Qurʾān exhaustively, but only the generality of the well-known ones — enough, however, to display the prodigious labours our eminent scholars have expended upon the study of this sacred, everlasting Book, and the depth of their concern for its precious cause, through their long endeavours and their profound treatments of its far-reaching and manifold concerns.

From the twelfth century [of the Hijra] onward, the scholars of Europe kept pace with the scholars of Islam in research and inquiry into the concerns of the Qurʾān from various sides: they began to investigate its history, the books composed upon it, its exegesis, and the like. And about the middle of the fourteenth century Germany undertook a great and praiseworthy work: the learned academy at Munich devoted special care to the Noble Qurʾān and gathered all the sources bearing on the Qurʾān and its sciences that could be obtained. This charge was entrusted to Professor Bergsträsser, who had begun the work in his lifetime; when he died in the year 1352/1933, the academy committed the continuation of the project to the scholar Otto Pretzl, professor of the Arabic language at Munich. This professor sent to the Arab Academy of Damascus a letter in which he says:

“We have resolved, for the convenience of those who love learning, to record every verse of the Noble Qurʾān on a special plate containing the various forms of orthography that we have found in the different codices, with an account of the divergent readings that we have come upon in the diverse texts, followed by the numerous interpretations that have appeared down the ages and through the succession of the centuries.”

And it set about publishing the most important books composed on the Qurʾān: the book al-Taysīr on the seven readings by Abū ʿAmr al-Dānī; his book al-Muqniʿ on the orthography of the codices of the garrison cities, together with his book al-Naqṭ; the book Mukhtaṣar al-shawādhdh [fī l-qirāʾāt] of Ibn Khālawayh; the book al-Muḥtasab of Ibn Jinnī; the book Ghāyat al-nihāya fī ṭabaqāt al-qurrāʾ of Shams al-Dīn ibn al-Jazarī; the book Maʿānī al-Qurʾān of al-Farrāʾ; and a treatise on the history of the sciences of the Qurʾān in the German language, containing the names of the compositions on the sciences of the Qurʾān existing in the world’s regions and libraries.

These pieces of information were supplied by the excellency of the Ustādh al-Shaykh Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Zanjānī in his concise book Tārīkh al-Qurʾān; he was a member of the Arab Academy of Damascus. But the flame that was on the point of blazing up and spreading was surprised by a bitter extinction, in the train of the outbreak of the fires of the cruel Second World War, at the hands of Germany herself (1360/1941) — what a loss it was!

For my own part, from the time I first learned to read I was enamoured of the study of the concerns of the Noble Qurʾān and the perusal of the books composed on its various manifold aspects, and I found in this a surpassing pleasure and delight — until I had plunged into its depths and found it to be a pressing Islamic necessity, which every Muslim must come to know if he would ascertain the strongest pillar of this upright religion. So I set myself to study its concerns with exactness and care, and to record from my readings notes whenever I found fault with an opinion, or admired a viewpoint, or verified the truth of some subject.

And now — by the grace of God — there has accumulated with me of those notes a great store; so I sat down to their arrangement and ordering, and behold, they were fit for the composition of a book comprising parts and chapters on the varied Qurʾānic inquiries. I have named it al-Tamhīd (“The Prolegomenon”), because I have made of these inquiries a kind of introduction to my exegesis al-Wasīṭ. I ask Him, the Most High, to grant me success in completing it, and that I may have served my Muslim generation with fresh perspectives on the Noble Qurʾān which the researcher will scarcely find in any other compendium, or would come at only with difficulty, buried as they are in the folds of books of great bulk, or beyond the reach of the seeker.

What strengthened my resolve to carry through this modest work is that I perceived a void in the library of the Ṭāʾifa in our present age — rich though it was in former days — as regards a full treatment of the Qurʾānic researches, apart from a few studies handling this or that side of the concerns of the Noble Qurʾān; the remaining sides — and they are many — lie languishing in obscurity, and the researcher will not find them should he attempt to survey the legacy of the Ṭāʾifa in the light of the school of the Ahl al-Bayt (ʿa).

I therefore set about pursuing the transmitted materials and the opinions and subjecting them to an objective criticism, testing them against established historical texts and against narrations transmitted by uninterrupted concurrence or ringed about with decisive corroborations. In the course of the inquiries to come we shall see how researchers have stumbled for want of criticism and sifting — the penalty of their haste in broadcasting a matter, or their partisanship for a school or a particular method in the verification of opinions and transmissions. I have not closed the file on any question without being assured of its soundness and satisfied of its authenticity, to the utmost of the effort I could expend upon it.

Nor did I neglect — throughout my years in Najaf al-Ashraf (1379–1391/1959–1971) and after the migration to the holy city of Qum (at the end of 1391/1971) — to deliver academic lectures to the students of the advanced religious institutes, giving them free scope for discussion and questioning, in fulfilment of the aim of complete verification of the theses I had newly formed, and to secure the concurrence of enlightened opinions upon every question on which I had resolved decisively.

To attain this end I would sometimes proceed to publish a book to which I attached an invitation to its honoured readers to favour me with whatever opinions and objections they might have, so as to draw the attention of my learned colleagues — in responsiveness to their precious thoughts, and in mutual understanding with them on the plane of upright criticism. To them, therefore, I offer my abundant thanks and continuing esteem for this generous and cordial responsiveness: may God reward them, on the Qurʾān’s behalf, with the best of rewards, and grant us all success in what pleases Him; He is a guardian all-powerful, and He it is who gives success and aid.

Muḥammad Hādī Maʿrifat
The blessed month of Ramaḍān, 1396 [September–October 1976]

The Sciences of the Qurʾān (ʿUlūm al-Qurʾān)

A term for questions that revolve around the various concerns of the Noble Qurʾān, each question investigating one of its concerns other than the one investigated by another; the questions thus turn upon sundry and varied subjects, each possessing its own particular subject-matter, with no bond between them except the general axis — the Noble Qurʾān. Hence they have become sciences, not a single science of one individual subject.

Take, for example, the inquiry into the readings: their origins, their variety, their restriction to seven, their uninterrupted transmission and their probative authority, and the like — all of these are inquiries turning upon a single subject, namely the reading, and the body of these inquiries constitutes a science on its own. There is no bond between them and the inquiries that turn upon the question of the abrogating and the abrogated in the Qurʾān; likewise the question of the ambiguous and the unequivocal in the Qurʾān, the question of the collection of the Qurʾān and its composition, the question of its inimitability, likewise the preservation of the Qurʾān from textual corruption — and so on down the line (wa-halumma jarrā). Every question is a science in its own right, with its own particular subject; what unites the whole is that they are inquiries into the varied concerns of the Qurʾān — so they were sciences, not one science, in view of the variety of the subjects without a common genus.

This stands in contrast to another term that has lately gained currency, namely maʿārif al-Qurʾān, “the teachings of the Qurʾān”: a body of inquiries turning upon subjects which the Qurʾān addresses in its own text — such as the question of God’s unity (tawḥīd) and the attributes, this life and the Return, the question of capacity (istiṭāʿa) and obligation (taklīf), compulsion and free choice, the question of good and evil, the laws and the ordinances, and reward and punishment, and other such questions that occur in the very text of the Qurʾān and have been investigated by the scholars and the discerning among the great exegetes. When these are investigated — whether in the aggregate or severally, each subject set apart in a topical study — that constitutes research into the teachings and the concepts of the Qurʾān; and it is an endeavour whose proper place is the world of exegesis and the presentation of the Qurʾān’s universal message, above all in this age, when the worlds thirst for the knowledge of the teachings of the Noble Qurʾān. We have set apart certain sides of this in our extensive comparative study in the book al-Tafsīr wa-l-mufassirūn (parts nine and ten of al-Tamhīd).

Since the questions of the sciences of the Qurʾān are inquiries into its various concerns, you should know that you cannot attain the realities of the Qurʾān’s meanings except by way of these inquiries, which are the principles and prolegomena that make it possible to reach that sought-for end. They are, moreover, foundational studies that play their basic part in making it possible to draw upon the Qurʾān at all. Thus, for instance, the inquiries into the probative authority of the apparent senses of the Qurʾān are what have opened for the jurist the road of derivation from the legal verses; so too the knowledge of the abrogating as against the abrogated, and of the ambiguous as against the unequivocal. Likewise the inquiries into the probative authority of the readings and their uninterrupted transmission play their momentous part in the knowledge of the wise Qurʾānic text; and of the same kind are the inquiries into the denial of any corruption of the Qurʾān, the question of its inimitability, and other questions, each of which has a part, which cannot be dispensed with, in the knowledge of the text. This is what has led us to place first the inquiry into the revelatory character (waḥyāniyya) of the Qurʾān — the foundation of all the questions.

The Derivation of the Word “Qurʾān”

“Al-Qurʾān” is a proper name for the Book that descended upon Muḥammad, the Messenger of God, that he might be a warner to all the nations. The word is purely Arabic, with a root in the language: from qaraʾa, yaqraʾu, qirāʾatan wa-qurʾānan.

The word carries the hamza, transformed from an originally weak root. Ibn Fāris said: the qāf, the rāʾ, and the weak radical are a sound root denoting gathering and collection. From it: al-qarya (village), so called from the gathering of the people in it. They say qaraytu l-māʾa fī l-miqrāh, “I gathered the water in the trough” — the gathered water itself is qarī, and the miqrāh is the great bowl, so named for the guests’ gathering around it, or for the food gathered in it. From this root is al-qarw: a well-known small trough stretched beside the great watering-trough, to which the camels come; and from it al-qarw in the sense of anything that runs upon a single course — you say, “I found the people upon a single qarw,” that is, of one accord. And from this root is al-qarā, the back, so named for the bones gathered in it; a she-camel qarwāʾ is one strong of back.

Now when this root is made to yield the hamza, it comes to the same as the first: they say mā qaraʾat hādhihi l-nāqatu salan qaṭṭ³⁴ — as though it meant: she has never enclosed a foetus. ʿAmr ibn Kulthūm says in his celebrated Muʿallaqa:

ذِراعَيْ عَيْطَلٍ أَدْماءَ بِكْرٍ — هِجانِ اللَّونِ لَمْ تَقْرَأْ جَنِينا
— the two forelegs of a long-necked, white, young she-camel, pure of colour, that has never gathered a foetus in her womb.

They said: and hence “al-Qurʾān,” as though it were so named for its gathering of what it contains of ordinances, narratives, and other matter.³⁵

And al-Khalīl ibn Aḥmad said: “I recited (qaraʾtu) the Qurʾān by heart, or looked into it… and so-and-so recited with a beautiful recitation; so the Qurʾān is a thing recited (maqrūʾ) and he is a reciter (qāriʾ).”³⁶

Al-Rāghib said: “Al-qirāʾa is the joining of the letters and the words one to another in measured recitation. Al-qurʾān is in origin a verbal noun, like kufrān and rujḥān [and ghufrān]. The Most High said: ‘Indeed it is up to Us to put it together and to recite it; and when We have recited it, follow its recitation’;³⁷ and it has been appropriated to the Book sent down upon Muḥammad (ṣ), so that it has become for it like a proper name — as al-Tawrāt for what was sent down upon Moses and al-Injīl for what was sent down upon Jesus (ʿa).”³⁸

The word possesses derivation within the language — a proof of its native standing, and that it is no loanword; otherwise its usages would not have come in such abundance and diversity in the Book itself:

“When you recite the Qurʾān, We draw between you and those who do not believe in the Hereafter a hidden curtain.” (17:45)³⁹

“When you recite the Qurʾān, seek the protection of Allah against the outcast Satan.” (16:98)⁴⁰

“We have sent the Qurʾān in [discrete] parts so that you may read it to the people a little at a time, and We have sent it down piecemeal.” (17:106)⁴¹

And He said, relating the speech of the Arabs: “And we will not believe your ascension until you bring down for us a book that we may read (naqraʾuhu)” (17:93);⁴² “ask those who read the Book [revealed] before you” (10:94);⁴³ “Read in the Name of your Lord who created” (96:1);⁴⁴ “So recite as much of the Qurʾān as is feasible” (73:20);⁴⁵ “We shall have you recite [the Qurʾān], then you will not forget [any of it]” (87:6).⁴⁶

Note, further, that the word is used in the Qurʾān as a verbal noun: “Indeed it is up to Us to put it together and to recite it (qurʾānahu); and when We have recited it, follow its recitation (qurʾānahu)” (75:17–18);⁴⁷ “and [observe particularly] the dawn recital (qurʾāna l-fajr); indeed the dawn recital is attended [by angels]” (17:78)⁴⁸ — that is, the recitation in the dawn prayer.

And in His words “We have sent the Qurʾān in [discrete] parts (wa-qurʾānan faraqnāhu) so that you may read it to the people a little at a time,” the Book is described by the verbal noun in the passive sense — the thing recited: the word is applied to the Book as a description, not as a proper name, unlike its occurrence made definite by the article. So too in His words “These are the signs of the Book and a manifest Qurʾān” (15:1),⁴⁹ and His words “Indeed We have sent it down as an Arabic Qurʾān so that you may apply reason” (12:2)⁵⁰ — that is, a thing recited in Arabic — and other verses besides.

This is the counterpart of its twin, “al-Furqān,” applied to the Qurʾān inasmuch as it is the separator of truth from falsehood — that by which the two are told apart: “Blessed is He who sent down the Criterion to His servant that he may be a warner to all the nations” (25:1);⁵¹ “The month of Ramaḍān is one in which the Qurʾān was sent down as guidance to mankind, with manifest proofs of guidance and the Criterion” (2:185)⁵² — that is, manifest proofs guiding to the truth and separating, that is, decisive between falsehood and right.

Al-Qurʾān, like al-Furqān, is thus a descriptive proper name for the Book of God, and both are of pure Arabic stock and derivation. From this you may judge the strangeness of what certain students of the East (the Orientalists) have alleged — that the word is derived from qeryānā, a Syriac word! In the Encyclopaedia Britannica it is stated: “The Qurʾān is the sacred book of the Muslims. The word is probably derived from the word qaraʾa, which is Syriac in its origin — namely qeryānā, that is, ‘the reading,’ as it was used in the Syriac church.”⁵³

But there is no room for this conjecture after what you have learned of the word’s Arabic character and its derivation within the language. As for the nearness or concurrence of word-forms and their counterparts in the other tongues, this is accounted for by the kinship in the roots of the Eastern languages, the Semitic ones above all — as with Hebrew and Arabic, where the close correspondence runs through most of their vocabulary. Such kinship of common descent leaves no room for the supposition of borrowing.

The Diction of the Qurʾān Is the Craft of Revelation

It is the explicit teaching of the precious Book, quite apart from the ḥadīth transmitted by uninterrupted concurrence, that the Qurʾān descended complete in wording and meaning: in its ordering and its arrangement, in every one of its sentences and expressions, it is the diction of revelation and the workmanship of Heaven. No other has any hand in it whatsoever — neither Gabriel the Trustworthy, nor the noble Prophet himself. There are numerous verses explicit on this point.

Among them is what declares outright that it is the speech of God (kalām Allāh)⁵⁴ — and speech is not ascribed to anyone unless it is his own workmanship as speech, both wording and meaning together. So too the declaration that it is what God recited to the Prophet;⁵⁵ and there is no reciting save by the rehearsal of its verses, word upon word, to him — not the mere conveying of meanings, for that would not be the recitation of a Qurʾān but the imparting of scattered notions. Of the same kind is the expression that it was made to be recited (iqrāʾ) to the Prophet;⁵⁶ and likewise the expression that he received the Qurʾān by direct reception (talaqqī)⁵⁷ — and the reception of this Qurʾān means precisely its wording and its ordering, not its bare meanings, for the Qurʾān is what is recited, not what is understood and perceived. On the same pattern run the verses declaring that the Prophet (ṣ) used to recite the Qurʾān — not that he used to speak it.⁵⁸

Add to this that the Qurʾān is the everlasting miracle of Islam, and that it is not within the power of humankind all together to produce its like, though they backed one another; and this generality embraces the Prophet (ṣ) as well. The Prophet — a human being — has not the power to cast speech in the mould of the Qurʾān; how then can it be supposed — as you see some suppose — that it is of his own workmanship, when he is unable to produce its like even were all mankind at his back?

One may well suspect that whoever says such a thing has had it foisted upon him: he has alleged that the Qurʾān is not the inimitable speech of God but the utterance of a man — and by this the people of doubt have sought to shake the greatest pillar of Islam’s pillars.

The Imam Badr al-Dīn al-Zarkashī records that someone transmitted from al-Samarqandī the relation of three positions concerning what it was that descended upon the Prophet (ṣ):

The first — the prevailing view — is that what descended upon the Prophet (ṣ) is both the wording and the meaning together, Gabriel bringing down the Qurʾān as it is.

The second: that Gabriel descended with the meanings alone, and that the Prophet (ṣ) himself cast them in the mould of the Arabs’ tongue. The holder of this view clung to the apparent sense of the words of the Most High, “brought down by the Trustworthy Spirit upon your heart”,⁵⁹ and His words, “it is he who has brought it down on your heart”,⁶⁰ alleging that what the heart retains are the meanings, to the exclusion of the wordings, which belong to the organ of outward perception.

The third: that it was Gabriel who poured the meanings into the moulds of Arabic wording — that they were cast to him [from on high] in meaning, and he clothed them in the speech of the Arabs; the dwellers of heaven, they claimed, read it in Arabic, and thereafter he brought it down thus in Arabic. For this position there is no support beyond what they alleged of the reports of the Qurʾān’s descent all at once to the Inhabited House — or to the House of Might in the lowest heaven, or the fourth — and then its gradual descent upon the Messenger of God (ṣ) through the length of the years.

Al-Juwaynī⁶¹ said: the revelation of God’s speech is upon two ways. One is that Gabriel would come to the Prophet and say: God commands you to do such-and-such, or: God has commanded such-and-such — so Gabriel received the meaning and cast it upon the heart of the Prophet. The second is that He says to him: Recite to the Prophet [what is written] thus-and-so — and this he delivers with its very wording, as he received it, without alteration; as kings write their letters and send them by the hands of envoys, who deliver them without change or modification.⁶²

Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī said, after transmitting al-Juwaynī’s words: “The Qurʾān is of the second kind: Gabriel received it in its wording and delivered it to the Prophet as he had received it, without any handling of it, either in its wording or in its meaning; nor was he permitted to deliver the meaning alone. The secret of this is that what is intended by the Qurʾān is devotion by its very wording, over and above devotion by acting upon its meaning; and because it is the proof of the inimitability, and no one can produce a wording that would stand in its place… were its wording exchanged for another comprising the same meanings [it would no longer be itself]…”⁶³

Al-Zurqānī said: “Certain people have sunk so low as to allege that Gabriel used to descend upon the Prophet (ṣ) with the meanings of the Qurʾān, the Messenger expressing them in the tongue of the Arabs; and others have alleged that the wording is Gabriel’s, God revealing to him the meaning only. Both are false and iniquitous sayings, colliding with the explicit text of the Book, the Sunna, and the consensus, and not worth the ink with which they are written. My conviction is that this has been foisted upon the Muslims in ambush of them: how should the Qurʾān be a miracle of God when the wording is Muḥammad’s or Gabriel’s?! And how, again, should its ascription to God be sound when the wording is not His?!”⁶⁴

As for the verses on which that claimant leaned — they tell rather against his purpose! For what is meant by “the heart” in them is the Messenger’s inward personality, fitted to receive the revelation from God — not that pine-shaped organ lodged in the breast. Our apparatus of perception has not been fashioned for the receiving of such communications from beyond matter; it works only within a bounded compass. An analogue of this boundedness within matter: the wireless waves are received only by instruments made for them; and just as the wordings — indeed sounds, images, and shapes generally — occupy a certain plane, of which not everything can be grasped by this ordinary outward sense, so the soul, when refined, becomes fit to perceive things which the ordinary senses fall short of perceiving so long as they remain in their first density, not having attained the subtlety proportioned to the Highest Assembly.

Moreover the verse of Sūrat al-Shuʿarāʾ — “brought down by the Trustworthy Spirit upon your heart, so that you may be one of the warners, in a clear Arabic language” — is itself explicit that what the Trustworthy Spirit brought down upon his heart was the Qurʾān in its clear Arabic wording! So the verse tells against the arguer’s purpose.

This position has also been ascribed to Muʿammar ibn ʿAbbād al-Sulamī (d. 215/830), one of the chiefs of the Muʿtazila⁶⁵ — an ascription drawn merely by an inference of parity, for he has no explicit statement of it; it is only a supposed consequence of his words and of his doctrine concerning the speech of the Most High, as they alleged. For he holds that speech is in its essence an accident, and the accident with the Muʿtazila is a motion subsisting in a body; it is therefore impossible that it subsist in Him, the Most High, since He is no substrate for accidents. His speech, then, is not His act subsisting in His essence… The word, on this doctrine, is the act of its immediate substrate; and yet, inasmuch as it proceeds according to God’s will and His enabling, it is ascribed to Him. They said: the meaning of this is that His speech proceeding from a substrate is a preparedness and capacity which God creates in a tree, or bestows upon a man, who then produces a speech in which the will of the Most High is manifested: the speech proceeding from the tree is the tree’s act, and that proceeding from a man is his act — though in itself it is ascribed to Him, the Most High, since it proceeds only according to His will.⁶⁶

They leaned likewise on what Ibn al-Rāwandī ascribed to him, saying: “He (that is, Muʿammar) used to allege that the Qurʾān is not the act of God, nor is it an attribute of Him subsisting in His essence, as the common people say, but one of the acts of nature…” But Abū al-Ḥusayn al-Khayyāṭ the Muʿtazilī rejected this ascription with a plain rejection, saying: “Know — may God guide you to what is right — that Muʿammar used to hold that God is the speaker of the Qurʾān, that the Qurʾān is the speech of God, His revelation and His sending-down; that it has no speaker but He, no utterer of it other than He; and that the Qurʾān is [His]…”⁶⁷

Yet despite this we find one of the foreign Orientalists,⁶⁸ followed — imitation without verification — by one of the Muslim writers,⁶⁹ maintaining that Muʿammar says the Qurʾān is not of the speech of the Most High, and that God, glory be to Him, granted His Prophet the capacity to fashion a speech into which he poured the will of God that he was receiving by revelation upon his soul. It is a void conclusion, being sheer analogy and no explicit statement of his.

Furthermore, the words of the Most High, “and Allah spoke to Moses directly (taklīman)”,⁷⁰ insist that God addressed him with this very familiar speech, and that it was speech in reality, not by any figure or metaphor; otherwise this emphasis (by the absolute object) would not be sound. Muʿammar’s saying is rather to be construed thus: that the speech heard from any thing is created by God in it so that it be heard from it, while being — in a manner of speaking — the product of that thing: if it is heard from the air, it is the act of the air, in the sense of proceeding from it, though by His creation, the Most High, within it; and so if it is heard from a tree. As for what proceeds from a man such as the Prophet (ṣ), it is by inspiration from Him, the Most High, upon him — so it too is His workmanship, the Most High, and not of the Prophet’s own making.

The Diction of the Qurʾān Is the Diction of Address, Not the Diction of a Book

Among the marks of book-composition is complete coherence from the opening of the discourse to its close. There is no essay in a journal, no epistle in a book, no compilation or composition, but is ordered upon an arrangement and setting harmonious and knit together part with part, like the linking of the rings of a chain, each holding fast to the next — what is called consistency (tanāsuq) in discourse. This is precisely what a discourse dispenses with when it is delivered as an address: there the speaker is not bound to observe consistency — not verbal consistency only, but even consistency of theme — for he may pass in his speech from one subject to another by some association which the situation of the address supplies, even where no tight bond joins the subjects he touches. And this we find in the Qurʾān in abundance. This turning (iltifāt) from the third person to direct address and from direct address back to the third person; likewise the variety of the pronouns and their divergence from their antecedents; so too the demonstratives, or the passage from the explicit noun to the pronoun of address, and the like — all of this is only because the Qurʾān runs upon the style of oratory, not of writing. And since such sudden transition, such shifting from state to state and from address to third person and the like, would not be sound from a writer composing a book, yet is sound in an address, its presence is the very sign that the Qurʾān is cast as an address.

Here, then, are marks of the address which we find in the Noble Qurʾān:

1. Sudden transition

It belongs to the licence of discourse, when it is delivered as an address, that it may pass suddenly from subject to subject and from one state to another between which no apparent connection holds — a thing counted a defect in the stringing of discourse when it is a book, but not when it is an address resting upon the contextual cues of the occasion.

Take, for example, Sūrat al-Qiyāma. It opens with discourse upon man and his condition from the rising of the Hour, until it comes to His words: “Rather man is a witness to himself, though he should offer his excuses” (75:14–15).⁷¹ Then the discourse turns suddenly to the Prophet (ṣ): “Do not move your tongue with it to hasten it. Indeed it is up to Us to put it together and to recite it. And when We have recited it, follow its recitation. Then, its exposition indeed [also] lies with Us” (75:16–19). And it returns at once to confronting man with rebuke: “No indeed! Rather you love this transitory life and forsake the Hereafter” (75:20–21).⁷² Then it passes to discourse upon man’s state on the Day of Resurrection: “Some faces will be fresh on that day, looking at their Lord; and some faces will be scowling on that day…” — down to the thirtieth verse; and after that it speaks of a strutting fellow who neither assented nor prayed, “but denied [it] and turned away, and went swaggering to his family.” Thus it charges and wheels, shifts and passes on — now denunciation, now dread, now terror, now exposure — to the end of the sūra.⁷³

What is all this cut and thrust, this retiring and advancing, but the run of an address, not the run of a book! In this sūra the transition occurs six times — beyond all doubt one of the wondrous characteristics of the Qurʾān.

The Imam al-Rāzī, in the course of accounting for this kind of sudden iltifāt (so sharp is the swerve) at His words “Do not move your tongue with it,” says: it may be that the Messenger (ṣ), when the verses came down upon him, would make haste in reciting them for fear of their escaping him; so he was forbidden that. This is like a teacher dictating a lesson to a pupil, when the pupil turns and glances right and left: the teacher breaks off his dictation at once and says to him in the midst of that lesson, “Do not look right and left,” and then returns to the lesson. Now if that whole session were taken down entire, with the speech that interrupted it — as when it is recorded upon a tape — one who had no knowledge of the incident would not perceive the fitness in the flow of this discourse; but one who was present at the lesson would.⁷⁴

2. The phenomenon of iltifāt

In Sūrat Yā-Sīn you find the figure of iltifāt in full evidence: “Indeed today the inhabitants of paradise rejoice in their engagements — they and their mates, reclining on couches in the shades. There they have fruits, and they have whatever they want. ‘Peace!’ — a watchword from the all-merciful Lord. And ‘Get apart today, you guilty ones!’” — down to His words: “This is the hell you had been promised! Enter it today, because of what you used to defy. Today We shall seal their mouths, and their hands shall speak to Us, and their feet shall bear witness concerning what they used to earn” (36:55–65).⁷⁵

First the discourse concerned the people of paradise in the third person; then it turned to the form of address, with the salutation of Peace upon them that Day; then suddenly the address turns upon the guilty — up to His words “what you used to defy”; yet it returns to the third person in His words, “Today We shall seal their mouths…” Such alternation in discourse does not sit well in a book; it sits well only in an address.

And in Sūrat al-Fatḥ: “Allah was certainly pleased with the faithful when they swore allegiance to you under the tree. He knew what was in their hearts, so He sent down composure on them, and requited them with a victory near at hand, and abundant spoils that they will capture; and Allah is all-mighty, all-wise. Allah has promised you abundant spoils…” (48:18–20).⁷⁶ It begins with discourse about the faithful in the third person, within an address directed to the Prophet — and suddenly it turns to address the faithful themselves: “Allah has promised you…” A subtle beauty, becoming in an address, not in the fixity of a book!

Of the same kind is what He, glory be to Him, relates of the ʿAzīz of Egypt, addressing Joseph and turning in the same breath to his wife: “Joseph, let this matter alone, and you, woman, plead for forgiveness for your sin” (12:29)⁷⁷ — a turn that sits well only in speech delivered face to face. In the Sūra of Praise (al-Fātiḥa) you find God, glory be to Him, spoken of in the third person, and then the discourse turns to addressing Him, the Most High, directly (“You [alone] do we worship…”) — one of the most exquisite instances of iltifāt, set forth in the books of exegesis. In Sūrat ʿAbasa the opening reproach comes in the third person — “He frowned and turned away when the blind man approached him” — then face to face with the Messenger: “And how do you know, maybe he would purify himself…” (80:1–3).⁷⁸

And in Sūrat al-Anfāl: “They ask you concerning the anfāl. Say, ‘The anfāl belong to Allah and the Apostle’” — discourse about the faithful in the third person, within an address to the Prophet; and suddenly the address turns upon the faithful themselves: “So be wary of Allah and settle your differences…” (8:1).⁷⁹ And that is only because it is cast in the diction of an address.

And in Sūrat al-Aʿrāf: “O Children of Adam! We have certainly sent down to you garments to cover your nakedness, and for adornment. Yet the garment of Godwariness — that is the best. That is [one] of Allah’s signs, so that they may take admonition” — you see Him, the Most High, facing the Children of Adam in direct address, and rounding off His speech as though He spoke of absent persons; then He wheels back upon them to address them again: “O Children of Adam! Do not let Satan tempt you, like he expelled your parents from paradise…” (7:26–27).⁸⁰ The address was at first face to face with the Children of Adam; then the discourse was turned aside to state the wisdom, with no one faced; then it returned to the exhortation, guidance, warning, and admonition with which it began.

3. Observance of the rhyme-letter

Among the merits of cadenced prose (sajʿ) is the observance of the rhyme-letter (rawī) as it is heard in utterance, not as it stands in writing; and of this there are instances in the Qurʾān.

For example, His words: “Rather man is a witness to himself (baṣīra), though he should offer his excuses (maʿādhīrah)” (75:14–15).⁸¹ The discourse coheres as cadence only in the state of pausing upon each of baṣīrah and maʿādhīrah in pronunciation and recitation, with a rāʾ and a hāʾ at the end of both — a thing not realized in the fixed, written form.

So too His words: “and each shank clasps the other shank (bi-l-sāq); that day he shall be driven toward your Lord (al-masāq)” (75:29–30).⁸² The cadence and the rawī cohere in recitation only by the pause upon each of bi-l-sāq and al-masāq.

And His words: “As for him who is given his book in his right hand, he will say, ‘Here, take and read my book (kitābiyah)! Indeed I knew that I shall encounter my account (ḥisābiyah).’ So he will have a pleasant life (rāḍiyah), in an elevated garden (ʿāliyah), whose clusters [of fruit] will be within easy reach (dāniyah)” (69:19–23):⁸³ the rawī here runs entirely upon the reckoning of utterance and the pause upon quiescence.

And His words: “But as for him whose deeds weigh light in the scales, his home will be the Abyss (hāwiyah). And what will show you what it is (mā hiyah)? It is a scorching fire (ḥāmiyah)!” (101:8–11):⁸⁴ the rawī here holds only on the reckoning of the pause upon the tāʾ of hāwiyah and ḥāmiyah [sounded as hāʾ], so as to cohere with the hāʾ of rest in mā hiyah. And this is proper to recitation, not to writing.

And His words: “By the Dawn, by the ten nights, by the Even and the Odd, by the night when it departs (yasr)!” (89:1–4):⁸⁵ the yāʾ of yasrī has been dropped in observance of the rawī in the state of uttering this discourse.

Thus it was recited to the Prophet, and thus he recited it to the people, and thus it must be followed for ever. Here even the writing has followed the recitation — because recitation is the root of the matter in the Qurʾān!

4. Melodies and airs

A momentous side has been observed in the Qurʾān which suits its recitation aloud, not its perusal as script: the side of its wondrous phonetic order, arranged upon melodies and airs. From the very first, this was the influence that took hold upon the feeling of the Arabs before the Qurʾān had settled itself in their souls. The Prophet (ṣ) was commanded to recite the Qurʾān with the melodies of the Arabs and their voices, as a preparation for the attainment of this end; and it is attained only in reciting the Qurʾān aloud, where the melody of delivery carries it — not in a whisper behind the veil of concealment.

Add to this the tone of delivery observed in its expressions: now rebuke or severity, threat or terror, glad tidings or warning, grief or sorrow, and the like — a burden borne by the vocal accent proportioned to each of them, not by a whispered reading. A point overlooked by those who have alleged that the Qurʾān was fashioned as writing, not as living fervour in an address! And it was said of old: the Qurʾān is truly itself in its recitation, not in its script.

5. Reliance on evidences outside the text

When discourse is cast as a book, its evidences must be available within the expression itself — set in advance, appended, or in the course of it (connected, attached clues); reliance upon detached clues is not permissible.⁸⁶ That, however, is permitted when the discourse is cast as an address. And the Qurʾān is of this kind: the mainstay for understanding its meanings is, for the most part, the knowledge of the occasions of revelation.

It is not open to one who composes a book or drafts a treatise to rest the unlocking of its closed places upon private familiarities that have no presence with the public; for his address is general and his call universal, not confined to those who happened to witness those particular evidences. The Qurʾān, by contrast, has rested the exposition of its meanings and the delivery of its purposes, in great measure, upon evidences detached from the text, known as the occasions of revelation (asbāb al-nuzūl); there is no escaping prior knowledge of them if the meanings of the Qurʾān are to be known — and the text would fall obscure were the occasion of revelation unknown.

Take, for example, His words: “Indeed Ṣafā and Marwah are among Allah’s sacraments. So whoever makes ḥajj to the House, or performs the ʿumrah, there is no sin upon him to circuit between them. Should anyone do good of his own accord, then Allah is indeed appreciative, all-knowing” (2:158).⁸⁷ One who does not know the occasion of its revelation will suppose, from the surface of the expression (“there is no sin”), that the rite of the running (saʿy) is no binding obligation. But once he knows that it came down concerning those believers who shrank from the running between Ṣafā and Marwa — after the idols had been set back upon them — for fear it should amount to an honouring of the idols such as the polytheists used to practise, then he knows the verse descended to repel the supposition of prohibition, not to grant a mere permissive licence: it is a clearance for the performance of this binding rite of the Law free of any taint of the forbidden. And this meaning is not to be understood from the verse — there is no indication of it in its text — except after full acquaintance with the occasion of revelation.

Verses of this kind are many; and such a thing is not admissible in the fashioning of discourse as a book. This, then, is the chief proof that the diction of the Qurʾān is the diction of an address, not the diction of a book!

The Language of the Qurʾān, in Which It Addressed the Arabs and All Mankind

The Qurʾān came addressing the Arabs, and mankind with them, in a tongue they understand and whose usage they practise with ease and facility: the tongue of “common usage” (al-ʿurf al-ʿāmm), upon which people’s mutual understanding has always run in their intercourse and their dealings with one another.

Our master and teacher, the Imam al-Khūʾī — may his resting-place be fragrant — said: There is no doubt that the Prophet (ṣ) did not contrive some special method for conveying his Law; he faced his people with the modes of mutual understanding to which they were accustomed. He brought the Qurʾān that they might understand its meanings and grasp its purposes, that they might ponder its verses and take their admonition from it: “This is an explanation for mankind, and a guidance and advice for the Godwary” (3:138);⁸⁸ “Certainly We have made the Qurʾān simple for the sake of admonishment. So is there anyone who will be admonished?” (54:17);⁸⁹ “Do they not contemplate the Qurʾān, or are there locks on the hearts?” (47:24)⁹⁰ — besides other verses, all of which proclaim ease in the understanding of the Qurʾān’s meanings and facility in the grasping of its noble purposes: no difficulty there, no complication, and no obscurity for those who study it.⁹¹

And this is what the wisdom of sending messengers and revealing books requires: “We did not send any apostle except with the language of his people, so that he might make [the messages] clear to them” (14:4);⁹² “Indeed We have sent it down as an Arabic Qurʾān so that you may apply reason” (12:2);⁹³ “Indeed We have made it an Arabic Qurʾān so that you may apply reason” (43:3);⁹⁴ “brought down by the Trustworthy Spirit upon your heart so that you may be one of the warners, in a clear Arabic language” (26:193–195);⁹⁵ “Indeed We have made it simple in your language, so that they may take admonition” (44:58);⁹⁶ “an Arabic Qurʾān, without any deviousness, so that they may be Godwary” (39:28);⁹⁷ “while this is a clear Arabic language” (16:103).⁹⁸

The Messenger of God (ṣ) said: “God sent down the Qurʾān upon me in the speech of the Arabs and what is familiar in their tongue.” And so it was that the Arabs understood it and relished its sweetness with ease and without strain!

Hence the tongue of the Qurʾān — which is the tongue of revelation — is the tongue of common usage, in which mankind at large has been addressed; each person draws from the founts of this Book according to his own particular preparedness and the breadth of his receptive capacity: “He sends down water from the sky whereat the valleys are flooded to [the extent of] their capacity” (13:17).⁹⁹ This difference in the measure of the drawing goes back to the disparity of the receiver’s capacity; as for the exposition proceeding from the Agent, in it there is no difference and no disparity. The Qurʾān addressed the generality of mankind in their own tongue and after the familiar fashion of their speech, however much they differ in reception and in reaching the import of the discourse. The difference lies in them and in their understandings; in the exposition there is no difference at all, it being universal, comprehending the breadth of all horizons.

Yes — the Qurʾān has an outward and an inward sense (ẓahr and baṭn), and unequivocal and ambiguous verses (muḥkam and mutashābih), which entails a disparity in the discourse’s indication: manifest and hidden, apparent and recessed. The generality of understandings take the manifest purposes of the Qurʾān and the unequivocal among its verses, leaving its hidden recesses and the ambiguous among them to those firmly grounded in knowledge, the people of the specialism. Of this, some discussion follows.

The Qurʾān Has an Outward and an Inward Sense

The Messenger of God (ṣ) said: “There is no verse in the Qurʾān but it has an outward sense (ẓahr) and an inward sense (baṭn).” The Imam al-Bāqir (ʿa) was asked about this, and he said: “Its outward sense is its revelation (tanzīl); its inward sense is its interpretation (taʾwīl).”¹⁰⁰

It belongs to the very nature of the Qurʾānic exposition that it should have a manifest outward and a concealed inward. The outward is what is gathered according to its revelation: by the evidences of the circumstances of revelation there is gathered a concept bounded within the frame of that occasioning circumstance, not passing beyond it — an indication narrow of compass. But behind this apparent indication lies the indication of a universal concept, gathered from the purport (faḥwā) of the discourse once the particularities bound up with the occasions of revelation are set aside. And this broad concept is the primary intent which constitutes the purpose of the discourse: it is its taʾwīl — that is, that to which the sense of the discourse returns (yaʾūl) at the end of the course.

An example is His words: “We did not send [any apostles] before you except as men to whom We revealed — ask the People of the Reminder if you do not know — [and sent them] with manifest proofs and scriptures” (16:43–44).¹⁰¹

This is an address to the polytheists, who had doubted that a human being could be sent on a mission — “they said, ‘Allah has not sent down anything to any human’” (6:91)¹⁰² — so it was proposed to them that they question the People of the Book about it: “ask those who read the Book [revealed] before you” (10:94).¹⁰³ This is the apparent purport of the revelation: a bounded concept, tied to a particular occasion and a particular circumstance. Were the verse to freeze within this narrow compass of indication, it would have become a dead letter after the passing of that occasion — a bygone thing; every verse would be the captive of its own date, unfit to run on with eternity — were it not for close attention to the verse’s universal import, gathered from its purport after the cancelling of the particularities that have no bearing on the core of the intent. For there is no particularity in the questioners’ being polytheists, once the criterion is seen to be their ignorance of the truth of the matter; no particularity in the question’s concerning prophethood — the intent is whatever of the Law they did not know; and no particularity in the ones questioned being People of the Book, the point being their knowledge of what the polytheists did not know. The purport of the verse thus becomes: whoever is ignorant of any concern of the Law ought to refer in it to the learned — “it is for the ignorant to refer to the knowing in what he does not know.” This is the verse’s universal concept, gathered from its purport; and it was inward — that is, hidden from those whose gaze stops short at the verse’s first surface. And this universal concept is the verse’s taʾwīl, its final issue: the primary intent of the verse, which has guaranteed its permanence for ever.

The Imam al-Bāqir (ʿa) said: “Were it so that a verse, once revealed concerning a people, died with the death of that people — being particular to them — then nothing of the Qurʾān would have remained. Rather it runs as the sun and the moon run: whenever something of it comes due, it comes to pass…”¹⁰⁴

So the Qurʾān, by its universal concepts and the contents of its comprehensive depths, is fit to endure and runs on with eternity. Yet the knowledge of these concepts and the drawing forth of these depths call for close scrutiny of view and precision — the province of the people of the specialism among those firmly grounded in knowledge, as the Imam al-Bāqir (ʿa) said: “And we know it,” reciting the verse: “But no one knows its interpretation except Allah and those firmly grounded in knowledge” (3:7).¹⁰⁵

The Messenger of God (ṣ) said: “It has an outward and an inward: its outward is ordinance,¹⁰⁶ its inward is knowledge; its outward is graceful, its inward is deep; its wonders cannot be numbered, and its rarities never wear out…”¹⁰⁷

Hence the (apparent) expressions are for the generality — that is, for people at large upon their several levels — and the (hidden) allusions are for the elect, the divinely-taught scholars firmly grounded in knowledge, as the Imam al-Ṣādiq (ʿa) said.¹⁰⁸

Of It Are Definitive Verses, and Others Metaphorical

The Most High said: “It is He who has sent down to you the Book. Parts of it are definitive (muḥkamāt) verses, which are the mother of the Book, while others are metaphorical (mutashābihāt)…” (3:7).¹⁰⁹

Thus we find in the Qurʾān definitive verses, plain of intent, belonging to the exposition of obligations and ordinances, admonitions, proprieties, and the like — in rich abundance, covering the preponderant majority of the verses; and these are the mother of the Book, that is, the community’s points of reference for the knowledge of the lawful and the forbidden, the norms and the morals.

And there are others, of metaphorical intent, few in number, belonging to the principles of the divine teachings, the Origin and the Return — where the quiddity of the intent is hidden from all but those who go deep. Such is His saying: “Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth” (24:35).¹¹⁰ The ground of the similitude in the verse, in its fineness and subtlety, may remain hidden; there survives only the apparent knowledge that He, the Most High, is the Illuminator of the heavens and the earth — which the generality understand from the verse’s surface and rest content with. The elect, however, know the ground of the similitude despite the hiddenness of the quiddity: that He, the Most High, is — like light — self-subsistent, luminous in Himself, and at the same time the giver of light to what is other than He, as the philosopher Ibn Rushd of Andalus has expounded.¹¹¹

The essential point is that the metaphorical verses, too, are plain of intent in the surface of their expression for the generality, who accordingly rest content with them and see no obscurity in them — even though the fine and subtle points the verse contains remain hidden from all but the people of precision, learning, and knowledge. Thus the Qurʾānic verses have all become, according to the surfaces of their expressions, clear and shining for the generality, though in their inward recesses they be hidden from all but the people of the specialism among those firmly grounded in knowledge; and nothing of the verses remains wrapped in obscurity or complication absolutely.

Repelling a Confusion and a Doubt

Here some may raise a question about the position of the generality — indeed of the elect — in the face of the language of revelation: it is the language of the Highest Assembly, which is not of one kind with the language of the people of the earth, framed as theirs is by their terminologies and their usages; it is no more, then, than symbolic expressions and allusions — at times metaphors — falling short of conveying the whole of the intent!

Attempts of this sort have indeed had their course with many of the books ascribed to the revelation of Heaven; but they are more like excuses put about by their custodians in justification of their position toward what those books contain — for in them is much that is feeble and flimsy, silly and unsound, and they sought to cover this with just such a misdirected apology: that these are falsities which sinful hands have woven upon the revelation of Heaven. Nothing of the kind bears any resemblance to anything in the Qurʾān, preserved from corruption by His care, the Most High: “Indeed We have sent down the Reminder, and indeed We will preserve it” (15:9).¹¹² In it there is no complication and no obscurity — let alone incongruities.

True, there is in the Qurʾān a variety in exposition that sets it upon levels ever loftier and loftier; at times it reaches the very summit of exposition, attainable only by the hand of the masters and the possessors of genius. But this does not prevent its being, in the mass, clear of purport according to its primary surface for people at large, as we have set out above. Here follows some account of the variety of the Qurʾān’s concepts, whence the difference of understandings:

The Variety of the Qurʾān’s Concepts

The concepts of the Qurʾān vary with the variety of the purposes and the aims of the discourse; and thereby the degrees of the exposition’s ascent and elevation vary, though the whole stands at the level of surpassing eloquence. We may accordingly divide this variety — in broad terms — into four types:

1. Ordinances of positive law and precepts of obligation, of the kind man is charged with — duties of worship, rules of dealing, and the like. These must stand at the level of the generality’s understanding, since it is they who are addressed with the obligation: as in His words, “O mankind! Worship your Lord, who created you and those who were before you, so that you may be Godwary” (2:21).¹¹³ Whoever knows the Arabic language and is practised in its modes of discourse knows that this is an address to people at large, an obligation directed to them all, and knows its import completely, without vagueness or generality. So too His words: “And maintain the prayer, and give the zakāt” (2:43);¹¹⁴ and: “Prescribed for you is fasting” (2:183);¹¹⁵ and: “It is the duty of mankind toward Allah to make pilgrimage to the House” (3:97),¹¹⁶ and the like among the devotions; and, in the transactions, His words: “Allah has allowed trade and forbidden usury” (2:275).¹¹⁷ Obligations such as these have come in the easiest exposition and the simplest style of discourse, their addressees being the general run of people at their differing levels of understanding and reception; no obscurity or vagueness, therefore, may rest upon them.

2. Parables and maxims, which have come for the admonishing of people and the awakening of their consciences in individual and social life, taking them by the hand up to the heights of the perfection that befits man. These parables are so many events that have come to pass upon the highway of humankind; the reminder of them is for the sake of the lesson in them — that infamies be not repeated, and that the noble traits and excellent qualities be taken as a pattern. Man thus sets what mankind wrought in its former life before his eyes, to take warning by it: if a virtue, he holds to it; if a vice, he does not go near it a second time — for the man of sense is not stung twice from the same burrow: once bitten, twice shy (al-ʿāqilu lā yuldaghu min juḥrin marratayn).

Thus there came, concerning the People of the Book and the infamies of their deeds, what should compel the lesson — but how should they take it, with hearts grown hard? He, the Most High, said: “they asked Moses for [something] greater than that, for they said, ‘Show us Allah visibly’” (4:153);¹¹⁸ and He said, likening these to their predecessors: “Those who have no knowledge say, ‘Why does not Allah speak to us, or come to us a sign?’ So said those who were before them, [words] similar to what they say. Their hearts are alike” (2:118).¹¹⁹ And of the dwellings of the people of Lot, lying in full view of the polytheists and warning them by their fate: “Indeed you pass by them at dawn and at night. Do you not apply reason?” (37:137–138).¹²⁰ And in drawing the parallel between the state of the Arab polytheists and the clan of Pharaoh — both having chosen error over guidance: “That is because of what your hands have sent ahead, and because Allah is not tyrannical to the servants. Like the precedent of Pharaoh’s clan and those who were before them, who defied Allah’s signs, so Allah seized them for their sins. Indeed Allah is all-strong, severe in retribution. That is because Allah never changes a blessing that He has bestowed on a people unless they change what is in their own souls, and Allah is all-hearing, all-knowing. Like the precedent of Pharaoh’s clan and those who were before them, who denied the signs of their Lord; so We destroyed them for their sins” (8:51–54).¹²¹

The finest species of the coining of parables is the delineation of a state and the embodiment of an inward attribute in a sensory, contemplated image — bringing the reasonable near by the sensible, and setting the state before the eye as the telling likeness of an abiding reality, not a mere play of fancy. It is artistic depiction (al-taṣwīr al-fannī) in the service of the aims of the message of proclamation, and counts as the favoured instrument upon this path.

Sayyid Quṭb said: “Depiction is the favoured instrument of the Qurʾānic style. By the sensory, imagined image it expresses the mental meaning and the psychic state; the perceived event and the beheld scene; the human type and human nature. Then it raises the image it has drawn and endows it with visible life or ever-renewed movement: and lo, the mental meaning is a form or a motion; the psychic state a canvas or a scene; the human type a living figure, and human nature embodied and visible. As for events and scenes, stories and prospects, it renders them present and personified, with life in them and movement; and when it adds dialogue to them, all the elements of imaginative realization are complete. Scarcely has the presentation begun before it turns the listeners into spectators, transporting them bodily to the first theatre of the events, where they took place or will take place… It is life itself here, not the tale of life! Such is the power of the Qurʾānic exposition and the reach of its effect through the force of imaginative realization…”¹²²

And in the Qurʾān the coining of parables abounds: “We have drawn for mankind in this Qurʾān every [kind of] example, so that they may take admonition” (39:27);¹²³ “We have certainly interspersed for the people in this Qurʾān every [kind of] parable” (17:89).¹²⁴ We have set out specimens of these in the inquiry into the coining of parables in the Qurʾān.

Now these two types of the Qurʾānic exposition (the exposition of ordinances and obligations, and the presentation of maxims and parables) were, at the time of the Qurʾān’s descent, of the utmost clarity of exposition; and so they run, with the same clarity, through all the ages — and they cover the generality of the Qurʾānic verses, with nothing of obscurity or vagueness upon them.

There remain the two other types, in a minority of the noble verses — the type bound up with speech of what lies behind the curtain of the Unseen, and the type bound up with the principles of the divine teachings (maʿārif). In these two, the use of figure, borrowed metaphor, and metonymy abounds, by reason of the loftiness of the level and the falling-short of the words, in their rank and their conception, from compassing such towering meanings — which may occasion a certain generality in the expression or vagueness in the delivery and exposition; yet it is nothing but the height of the level above ordinary minds. Let us give an example of each of the two types.

3. Expressions of the worlds of the Unseen. These are unavoidable in the Books sent down from Heaven, which carry a portion of reports of the Unseen worlds and of the governance that passes there, or of that to which the affair of this life comes home at the end of the course.

Thus, when it depicts the angels — they being “the directors of the affair” — and would state the grades of their power in the ordering of things, it assigns them wings, in twos and threes and fours.¹²⁵ It is plain that there are no wings there like the wings of birds here; these are metonymic expressions of the grades of their power. The borrowing of the wing for power — like the arm and the upper arm — is current in common usage, without the literal meaning being intended. So likewise when it speaks of the ḥūr and the palaces, the trees and the rivers: they are expressions of the delights of the Hereafter, as the Fire and the scorching blast are metonyms of the pain of its chastisement. But whether these very concepts, identical with what we find in the abode of this world, are there — that remains unknown, there being no homogeneity between the two modes of existence.¹²⁶ Our want of knowledge of the reality of the matter here goes back only to a shortfall in our own understandings, framed as they are by the perceptions of this life, concerning that other life which is not of one kind with this witnessed world.

4. The principles of the divine teachings. From this type we may come to know of God — the Origin and the Return — and of the secret of life and the secret of existence in the beginning and at the close, a knowledge that is summary, a knowledge of description; as for the quiddity (kunh), it is unattainable altogether, we being the prisoners of this material world and veiled from what lies beyond this perceptible life.

He, exalted and hallowed be He, is described by ninety-nine attributes.¹²⁷ The reach of our knowledge of His sacred Essence is the purport of these descriptions according to the rendering of the words; knowledge of the quiddity is not within our capacity, by reason of the shortfall. In verses at the close of Sūrat al-Ḥashr the chief of these attributes are named: “He is Allah — there is no god except Him — Knower of the sensible and the Unseen, He is the All-beneficent, the All-merciful. He is Allah — there is no god except Him — the Sovereign, the All-holy, the All-benign, the Securer, the All-conserver, the All-mighty, the All-compeller, the All-magnanimous. Clear is Allah of any partners that they may ascribe [to Him]! He is Allah, the Creator, the Maker, the Former. To Him belong the Best Names. Whatever there is in the heavens and the earth glorifies Him, and He is the All-mighty, the All-wise” (59:22–24).¹²⁸

The utmost of our knowledge of the Origin, attained by way of these descriptions, is that God, the Most High, is qualified by attributes bearing these titles in their apparent concepts. But how is the qualification? Is it after the fashion of the qualification of one of us by them? Beyond doubt it is otherwise; for He, the Most High, resembles none of His creatures in any attribute of His attributes: “Nothing is like Him” (42:11).¹²⁹ Hence, were the qualification after the manner of the creatures’ qualification, the negation of the attributes from Him would be the worthier course. The Imam Amīr al-Muʾminīn (ʿa) said: “And the perfection of pure devotion to Him is the negation of the attributes from Him”¹³⁰ — that is, if the qualification be in this mode in which one of us is qualified (by way of otherness between the thing qualified and the quality), it conflicts with the creed of pure devotion regarding His essence, the Most High, since it entails compositeness in His existence — glorified be He!

As for the secret of the creation, we may come to know it from the angle of the secret of the creation of man: he was created to be God’s vicegerent upon the earth, and things were created for his sake — “O son of Adam! I created all things for your sake, and I created you for Mine,” as the sacred tradition (ḥadīth qudsī) has it. And therefore, when God created him, He blessed Himself: “So blessed is Allah, the best of creators!” (23:14)¹³¹ — a thing that has been realized along the whole march of life upon the face of the earth; and His overflowing power, the Most High, continues to stand revealed at the hand of this human being who is God’s vicegerent on earth. Such is the description of man as it has come in the Qurʾān — as it has come in no other book.

The Qurʾān Is Clear in Its Exposition

So, then, His word holds true: “This is an explanation for mankind, and a guidance and advice for the Godwary” (3:138)¹³² — an open exposition, plain and shining, without blemish and without complication. And this holds of all four types: the first two are clear of exposition in the very truths of their concepts; the last two, according to the shining surface of the expression.

Thereby is laid bare the feebleness of what certain people have alleged — a difficulty in understanding the Qurʾān, or a ruggedness in its mature expositions. Not so: it is an illusory claim, which the plain candour of the Qurʾān refuses.

One thing, however, remains true: the understanding of the Qurʾān has natural prerequisites that cannot be waived. Among them: knowledge of the Arabic tongue contemporary with the Qurʾān’s descent; knowledge of the occasions of revelation; full acquaintance with the sayings of the ancients and with what the later scholars have verified — and other matters bound up with the understanding of many verses that look toward pagan customs and usages which Islam fought; likewise the resolving of difficult expressions which — but for knowledge of the occasion of revelation — appear complicated on the face of the matter; and similar prerequisites that ought to be observed, after the pattern of all books whose understanding rests upon indispensable preliminaries — and not absolutely.

Revelation and the Qurʾān (al-Waḥy wa-l-Qurʾān)

The Phenomenon of Revelation

Waḥy is a swift, covert imparting of knowledge — whether by a gesture, a whisper, or a writing in secret; whatever you cast to another in a flash of speed, so that he grasped it, is waḥy. The poet says:

I looked on her with a single look, and the subtleties of my thought
stood bewildered before the marvel of her beauty;
then my glance signalled to her (fa-awḥā ilayhā) that I loved her —
and that signal left its trace upon her cheeks.

And the Most High said of Zakariyyā (ʿa): “So he emerged before his people from the Temple, and signalled (fa-awḥā) to them that they should glorify [Allah] morning and evening” (19:11)¹³³ — that is, he gestured to them by way of symbol and intimation.

Waḥy in the Language

Al-Rāghib said: The root of waḥy is the swift signal; and because it comprehends speed, one says of a headlong death, amrun waḥiyy — a swift affair. It may be by speech in the way of symbol and insinuation; it may be by a bare sound without articulation, by a gesture of one of the limbs, or by writing.¹³⁴

And Ibn Fāris said: “w–ḥ–y is a root denoting the casting of knowledge, in concealment or otherwise, to another. So waḥy is the signal; and waḥy is writing, and the message; and everything you cast to another until he knew it is waḥy, however it be.”¹³⁵

This generalization in the concept of waḥy — as Ibn Fāris has it — may have belonged to its original coinage; usage, however, has confined it to what carries concealment. Abū Isḥāq [al-Zajjāj] said: waḥy in the language as a whole is an imparting in concealment — which is why inspiration (ilhām) is called waḥy. And Ibn Barrī said: waḥā ilayhi and awḥā: he spoke to him with speech he conceals from others; and waḥā and awḥā: he beckoned. The poet says: fa-awḥat ilaynā wa-l-anāmilu rusluhā — “she signalled to us, her fingertips her messengers.”

The concealment in the concept of waḥy may well have come in by way of the speed considered in it: a swift gesture is naturally hidden from all but the one to whom it is made. One says mawtun waḥiyy, a swift death; and from it comes al-waḥā al-waḥā! — “haste! haste!” — said when speed is urged; and from it the ḥadīth: “and if it be the other, then hasten to it (fa-tawaḥḥah)” — Ibn al-Athīr said: the hāʾ is the hāʾ of rest.¹³⁶

Al-Zamakhsharī said: awḥā ilayhi and waḥā ilayhi, and waḥāhu and awḥāhu: when you speak to a man with what you conceal from others; and tawaḥḥā: he made haste. Al-Aʿshā says: “Like the scent of musk is her scent, when the cup-bearer pours it and it is said: make haste (tawaḥḥa)!”¹³⁷

Waḥy in the Qurʾān

The Qurʾān has used the word in four senses:

1. The lexical sense itself: the covert gesture. This has already been shown in the verse of Maryam.

2. An instinctual, innate implanting — a natural constitution set in the very make of things: a borrowing from a verbal imparting for an imparting lodged in the being itself, the common ground being the concealment in the manner of the casting and the receiving. Since waḥy is a secret imparting, it lent itself to be borrowed for every hidden inward prompting. Of this kind are the words of the Most High: “And your Lord inspired (awḥā) the bee [saying]: ‘Make your home in the mountains, and on the trees and the trellises that they erect. Then eat from every [kind of] fruit and follow meekly the ways of your Lord’” (16:68–69).¹³⁸ The bee takes its course according to its innate nature and draws its prompting from the depth of its instinct, made pliant to the ordered working set within it — and hence it never strays from that path.

Of the same kind also are His words: “and [He] revealed (awḥā) in each heaven its ordinance” (41:12)¹³⁹ — that is, He determined it. Al-ʿAjjāj drew this very sense from the Qurʾān in his verse: “He signalled (waḥā) to it its settled rest, and it stood firm; and He stayed it with the fixed, immovable mountains.”¹⁴⁰

3. Psychic inspiration (ilhām nafsī): a feeling within, which man senses without — at times — knowing its source; at times he is given to know that it is from God, and it may also be from other than Him, the Most High.

This sense is what is known among the spiritualists as the phenomenon of telepathy (thought-transference from afar): a sudden inward occurrence whose source is unknown. They said it is a thought passing from one mind to another by a hidden faculty; or a spiritual casting from spirits above or below. And it has been said: it is a merciful thought which the angels breathe into the heart of a man whom God wills to guide, or a satanic whispering which the devils of the jinn cast for the purpose of his seduction.¹⁴¹

Of the merciful inspiration are the words of the Most High: “We revealed (awḥaynā) to Moses’ mother, [saying], ‘Nurse him; then, when you fear for him, cast him into the river, and do not fear or grieve, for We will restore him to you and make him one of the apostles’” (28:7).¹⁴²

Al-Azharī said: waḥy here is God’s casting into her heart. And what follows it indicates — God knows best — that it is a waḥy from God by way of imparting, because of the assurance given her: “We will restore him to you.” It has also been said the sense of waḥy here is inspiration; and it is admissible that God cast into her heart that he would be returned to her and would be an apostle — yet imparting is the plainer sense of waḥy here.

Al-Shaykh al-Mufīd, in his Awāʾil al-maqālāt, took waḥy here in the sense of covert imparting; in his Taṣḥīḥ al-iʿtiqād, however, he made it a vision, or speech which the mother of Moses heard in her sleep. He said, in the course of elucidating the sense of waḥy: the root of waḥy is covert speech; it then came to be applied to everything intended to convey a meaning to the one addressed in secrecy from all others.¹⁴³

As for the use of waḥy for the whispering of Satan and his insinuation of evil and corrupt promptings, it comes in the words of the Most High: “That is how for every prophet We appointed as enemy the devils from among humans and jinn, who inspire (yūḥī) each other with flashy words, deceptively” (6:112);¹⁴⁴ and His words: “Indeed the devils inspire (la-yūḥūna) their friends to dispute with you” (6:121);¹⁴⁵ and it is expounded by His words: “from the evil of the sneaky tempter, who puts temptations into the breasts of humans, from among the jinn and humans” (114:4–6).¹⁴⁶

The word waḥy is likewise used of what God casts to the angels of His command, that they may execute it forthwith: “Then your Lord signaled (yūḥī) to the angels: ‘I am indeed with you; so steady the faithful’” (8:12).¹⁴⁷

4. As for the use of waḥy for what God casts to a prophet of His prophets — either directly, without intermediary, or through one — for the conveying of God’s message, this is a fourth sense the Qurʾān has employed; and it is the subject of our inquiry in the following section.

The Missional Revelation (al-Waḥy al-Risālī)

“The missional waḥy” is a fourth sense which the Qurʾān has used in more than seventy places, expressing by it the bearing of Heaven’s message to His prophets and His messengers: “We will recount to you the best of narratives in what We have revealed to you of this Qurʾān” (12:3);¹⁴⁸ “Thus have We revealed to you an Arabic Qurʾān, so that you may warn the Mother of Cities and those around it” (42:7);¹⁴⁹ “Recite what has been revealed to you of the Book” (29:45).¹⁵⁰

The phenomenon of waḥy, in respect of God’s messages, is the first of the marks of the prophets: by it they stand distinguished above the rest of humankind, being bound to the Highest Assembly. Nor was Muḥammad (ṣ) the first of the messengers to be singled out for this prophetic prerogative, nor the first to address mankind in the name of the heavenly revelation; before him, and never failing, men of reform arose crying this spiritual summons, calling to God in the name of waḥy and the conveying of His message:

“Does it seem odd to these people that We have revealed to a man from among themselves, [declaring], ‘Warn mankind, and give good news to the faithful that they are in good standing with their Lord’? The faithless say, ‘This is indeed a plain magician.’” (10:2)¹⁵¹

To repel this feigned wonder, the noble verse came down declaring the mission of Muḥammad (ṣ) to be no novelty among the missions of Heaven, and setting forth the names of a company of the prophets of God, the possessors of missions and messages:

“We have indeed revealed to you as We revealed to Noah and the prophets after him, and [as] We revealed to Abraham and Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes, Jesus and Job, Jonah, Aaron, and Solomon — and We gave David the Psalms — and apostles We have recounted to you earlier and apostles We have not recounted to you — and to Moses Allah spoke directly — apostles, as bearers of good news and warners, so that mankind may not have any argument against Allah, after the [sending of the] apostles; and Allah is all-mighty, all-wise. But Allah bears witness to what He has sent down to you — He sent it down with His knowledge — and the angels bear witness, and Allah quite suffices as witness. Indeed those who are faithless and bar [others] from the way of Allah have certainly strayed into far error.” (4:163–167)¹⁵²

The missional waḥy does not go much beyond its lexical concept, being still a covert imparting: it is a hidden contact between the world of the Unseen and the spirit of the Prophet, occurring for the sake of the message. Its ways are three, as the noble verse has numbered them: “It is not [possible] for any human that Allah should speak to him except through revelation, or from behind a curtain, or send a messenger who reveals, by His permission, whatever He wishes. Indeed He is all-exalted, all-wise” (42:51).¹⁵³ The first is the direct casting upon his heart, without intermediary. The second is by the creating of the sound in the air, so that it strikes the Prophet’s hearing while the person of a speaker is not seen — and this is what is meant by speech “from behind a curtain.” And the third is the sending of the angel of revelation, who conveys it to the Prophet: either visibly, seen by him, or [unseen, casting it upon his heart] by God’s permission, as He wills.

The dividing line, then, between the missional waḥy and the other familiar promptings is the side of its unseen source — a contact with what lies beyond matter: it is a prompting from a world above. And it is just this that has driven those who find no pleasure in acknowledging anything beyond this [material] sensation either to make the missional waḥy their road to denial, or to construe it as an inward intuition welling up from the genius of its possessor. We shall inquire into that in a coming chapter, God willing.

A remark. Since waḥy is a spiritual phenomenon, its landing-place, in whichever of its kinds, was his noble heart, by reason of his inward personality, whether the waḥy was direct from God or by the intermediacy of the angel of revelation. The Most High said: “it is he who has brought it down on your heart” (2:97); and: “brought down by the Trustworthy Spirit upon your heart, so that you may be one of the warners” (26:193–194). And the heart is the core of a thing and its authentic reality.

Our master al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī said: “This is an indication of the manner of his (ṣ) receiving the Qurʾān sent down upon him: that which received it was his noble soul, without the partnership of the outward senses, which are instruments for particular, external perceptions… He (ṣ) would see the person of the angel and hear the voice of the revelation — but not with this material sight and hearing; else it would have been a thing shared between him and others, and he would not have heard and seen while those about him did not. He would be seized by the tremor of the revelation while he was among the people, and revelation would be made to him without the others present perceiving anything…”¹⁵⁴

He would hear the voice of the revelation — but not with this material ear;¹⁵⁵ and there will come, in its place, the word of the Imam Amīr al-Muʾminīn (ʿa) of his own state at the Prophet’s side: “I used to see the light of the revelation and the message, and scent the fragrance of prophethood.”¹⁵⁶

A Definition of the Missional Revelation

To sum up, then, the definition of the missional waḥy: it is a direct spiritual contact between the Highest Assembly and the spirituality of the Messenger, granted him for the sake of his election [to the mission] — a deep inward contact by which he is given, out of an inward vision, a clear-shining perception through which he beholds the higher Kingdom (malakūt) with the sight of open witness, without any confusion and without any vagueness. It is set apart from inspiration (ilhām) by the knowledge of the source of the prompting — a knowledge bright as the shining sun — in contrast with inspiration, whose source remains hidden from the inspired person.

It is likewise set apart from psychic self-prompting (istilhām nafsī); for this latter is the reflection of the soul’s accumulated inner thoughts, which surface at times suddenly and without one’s awareness — whereas the missional waḥy pours in from outside the soul, from the Highest Assembly, from the Lord of the worlds; and this is known to the prophet with a decisive knowledge in which he neither wavers nor doubts: that what has been revealed to him is the revelation of Heaven. Hence he takes no fright and feels no alarm — as we shall set out in detail.

A Pause at the Question of Revelation

This much said: waḥy — the missional waḥy — is in its reality a spiritual contact with what lies beyond matter, which comes to the prophets by the motive of the message; and so they carry God’s message to mankind in full awareness, fidelity, and sincerity.

But how does this spiritual contact take place? What are its constituents, and what its preliminaries? This is a matter hidden from us, the dwellers upon the face of the earth; and we shall never uncover its essence so long as we remain bound within the walls of this material life — for we have no way to comprehend realities that stand above matter and beyond matter.

This hiddenness comes from our own shortcoming; yet some have tried to make of it a pretext for denying the phenomenon of waḥy outright, pleading the great distance between the two worlds — the higher world and the lower: the one radiant, white, and subtle; the other turbid, dark, and dense; and as there is no link between light and darkness, and no bond between the subtle and the dense, every tie between the two worlds is severed. But when they awoke to the twofold constitution of this human being — from one side a dense bodily frame carrying the properties of the lower matter, and from his other side a subtle spiritual being, of the lofty Kingdom, high and exalted — no standing-room remained for this doubt.

For man, in his authentic reality, is of a twofold composition — a spirit and a body; and by his higher side he is bound to the world above, whence he came and whither he returns: “Indeed we belong to Allah, and to Him do we indeed return” (2:156).¹⁵⁷ This is man’s true reality, the possessor of the twofold composition, spirit and body; he is an isthmus (barzakh) between the world of matter and what lies beyond matter: from one side he is bound to heaven, and from the other joined to earth. The Most High said: “Certainly We created man from an extract of clay. Then We made him a drop of [seminal] fluid [lodged] in a secure abode. Then We created the drop of fluid as a clinging mass. Then We created the clinging mass as a fleshy tissue. Then We created the fleshy tissue as bones. Then We clothed the bones with flesh. Then We produced him as [yet] another creature. So blessed is Allah, the best of creators!” (23:12–14).¹⁵⁸

Here the material creation of man is completed; then He says: “Then We produced him as [yet] another creature” — and this other creation is man’s spiritual existence, his authentic existence, to which another verse has pointed: “…who perfected everything that He created, and commenced man’s creation from clay. Then He made his progeny from an extract of a base fluid. Then He proportioned him, and breathed into him of His Spirit” (32:7–9).¹⁵⁹ The Imam al-Ṣādiq (ʿa) said: “God created a creation, and created a spirit; then He commanded an angel, and he breathed it into him…”¹⁶⁰ This, then, is man: a creature compounded of a body which is material and a spirit which is not; by his material existence he is one creation, and by his immaterial existence another creation. And it is by this other existence of his that he is fitted for contact with the Highest Assembly — not by that dense material one.

The idea of denying waḥy did indeed arise — as the fruit of the purely material view of this human being: a view that falls short concerning man, and which prevailed in Europe in the age when the material conception of life arose. It kept advancing and spreading as the industrial sciences advanced through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, while the spiritual measures of things went on declining before its armies; and the wave all but covered the civilized world — had not the resurgence of the spiritual idea in America, and its passage thence into Europe entire, stood up in its face; and so the question of waḥy was made to live anew.

The Ustādh [Farīd] Wajdī said: Down to the sixteenth century the Westerners, like all other nations, held the matter of revelation an accepted truth. But when the age of the [modern] awakening came, Western philosophy took to regarding the question of revelation as a relic of the old superstitions, and went to such lengths as to deny the Creator and the spirit together, explaining what the ancient sacred books report of revelation as a kind of hallucination — a disorder that befalls certain neurotics, so that they fancy they see things which in reality they do not see. But when the nineteenth century had passed, and the researches of science into the hidden world appeared, and the school of modern spiritualism arose — the phenomena of the spirit being brought to light in America in the year 1882 and passing thence into the whole of Europe — people began to argue, with evidence, for the existence of a spiritual world; the great minds and piercing intellects were engaged; the face of opinion in spiritual questions was changed, and the question of revelation returned to the rank of the possible after having been counted among the delusions of the ancients. The learned took to examining it upon the basis of the modern experimental method, not after the fashion of the old dialectic. And though they have not attained its verification in its spiritual reality and manner, in accordance with the Islamic religious creed, yet it is a great step upon the road of establishing [the possibility of] revelation, after its denial and its consignment to the fables.¹⁶¹

The Side of Man’s Spirituality

We have said that a wave of irreligion, lasting no more than two centuries, all but blanketed the civilized world — had not the reality of the matter risen against it; a reality that at last declared itself upon the stage of science, so that the scholars and men of learning yielded to it together, and that materialist notion was thrust back, retreating headlong for good: the double regard toward man — that behind this outward frame stands the inward man; that this inward man is the wellspring of personality and the fount of the will; that the involuntary motions themselves are steered by man’s inward existence, which is his true and authentic being. This twofold view of man was, and remains, the reigning conception of life in the religious circles of the old world, passed on from generation to generation; and the heavenly religions, all of them, have relied upon it and made it the foundation of all their teachings and their programmes in legislation and worship.

But the pillars of the decisive philosophical demonstrations [of the soul] were raised by Muslim philosophers; they are many and various, and we have chosen for you what follows — after which we shall append modern evidences brought by the modern experimental science.

Philosophical Demonstrations Establishing the Soul

Rational philosophy has brought ample proofs establishing the existence of the soul in the clearest fashion. Al-Shaykh Abū ʿAlī Ibn Sīnā discoursed on them in his two books, al-Shifāʾ and al-Ishārāt; and after him other Muslim philosophers took them up — Ibn Rushd, Naṣīr al-Dīn [al-Ṭūsī], al-Rāzī, al-Nīsābūrī, Ibn Ḥazm, Ṣadr al-Mutaʾallihīn, the sage al-Sabzawārī, and lastly our master al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī, and many besides. Here is a selection of them.

1. Man in the core of his selfhood

Man finds within his own being a reality standing beyond this outward bodily frame; and that is his authentic, true existence, which does not change however much this manifest body changes. This is what every man finds of his own self: that he is something beyond this body. In clarification of this side of man’s true existence, let the following be considered.

We find in our essential being something we express by “I” (anā). We cannot express it by any other word; nor can we apply this word to anything else whatever in our existence. When we say “I,” we intend by it only that inward existence which constitutes the axis of our personality — nothing else beside it. We do not say “I” of any limb of our limbs or member of our members, whether inner members such as the heart, the liver, the brain, and the stomach, or outer ones such as the head, the hand, the leg, and the belly — of none of these is “I” rightly said, nor indeed of the body as a whole. Only when we intend the self and the essence — and it is an inward, true, authentic existence — do we say: I. So man, in the core of his selfhood, is an existence other than his manifest bodily existence.

Again: man ascribes everything in his bodily existence — outer and inner alike — to himself. He says: my head, my hand, my leg, my heart, my brain, my body. And this “possessor,” in all these ascriptions, is something beyond all those “possessions” — which shows the mutual otherness between the body and that authentic, true existence to which all those things are ascribed. As for the ascription of the soul or the spirit to the self — “my soul,” “my spirit” — it is of the ascription of a thing to itself, as in “my essence”; witness that no otherness between possessor and possessed is understood there, in contrast with the ascription of the body’s members to the self.

Again: man ascribes all his acts and dealings, and likewise all his states and attributes, to himself. He says: I spoke, I learned, I gave, I took, I travelled, I went, I sold, I bought… He does not thereby intend to ascribe them to any of his members: he does not mean that his tongue is what spoke, or his heart what learned, or his hand what gave or took, or his leg what walked or went. He means only that his self did it, the limbs being no more than instruments which that self puts to work. Every one finds of himself an existence — beyond these bodily members — which is the doer and the dealer through them.

Again: we direct address and obligation, with all that follows upon them — praise or blame, approval or censure, every command and prohibition, every urging and restraining — to the man; and we do not mean his body or any of his members and limbs. We mean his essence and his self, the one intended when we say: “you” — nothing else. Ask yourself: who is the one addressed when we say “you”? who the one commanded or forbidden when you command or forbid? who the one toward whom the praise or the blame is directed? There is no doubt it is the man’s abiding, true existence — his essence and his self, and nothing besides.

Again: in the existence of this man there is something of which he is never heedless; whereas all that is other than it, he may well be heedless of. Man may be heedless of his body and of all that belongs to his body, its inner and outer members; but he cannot be heedless of his own self: his self stands present to him in all his states and vicissitudes. Man’s true existence, then, is his essence, of which he is never heedless — not his body, nor his members, of which he is sometimes heedless. For the essence — which is the reality of the thing — is precisely what one is never heedless of; while what one is heedless of is other than the authentic essence.¹⁶² All of which shows that man’s true existence is something beyond the body: it is his essence and his self. And nothing in man’s existence can be called the essence or the self except the spirit; it is man’s true, authentic existence.

2. Man in his attributes and instincts

Man possesses attributes and instincts fixed for him along the whole course of life, and attributes and states that change as circumstances and conditions change. His fixed, instinctual attributes are attributes subsisting in his self, and therefore they abide the length of his life; his changing attributes — call them accidents — subsist in his body, and therefore they change. This points to two sides of this man’s existence; and to make plain the difference between the two kinds of his attributes, we set out the following points.

First: this bodily frame — its flesh and its blood, even its bones and its cartilage — is in perpetual change and replacement (the phenomenon of consumption and compensation); it has even been said that man is renewed entire once in every seven years or so. This continual bodily change naturally and inescapably entails a change in the attributes and states that subsist in this body: such as health and sickness, fatness and leanness, strength and weakness, childhood and youth, ripeness and old age.

Yet man finds, over against these changing attributes and shifting states, essential attributes that are fixed, upon which no change or alteration passes for all the body’s changing and altering. Such are love and hatred, desire and dread; and the settled dispositions of generosity and avarice, of courage and cowardice, of magnanimity and envy, and their like — essential attributes bound to the body by no bond at all.

What, then, is the substrate in which these deep-rooted attributes subsist? Nothing is fit to be their substrate except the soul — “the spirit”! (Here stands a well-known objection, which we take up in the coming chapter.)¹⁶³

Second: man goes on growing, his bodily powers gathering strength, up to a fixed limit; then he stands still at one level; and after it he takes to sinking and falling back, inescapably. Up to about the third decade of his age he is growing bodily; up to the fifth he holds one level; thereafter he takes to a gradual weakening, and when he is stricken in years his descent quickens, weakness upon weakness: “It is Allah who created you from [a state of] weakness, then He gave you power after weakness. Then, after power, He ordained weakness and old age: He creates whatever He wishes, and He is the All-knowing, the All-powerful” (30:54).¹⁶⁴

Such is man’s bodily nature. His intellectual life, however, does not run abreast of the body’s course in this swiftness of change and alteration: he goes on growing in his intellectual powers, gaining in vitality and vigour through the rich decades of his life; and while the body has been on its gradual descent from the fourth decade onward, the intellectual side of the man is still pressing forward on its road to perfection. This shows us that in this man’s existence are two sides: by the one of them he is sinking, and by the other rising — the one journeying toward completion, the other turning back on its road to relapse.

Third: a deficiency may befall a member or members of man’s body, and the body becomes deficient perforce; yet this bodily deficiency works no deficiency in the man’s essence — he is still himself, in his first essential completeness. The man who has lost a leg or a hand or some member, outward or inward, is not a man deficient in his humanity, though he be deficient in his bodily frame. From this we know that in man’s existence are two things — a body and a self — and deficiency in the one works no deficiency in the other.

As for the famous saying, “a sound mind in a sound body,” its meaning is this: the sounder the instrument, the more perfect its work — since the spirit, in its present activities, employs the instruments of the body so long as it stands in the bond of this life; the sounder and fitter the body, the better and the more complete the work performed through it.

3. Man and the phenomenon of perception

Man, in the side of his intellect and consciousness, differs utterly from his bounded material nature. In the side of his intellectuality he goes forth to vast distances without end, and circles in skies that have no term; he launches out beyond matter, to horizons wide open — a launching that halts at no limit.

He perceives; and the phenomenon of perception is a non-material phenomenon, for not one of the properties of matter is found in it at all: it admits of no division into the three dimensions, it carries no weight, and it is not bounded by the directions.

He perceives; and a portion of what he perceives transcends the bounds of matter, in all its dimensions and all its marks, absolutely. He perceives universal meanings that attach to no particular thing; he grasps the necessary connection between two terms — and the connection itself has no existence apart from its two terms, the implicans and the implicate; he knows things absent from sense, and thinks upon concerns that lie beyond sensation.

In one comprehensive word: man knows; and knowledge, within man’s being, is a non-material phenomenon — while the non-material cannot subsist in the material. Where, then, is its substrate in man’s existence? The self-evidence of reason leads by necessity to this: that beyond the existence of this manifest bodily man there is another, non-material existence — “the soul” — in which the phenomenon of perception subsists; and the field of the soul is wider than matter by a surpassing measure.

In clarification of this psychic side of the phenomenon of perception, we say — first: we gaze upon a broad landscape, and its image is found with us in complete correspondence, in all its dimensions and features — movement and colour, blossom and tree, mountain and valley and whatever else is in it; we behold this picture with its expanses and its distances entire. Where, then, is the wide screen upon which this picture is thrown, and in what does it subsist?

And second, we say: man finds the image of the scene, whenever he recalls it, with the same dimensions and measures, the same movements and colours, as though he beheld it this instant — an image true to the reality through and through. This page upon which the image falls — it is called the page of the mind — is a page whose dimensions run parallel to the very dimensions of the scene, exactly as man finds it present to his soul now. Where in man’s existence does this outspread page lie?

The particles of the brain receive the imprints of the images of things sensed; but they are of the utmost minuteness, out of all proportion to the dimensions man finds at the moment of recall. We do not deny that there are brain-particles that retain within themselves the images of things beheld; but that, by itself, is neither perception nor recollection — for those images exist, and persist in their existence, even during heedlessness.

Perhaps you will say: those images imprinted upon the brain-particles now show themselves to the soul and now lie hidden — and by this you would explain the two phenomena of “recollection” and “heedlessness.” But we ask: if these images show themselves and hide, before what do they show themselves, and from what are they hidden? This confrontation — between what and what? In other words: these images are displayed; but they cannot be displayed without one to whom the display is made, for display is a facing that stands between two sides. If the imprinted images form the one side of this facing, where is the other side that fronts them? Yes — the images imprinted upon the particles of the brain are displayed before the soul: the soul is one thing, and these particles another. The soul — man’s inward existence — is what forms the other side of this psychic facing; and it is the soul that perceives those images whenever it recalls them — a renewed perceiving; call it, if you wish, recollection.

The particles of the brain are so many films, whose images are cast upon the soul’s wide page at the moment of recall, when the soul turns toward what it has stored up in the instrument of perception; and thereby that facing which stands between two sides is achieved. The truth of the matter, then: the phenomenon of perception and recollection is a psychic phenomenon subsisting in man’s soul, which is his inward existence, “the spirit”; and hence none of the properties of matter is found in it at all — no boundedness and no mutual crowding.

Again: perception is a judgement belonging to the soul — “this is that,” or “that is this”; and this shows us two things. The first: behind these images etched upon the page of consciousness stands another existence, which is what passes judgement upon them that this is that or that is this; and it is none other than the soul that so judges. The second: the judgement itself, being non-material — since none of the properties of matter is found in it at all — its author, which is the soul, is likewise non-material in the familiar sense of matter; and this by the demand of the congruity that must hold between the effect — the judgement — and its efficient — the judge.

Perception, moreover, attaches to universal concepts that stand fixed in the precinct of the soul, neither changing nor renewed — which cannot be squared with the phenomenon of continuous change and renewal running through all the particles of the body universally.

And lastly: the phenomenon of recollection is nothing but a repetition of the perceiving of a former matter, as it already was — not a perceiving of some new thing, though the act of perceiving itself be freshly renewed. When we recall a thing, we find it the very same we found before, kept safe in the treasury of the mind without change or alteration. Now had it subsisted in a changing thing — namely, in the parts of this dissolving body — then this thing now perceived, the second time, would be other than the thing perceived the first; for there is nothing in the body but is in course of change and passage. How much more so when the recollection comes after long years! Either, then, we must impeach our own memory — which has judged the two to be identical — or we must concede the immateriality of the phenomenon of perception and recollection. And it is the latter that is correct, the self-evidence of consciousness being the arbiter in this rejection or acceptance.

Modern Evidences for the Existence of the Spirit

As for modern philosophy, it has drawn from its deeper study of physiology — “the science of the functions of the organs” — clear demonstrations of the soundness of the soul’s existence and of its distinction from the brain and the brain’s function.

First: the nerves spread over the surface of the body are not affected by external agents all alike; each requires particular stimuli for the vibration of the fine fibres of which it is composed. Optical impressions, for instance, have no action upon the nerve of hearing, and conversely. If, then, we take the sense of sight as the subject of our inquiry, we see that the undulatory motion in the ether, by its action upon the retina of the eye, produces a vibration in the optic nerve; this vibration extends to the optic layer lodged in the middle of the brain, and from there is driven to the centre of the senses, where it spreads through the fine ganglia and awakens the nerve-cells connected with visual impressions. Accordingly every kind of sense-impression is distributed and then gathered in a place peculiar to it in the brain; and dissection has established the existence of determinate places and bounded regions in the brain in which what the senses transmit of external impressions is gathered, condensed, and transformed. The physiologists have carried out certain experiments upon living animals by which they showed that, upon their removing from these animals a portion of the original brain-matter, they had removed from them the power of perceiving optical or auditory impressions. Indeed the savant Schiff established by experiment that the temperature rises in one part of a dog’s brain in proportion to the kind of impressions reaching it through one of the senses.

Now if we ask the materialists: how do these vibratory motions, after their arrival at their corresponding centres in the brain, come to be transformed into intelligible thoughts? — they answer us: these vibrations, upon reaching the sensory ganglia of the brain, produce in them a reaction of the kind that takes place in the ganglia of the spinal cord!

But it escapes them that what takes place in the one is a reflex event, namely this: the motions of the sensory nerves convey to the fine ganglia of the spinal cord a stimulus which is reflected back to the coarse ganglia, whereupon the motor nerves proper to them vibrate; and in this fashion the vibration returns to the point of its source in the form of a motor effect. This is the explanation of what happens in a frog whose head has been severed, and which nevertheless draws in its leg when an irritant acid is applied to it.

And the very same thing happens in the stimuli of the sensory ganglia of the brain — that is, the cortical cell, when the external vibration reaches it, is roused to a certain degree and is alerted by its own inherent sensitivity, and the potential force stored in it is discharged; then the motion extends to what adjoins it of the ganglia and awakens the force pent up in them, until it reaches the coarse ganglia, and these convey it to the material substance of the ash-coloured, furrowed part of the brain, which strengthens the vibrations and drives them to the organs in the form of an effect — or otherwise, as a motor command.

We grant to the deniers of the soul the manner of the course of sensation here — expressed as nervous vibration — and its arrival at the brain, and then its extension thence in the form of a motor command. But there has escaped them a momentous event that came to pass between the arrival and the extension, namely “the event of perception”: that is, the awareness of the human personality of what has befallen it of external matters. For those vibrations and nervous stimuli are nothing but material motions generating other motions; of themselves they produce no perception, and their upshot is only the alerting of the intelligent faculty to perceive the source of this alerting, its cause and its effect. Without that, neither the vibration nor the external motion has the least action upon the faculty of understanding.

The nerve-cell, compounded of proportionate quantities of cholesterol, water, phosphorus, uric acid, and so forth, is not of itself a perceiving power; and the vibratory motion is of itself a purely material motion. How, then, should the vibration of this nerve-cell and its being roused generate a perception?

This is what the materialists have been unable to explain; whereas the spiritualist philosophers teach us of the existence of an intelligent personality within us, called “the soul,” which is alerted by this vibration to what has newly befallen of external events — and when its attention is complete, this perception comes to pass!

The event of “absorption” (al-dhuhūl) confirms this in the plainest exposition. Suppose, for instance, we are engrossed within our room in some piece of work: we may well be heedless of hearing the ticking of the clock — indeed even of its striking the hour; and yet the vibrations of the sound have acted upon our hearing and reached the brain, without our being aware of them. And that is only because our soul was occupied with other thoughts and was not alerted; so, though the vibrations of the cerebral ganglia were acted upon, the auditory perception did not take place.

In brief, we find that matter is of itself devoid of choice and generates nothing of its own accord; and the cerebral matter is an instrument for the display of the intelligent soul’s sensations and its thoughts. It does not itself understand what issues, by its mediation, of intellectual expressions — just as the clock, for instance, as an instrument, does not perceive the movement of the hours to which it points, and as the sheets of a book do not perceive the thoughts inscribed upon them. “Whoever alleges that the brain perceives thought is like one who alleges that the clock perceives the movement of time, or that the paper perceives the meanings of the writing!”

Second: the physiologists have determined — in general terms — that every motion issuing from man or animal is accompanied by the combustion of a part of the muscular matter; that every act of will or of sensation is brought about by a wasting-away of the nerves; and that every intellectual work results in a depletion in the brain.

In one comprehensive word: not a single atom of matter can serve twice for life. When there appears from an animal or a man a muscular or an intellectual work, the portion of living matter that was expended for the issuing of this work vanishes entirely; and if the work is repeated, then new matter is fit for its issuing a second and a third time, and so on down the line. This depletion is in proportion to the power of the vital manifestations: wherever the manifestation of life is more intense, the wasting of living matter is the greater.

True, this perpetual wasting is accompanied by a continual compensation from the newly-arriving matter that enters into the blood by way of the air and of nutriment. These two factors — the factor of wasting and the factor of renewal — are bound to one another in the living being by a bond that cannot be severed. In sum it may be said: wasting is a necessary condition for compensation. And this second work — the work of renewal — is an inward, secret operation with no outward manifestation, whereas the factors of wasting appear plainly to the eye, and men have called them “the phenomena of life,” while they are in truth the harbingers of death; for their manifestation is not accomplished save by the wasting of a part of our organic tissues.

It follows from the foregoing that, amid the contention of these two factors, our body is renewed many times over in the course of life. This renewal takes place — according to what the physiologist Moleschott held — once in every thirty days; whereas Flourens alleges that it is not accomplished save in seven years. This savant carried out experiments upon rabbits in which he established that their bones renew themselves, atom by atom, within a limited period.

Now the deniers of the soul allege that the faculty of memory consists in phosphoric vibrations stored up in the nerve-cell of the brain after the external impressions have reached it!

But if this were sound — and since it is established that all that is in us of bones, muscular tissues, and nerve-ganglia wastes away and is renewed within a known period not exceeding seven years — it would follow that the faculty of memory must gradually diminish in us, to the point that we should be forced, every seven years, to renew all that we had learned before; whereas the case is that we are aware that it is not so, and that the current of renewed matter within us, ceaseless as it is, works not the least change in our memory — and that matters which befell us in the days of our childhood cross our minds in the time of our old age.

In sum: all that is in us bears out the fixity of our personality and its unchangingness, despite the replacement of every atom of our material being.

And this is a decisive proof of the existence within us of a spiritual power called “the soul,” whose simple substance preserves it from the transformations and dissolutions that pass upon primal matter (al-mādda al-hayūliyya), and in which are stamped the remembrance of past events and the sciences we have acquired by reason and thought.

Some may object that the cells of the brain hand on their particles gradually — perhaps handing on what is upon them of images and etched forms to newly-arrived particles, just as the features of the face and its complexion, imprinted upon the outward body, are handed on to new particles of the skin, and even the mole to new particles, so that the form of the body and the colouring of the mole persist the length of life; and by this they account also for the persistence of a memory handed on from perishing particles to newly-arrived ones in the brain.

But it has escaped this objector that what is handed on among the persisting attributes is the natural attribute arising from within the essence — not the accidental attribute that supervenes from the states of the environment, the outward. The colour of the mole, for example, persists — that is, it is handed on from perishing particles to newly-arrived ones — because it is a natural, essential attribute; so the very particles that were forming the mole must, being in a prior condition, be exchanged and renewed into other particles which form that same phenomenon likewise. But as for accidental attributes, such as the colour supervening from a stroke of the sun, these are peculiar to the particles of the body that faced those first agents; and when those confronting particles gradually perish, the accidental colour likewise goes gradually away, so long as those first agents are not renewed.

Accordingly, what the perishing cerebral particles deposit with the newly-arrived ones consists of essential attributes, such as the receptivity for impression, etching, and reception; whereas the very images and inscriptions themselves, being attributes that supervene upon them and not essential attributes arising from within the nature, must gradually go away with the perishing of the former particles, and do not remain unless the first agents are reinstated — unless, that is, we say that it is the soul which reproduces the persistence of the images upon the renewed particles. And this squares with what we are seeking in this inquiry.

Third: for a century and a half now there has been found a method of research supporting the existence of the soul in a manner in some sort sensible, namely the method of “animal magnetism,” in which the separation of the spirit from the body is witnessed, and its performance of astonishing works that bespeak the soundness of its self-subsistent existence, and the issuing of intellectual acts in isolation from the senses.

Animal magnetism — as the modern Anton Mesmer defined its origin — consists in an exceedingly subtle fluid that springs from the body of the agent in the magnetizing to the patient, by means of signs and motions, or indeed a piercing look proceeding from the first to the second.

This spiritual phenomenon is very old; but it was, or had all but come to be, counted among the vanished superstitions, until the spiritualist scholars Fison, Cornelius, and Paracelsus — who lived in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries — revived this spiritual science anew and laid down for it principles and rules, which Anton Mesmer afterwards published.¹⁶⁵ Thereafter this science spread and became widely known, and the scholars acknowledged it one and all; today it is among the standing facts, growing and increasing in fame and in adherents. There remains no room for doubt that man, in the core of his being, possesses another existence, of prodigious energy, which performs acts beyond the power of this material body, and in which its bodily powers are feeble.

A company of these phenomena, with the names of the scholars who undertook to verify and sift them, has been gathered by the Ustādh Raʾūf ʿUbayd in his book al-Insān rūḥun lā jasad (“Man Is a Spirit, Not a Body”), and set out at length in his Mufaṣṣal al-insān rūḥun lā jasad — let them be consulted.

And another spiritual phenomenon — “the summoning of spirits” — has come likewise in this latest age, to confirm the existence of the spirit beyond this elemental material body: so that man may be, beyond the perceptible manifestation, another inward existence, which is severed from it at times in this life, and finally after death.

A token of this appeared for the first time in America in the year 1846, and passed thence to Europe entire; and the existence of a spiritual world — beyond this material world — was established by experimental scientific proof. The great minds and piercing intellects were engaged; thereby the face of opinion in spiritual questions was changed, and the question of the spirit’s survival after its parting from the body came to life anew, after having been counted among the ancient errors. The scholars resumed their research into it upon the rules of modern experimental science, and arrived at weighty results — a great step upon the road to establishing a mighty matter which had been consigned to the world of superstitions.

In London in the year 1882 a society was formed under the name “the Society for Psychical Research,” under the presidency of the Ustādh Henry Sidgwick, teacher at the University of Cambridge, one of the greatest minds in England; with the membership of Sir Oliver Lodge, styled the Baron of natural science, and Sir William Crookes, the greatest chemist of the English; the professors Frederic Myers and Hodgson, teachers at the University of Cambridge; the Ustādh William James, teacher at Harvard University in America; the Ustādh Hyslop, teacher at Columbia University; the great scholars Garney, Barrett, and Podmore; the great savant Charles Richet, teacher in the Faculty of Medicine of Paris and member of the French Academy of Sciences; the great mathematician Camille Flammarion, the celebrated French astronomer; and a great number of others among the foremost scholars of the earth.

The purpose of this society was to settle the spiritual question and verify its occurrences by the method of rigorous criticism, and to judge — with a judgement finally accepted in science — whether it be a reality, or else to report it out of science and philosophy if it belong to the things of illusion.

Half a century or so passed over this society, in the course of which it verified thousands of the spiritual occurrences and performed such experiments upon the soul and its powers as can scarcely be conceived, were it not recorded in the proceedings of that society in some fifty massive volumes. Among the fruits of its labours was the establishing of a second personality for man — that is, that we are living and perceiving in our present life, not with all the powers of the spirit within us, but only with a part of those powers, which our deficient five senses have allowed us; whereas that which is above what these senses of ours give us is a life loftier than this life, which shows nothing of its splendour except when this ordinary personality within us is suspended, by natural sleep, or by artificially induced sleep (magnetic), or by death.

The Ustādh Farīd Wajdī has recorded ample testimonies from great scholars in this matter, in his Dāʾirat al-maʿārif;¹⁶⁶ and so has the Ustādh Amīn al-Hilālī in his book al-Madhhab al-rūḥānī;¹⁶⁷ and Dr. Raʾūf ʿUbayd in his book al-Insān rūḥun lā jasad;¹⁶⁸ and the Ustādh James Arthur Findlay in his book On the Edge of the Etheric¹⁶⁹ — and many others besides: let them be consulted.

Summing Up the Inquiry

The upshot of what has gone before in these inquiries is that man possesses in his existence two sides, one of them bodily and the other spiritual; and it is no wonder that he should be connected — at times — with a world beyond matter, this connection being bound up with his inward spiritual side. It is a hidden contact: the very thing that constitutes the phenomenon of revelation.

Revelation is a spiritual phenomenon, which may be found in single individuals among men, who are distinguished by spiritual properties qualifying them for contact with the Highest Assembly. It is either an unveiling within the soul, or a striking upon the hearing; the one to whom revelation is made senses it as a sudden apprehension coming to him from outside his own existence, not welling up from within his consciousness. Hence revelation is not an intellectual phenomenon subsisting by the souls of men of genius — as its deniers allege. Not at all: it is a spiritual casting, proceeding from a station higher than the one it lights upon, a righteous and trustworthy landing-place.

The Most High said: “Does it seem odd to these people that We have revealed to a man from among themselves, [declaring], ‘Warn mankind’?” (10:2).¹⁷⁰

Yes — there is a single thing we are unable to perceive, though we hold it a reality in truth and believe in it with the faith of the sincere, namely: how does this spiritual contact take place? This is a thing hidden from us, which remains hidden however we may seek to grasp it.

And this is because our expressions were coined for concepts that do not go beyond the sensible, or barely so. All that lies within our power is expression by way of simile, borrowed metaphor, figure, and metonymy — no more; and revelation is a spiritual phenomenon which only its possessor perceives. No other can describe it in its quiddity; there remains only the expressing of it by its traces and its accidents, and that is all.

Revelation among the Philosophers of the West

We have indicated above that the philosophers of Europe, after they had returned to acknowledging the existence of an inward personality in man — called the spirit — and had come to know that it is this which formed his body in the womb, and this which moves all his muscles and those of his organs that do not stand under his will, such as the liver, the heart, the stomach, and the rest, so that he is a man not by this ordinary personality… they returned also to acknowledging revelation — the revelation which the prophets claim fills their books that are ascribed as sent down from Heaven.

But they construed it with a construction that differs from what the scholars of the religion of Islam have laid down — following the definition given above, that it is a casting from outside one’s existence, whether a projection into the heart or a striking upon the hearing.

They said: revelation consists of spiritual inspirations that spring up from within one’s own existence — that is, the conscious spirit is what gives us those sudden, good inspirations in critical circumstances, and it is what breathes into the spirit of the prophets what they take to be a revelation from God. And that very followed spirit may appear to them, embodied outwardly beyond their bodies, so that they suppose it to be of the angels of God, descended upon them from heaven — when it is nothing but the manifestation of their own inward personality, teaching them what they had not known before and guiding them to the best of ways for the guidance of themselves and the elevation of their communities; and it is not by the descent of an angel from heaven to cast speech upon them from God.

This is what modern European experimental science holds in the question of revelation.

And their proof for it is this: that God is too majestic and too exalted for a human being to face Him or for a creature to be joined with Him; and that the angels — whatever be said of their spirituality and their abstraction from matter — it is not intelligible that they should face God or listen to His speech, because all this entails partiality on His side, the Most High, and calls for the absence of that absolute transcendence which befits His majestic station; and because the angels, however high they rise, cannot be higher than the human spirit, which is of the spirit of God Himself: they and their like are on a par.

By this theory they attempted to solve what one may come upon in some of the heavenly books of kinds of teaching that contradict sound science, natural and divine. For they do not say that those books have been altered from their original, sent down from God; rather they say that the inward personality of every messenger brings its possessor information only in the measure of the degree of its self-manifestation and its genius, and in the measure of his preparedness to accept its traces. Hence his lofty teachings may become mixed with false notions coming from his ordinary personality, so that there occurs in the revelation much conflating of the lean with the fat: alongside the lofty principles which mankind did not know until that time, you find other, common principles upon which the people had agreed down to that age.¹⁷¹

And then — when the scientific truth had subdued them, by a decisive experimental method, to the effect that man’s true existence is his second personality, crouching behind this body, and that it abides, immortal, after the body’s perishing — what could have withheld them from acknowledging the reality of revelation as it stands with the Muslims?! There is no doubt that what they arrived at is a great step toward the truth, whose worth we shall never cease to esteem scientifically; but for no good reason they halted in mid-march, and before it could reach the final lap.

The beacon of science and the light of truth had guided them to the shining road, and they had all but touched the truth laid bare to the eye: they found, beyond this world, another world teeming with intelligences; and they found in the reality of man another personality behind his manifest personality. These are two premises which they conceded, and which had brought them within sight of the sound conclusion — they were come within two bow-lengths of it or nearer — yet for no good reason they stopped, and denied a truth they were on the point of touching.

For in the light of these two premises there is no warrant for failing to grasp the reality of a hidden spiritual contact taking place between a Highest Assembly and the spiritual side of this man: so that he receives in his spirit effusions that come to him from the Kingdom of heaven, and luminous irradiations that shine upon him from a world beyond this material world. It is not a contact of adjacency, nor a spatial nearness such as would entail partiality on His side, the Most High. I suppose they have measured the affairs of that non-material world by the measures proper to the material world — knowing all the while that the words are what fall short of rendering the reality, and that the expression “the descent of revelation,” or “the angel,” is a figurative expression, being nothing but an irradiation and a holy, kingly effusion which the Prophet (ṣ) finds present to his very self, cast upon him from outside his noble spirit, and not springing up from within his own being.

This is the reality of the revelation which we acknowledge, without its entailing any partiality in His essence, the Most High.

As for the explanation by which they account for the phenomenon of revelation, it is in reality a denial of revelation and an imputation of falsehood to the prophets in a general way — just as they explained the miracle of the healing of the blind and the leper as the phenomenon of hypnotism (animal magnetism), making of the Messiah (ʿa) a man of conjuring — God forbid! — who exploited the credulity of the simple as a wide field for the promotion of his call, by deceitful methods which he ascribed to the Maker, the Most High…!

But we hold the court of the prophets sacred, above any evasion or trickery of conduct — far be it from them! What is it, indeed, but a reality upon which they built their general reformative call, a reality science acknowledges alike in its ancient stages and in its new and present ones? There is, then, no warrant for construing away what has come in the books of the prophets of the phenomenon of revelation: it is a real contact with a higher Principle.

Yes: what remains in people’s hands of the biographies of books ascribed to the prophets of old has not survived intact from the reach of the hands of the corrupters, and hence there is in them much conflating of the lean with the fat; and we are innocent of the notion that verifying scholars should make those corrupted biographies the subject of their study for the concerns of the prophets (ʿa).

The Modes of the Missional Revelation

The Most High said: “It is not [possible] for any human that Allah should speak to him except through revelation” — that is, by way of inspiration and a casting into his inmost being; and it is an inward projection, which the one receiving the revelation senses in his interior, as though it were written upon a shining page within his consciousness — or in a vision in sleep; “or from behind a curtain” — that is, He speaks to him with a real address: he hears His voice but does not see His person, as He spoke to Moses (ʿa) by creating the sound in the air so that it pierced his hearing and came to him from every direction, and as He spoke to our Prophet (ṣ) on the night of the Ascension.

Speaking “from behind a curtain” is a metonymy, or a likening to one who speaks while veiled; or what is meant by the curtain is the immaterial curtain, by reason of the distance that separates the perfection of the Necessary from the deficiency of the possible.

“Or send a messenger” — an angel from among the angels — “who reveals, by His permission, whatever He wishes”: whether a casting upon the hearing, or a recital in the heart; “Indeed He is all-exalted, all-wise.”

“Thus” — that is, upon these three modes: by inspiration, by direct address, and by the sending of an angel¹⁷² — “have We revealed to you a Spirit of Our command,” that is, the Law, or the Qurʾān: “You did not know what the Book is, nor what is faith; but We made it a light that We may guide by its means whomever We wish of Our servants. Indeed you guide to a straight path” (42:52).¹⁷³

These are the modes of revelation in a general way and in summary form. As for what concerns our Prophet Muḥammad (ṣ) in particular: revelation would come to him at times in sleep — and this was more frequent at the outset of his prophethood; and at other times it was a direct revelation from God, without the mediation of an angel; and a third kind with the mediation of Gabriel (ʿa). Yet the Qurʾānic revelation belonged specifically to these last two: either directly, or at the hand of an angel. Here follows some of the detail.

1. The truthful dream

The first thing with which revelation began for him was the truthful dream (al-ruʾyā al-ṣādiqa): he (ṣ) would see no vision but it came like the breaking of dawn — a metonymy for a luminous radiance that was disclosed to his sacred spirit, in preparation for the effusion of the Holy Spirit upon him (God’s blessings be upon him and his household). Then solitude was made dear to him, and he would withdraw to the cave of Ḥirāʾ to devote himself to worship (taḥannuth)¹⁷⁴ for a number of nights before returning to his family, taking provision for that; then he would return to Khadīja and take provision again for the like of it¹⁷⁵ — until the Truth came upon him suddenly, while he was in the cave of Ḥirāʾ: the angel came to him and said, “Recite…!”¹⁷⁶

ʿAlī ibn Ibrāhīm al-Qummī said: “When the Prophet (ṣ) had reached thirty-seven years of age, he would see in his sleep as though one came to him and said, ‘O Messenger of God!’ And a space of time passed over him in that state, and he kept it secret. Then one day, while he was pasturing sheep for Abū Ṭālib in a mountain glen, he saw a person saying to him, ‘O Messenger of God!’ He said to him, ‘Who are you?’ He said: ‘I am Gabriel; God has sent me to you to take you for a messenger…’”¹⁷⁷

The Imam al-Bāqir (ʿa) said: “As for the prophet, he is the one who sees in his sleep — like the vision of Abraham (ʿa), and like what the Messenger of God (ṣ) saw of the causes of prophethood before the revelation, until Gabriel (ʿa) came to him from God with the message…”¹⁷⁸

His words “before the revelation” mean: before the missional revelation which he was commanded to convey. For this statement is an exposition of the concept of “prophet” (nabī) prior to his being a messenger (rasūl): a prophet is a man to whom revelation is made without his being commanded to convey it; he is in contact with the Highest Assembly by a spiritual contact, and the Kingdom is disclosed to him — as befell our Prophet (ṣ) shortly before his blessed mission.

Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī said: “That is, his sacred essence was qualified by the attribute of prophethood, and his message came to him from God inwardly and in secret, before he was qualified by the attribute of the message, or before Gabriel descended upon him visibly and perceptibly with the heard, revealed speech. Gabriel came to him visibly only when there had been gathered for him such of the causes of prophethood as are gathered for the perfect prophets, like Abraham — of the truthful dream, the successive intimations, and the disclosures of the realities of the sciences and the inspirations concerning the things of the Unseen. The upshot is that the Prophet (ṣ) perfected his inward and his secret before the attribute of the inward passed from him to the outward, so that the mould was qualified with the attribute of the heart, imitating it. The first is the end of the journey from the creation to the Truth; the second is the end of the journey from the Truth, with the Truth, to the creation.”¹⁷⁹

Indeed, the truthful dream may have been a path of revelation to him (ṣ), so that knowledge was cast to him at times in sleep. The Imam Amīr al-Muʾminīn (ʿa) said: “The vision of the prophets is revelation.”¹⁸⁰ But nothing of that was Qurʾān, for no descent of Qurʾān upon him in sleep is known. True, some have transmitted that among the occasions of the Qurʾān’s revelation there were such visions, as in the words of the Most High: “Allah has indeed fulfilled His Apostle’s vision in all truth: You will surely enter the Sacred Mosque, God willing…” (48:27)¹⁸¹ — the Prophet (ṣ) saw that in the year of al-Ḥudaybiyya,¹⁸² and it came true in the year of the Conquest.¹⁸³ And as in His words: “We did not appoint the vision that We showed you except as a test for the people, and the tree cursed in the Qurʾān” (17:60):¹⁸⁴ Ibn Abī Ḥātim, Ibn Mardūya, al-Bayhaqī, and Ibn ʿAsākir have brought out, from Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyab, that he said: the Messenger of God (ṣ) saw the Umayyads upon the pulpits, and that grieved him; so God revealed to him that it is only a world that they will be given — and it is the words of the Most High, “We did not appoint the vision…,” meaning a trial for the people.¹⁸⁵

So much for that. Some have also mentioned that Sūrat al-Kawthar came down upon the Messenger of God (ṣ) in sleep, on the report of Anas ibn Mālik, who said: while the Messenger of God (ṣ) was among us, he dozed off in a slumber; then he raised his head, smiling. We said: what has made you laugh, O Messenger of God? He said: a sūra has just been sent down upon me. And he recited: “In the Name of Allah, the All-beneficent, the All-merciful. Indeed We have given you [O Muḥammad] abundance…”¹⁸⁶

Al-Rāfiʿī said: they understood from this that the sūra came down in that slumber; but the likelier thing is that Sūrat al-Kawthar, which had been sent down upon him before that, occurred to him in his sleep, and he recited it to them and expounded it for them. He said: and this may be construed of the state that used to come upon him at the descent of revelation — called burḥāʾ al-waḥy, a drowsiness resembling slumber which used to overtake him from the weight of the revelation.

Jalāl al-Dīn [al-Suyūṭī] said: what al-Rāfiʿī said is entirely to the point, and this last interpretation is sounder than the first, because his words “just now (ānifan)” refute its having come down before that; rather it came down in that state — the swoon being not a sleep but the state that used to come upon him at the revelation; and ānifan means: a little before this time.¹⁸⁷

I say: there is no doubt that Sūrat al-Kawthar is Meccan, and this is the well-known view among the exegetes, of a fame that all but reaches uninterrupted concurrence. They said: it came down at Mecca when the polytheists reviled him as abtar — that is, one who has no issue after him — or as one cut off, severed from his people. Thus when his son ʿAbd Allāh died, Quraysh went about to one another with the good news and said: this Ṣābiʾ has been cut off (batara) this night.

Ibn ʿAbbās said: the Messenger of God (ṣ) entered by the gate of al-Ṣafā and went out by the gate of al-Marwa; al-ʿĀṣ ibn Wāʾil al-Sahmī met him, and then returned to Quraysh, who said to him: whom did you meet, Abū ʿAmr? He said: that cut-off one — meaning the Prophet (ṣ). So God, majestic is His majesty, sent down Sūrat al-Kawthar, as a consolation for the soul of His pure Prophet.¹⁸⁸

Moreover, Anas, at the time of the Prophet’s death, had not reached twenty; for at the Prophet’s coming to Medina he was a child not past nine — or, it is said, eight years old.¹⁸⁹ How, then, can we place trust in a ḥadīth of his that contradicts the whole community’s agreement to the contrary, and against the fact that the sūra came down at Mecca in a story that has passed the bound of uninterrupted concurrence?!

This is what makes the first alternative — the choice of the Imam al-Rāfiʿī — the weightier; or else we must let the rope of Anas’s report lie slack upon its withers.

True, Muslim and al-Bayhaqī have brought out this report by another route, in which the words “it was sent down upon me” do not occur. The Prophet (ṣ) fell into a swoon, then raised his head and recited: “In the Name of Allah, the All-beneficent, the All-merciful. Indeed We have given you abundance…”; then he expounded it as a river in Paradise. Al-Bayhaqī said: and this wording is preferable, since it does not conflict with what the people of exegesis and of the campaigns hold, that Sūrat al-Kawthar came down at Mecca.¹⁹⁰

2. The descent of Gabriel

The angel who used to descend upon the Prophet (ṣ) with the revelation was Gabriel (ʿa); he would cast it upon his noble hearing, appearing at times so that he was seen — either in his original form, and this happened twice, or in the form of Diḥya ibn Khalīfa — and at other times descending with the revelation without being seen, casting it rather upon his heart (ṣ): “brought down by the Trustworthy Spirit upon your heart” (26:193–194).¹⁹¹

The Most High said: “Nor does he speak out of [his own] desire: it is just a revelation that is revealed [to him], taught him by One of great powers” — that is, Gabriel, an exemplar of His power, the Most High — “possessed of sound judgement” — that is, endowed with a mighty intellectuality — “He settled”: he stood upright in his original form; and this was the first time, at the beginning of the revelation — “while he was on the highest horizon”: filling the whole space between east and west; “then he drew nearer and nearer.”

So he began to draw near to the Prophet (ṣ): “until he was within two bows’ length or even nearer, whereat He revealed” — that is, God revealed, by the mediation of Gabriel — “to His servant”, Muḥammad (ṣ), “whatever He revealed. The heart did not deny what it saw” — the heart of Muḥammad (ṣ), that is: the heart of Muḥammad (ṣ) confirmed with its sight that what it saw was true — “Will you then dispute with him about what he saw?! Certainly he saw it yet another time” — a second time, at the station sent down in the first — “by the Lote Tree of the Ultimate Boundary, near which is the Garden of the Abode, when there covered the Lote Tree what covered it. The gaze did not swerve, nor did it overstep the bounds” (53:3–17):¹⁹² so what he saw was a reality that took place — not a fancy or an imagining.

And He said: “it is indeed the speech of a noble apostle” — Gabriel — “powerful and eminent with the Lord of the Throne, one who is heard and trustworthy as well. Your companion” — Muḥammad (ṣ) — “is not crazy: certainly he saw him on the manifest horizon” (81:19–23): he saw Gabriel in his original form, “on the manifest horizon” — an indication of the first time as well.

Ibn Masʿūd said: the Messenger of God (ṣ) did not see Gabriel in his own form except twice. One of them was that he asked him to be seen in his form, and he showed him his form, and it filled the horizon. As for the second, it was where he ascended with him on the night of the Ascension; and that is His saying, “while he was on the highest horizon.”¹⁹³

The sound view is that one of the two times was at the beginning of the revelation, at Ḥirāʾ. Gabriel appeared to him in the form in which God created him, filling the horizon of heaven from east to west; and the Prophet (ṣ) was seized with awe — and rightly so. Then Gabriel came down upon him in the form of the sons of Adam and clasped him to his breast; and after that he would not descend upon him except in the form of a comely human being.

The second time was at the Prophet’s own request, as the reports have it: Gabriel used to come to him continually in the form of the sons of Adam, and the Messenger of God (ṣ) asked him to show himself to him another time in the form in which God had created him; so he showed him his form, and it filled the horizon. So the words of the Most High, “while he was on the highest horizon,” were the first time, and His words “yet another time” were the second.¹⁹⁴

The Messenger of God (ṣ) said: “And sometimes the angel is embodied for me as a man, and he speaks to me, and I retain what he says.”¹⁹⁵ And the Imam al-Ṣādiq (ʿa) said: “When Gabriel came to the Prophet (ṣ), he would not enter until he had asked leave of him; and when he entered upon him he would sit before him as the slave sits.”¹⁹⁶

So much for that. Gabriel — when he was embodied for the Messenger of God (ṣ) — would appear in the form of Diḥya ibn Khalīfa al-Kalbī; or, in a sounder expression, he would appear in a form resembling Diḥya, as it came in the expression of Ibn Shihāb: the Messenger of God (ṣ) used to liken Diḥya al-Kalbī to Gabriel when he took on the form of a human being.¹⁹⁷ And that is because Diḥya was the most beautiful human being in Medina: when he came to the town, the young women would come out to look at him.¹⁹⁸

The reason for this is that Gabriel, when he was embodied as a human being, took on the form of God’s creation of man upon the first primordial nature — and man, in the original of his creation, is beautiful; so Gabriel would be embodied in the most beautiful of human forms. And since Diḥya was the most beautiful human being in Medina, people used to suppose Gabriel — when he was embodied as a human — to be Diḥya al-Kalbī; whereas the truth is the reverse. The Messenger of God (ṣ) said: “Gabriel used to come to me in the form of Diḥya al-Kalbī”; and Diḥya was a comely man. But the plain sense is that this last sentence belongs to the words of Anas,¹⁹⁹ the transmitter of the ḥadīth — that is, in a form resembling the form of Diḥya. The Companions used to suppose him to be Diḥya in reality; and hence the Messenger of God (ṣ) forbade them to enter upon him if they found Diḥya with him. He said: if you see Diḥya al-Kalbī with me, let no one enter upon me.²⁰⁰

Gabriel would also be embodied for the Companions in the form of Diḥya, as in the campaign against the Banū Qurayẓa in the fifth year of the Hijra, when the Companions beheld him upon a white mule.²⁰¹ And ʿAlī (ʿa) also beheld him a number of times in the presence of the Prophet (ṣ) and spoke with him, while the Prophet (ṣ) lay asleep.²⁰²

As for the angel’s descending upon him with the revelation without his seeing him, that too was frequent: either a casting upon his hearing, so that he listened to him; or an inspiration into his heart, which he retained with full force. The Most High said: “Indeed it is the revelation of the Lord of all the worlds, brought down by the Trustworthy Spirit upon your heart, so that you may be one of the warners, in a clear Arabic language” (26:192–195).²⁰³

In the early days of the angel’s descent upon him with the revelation, he (ṣ) used to fear lest the wording escape him, and would therefore move his tongue and his lips to memorize it and not forget it, following Gabriel in every letter he cast upon him. So He, the Most High, forbade him that, and promised him preservation and safekeeping, saying: “Do not move your tongue with it to hasten it. Indeed it is up to Us to put it together and to recite it. And when We have recited it, follow its recitation. Then, its exposition indeed [also] lies with Us” (75:16–19).²⁰⁴

And sometimes he (ṣ) would recite to his companions the moment Gabriel had recited to him, before the revelation was complete or the descending verses had run their course, out of eagerness to fix and secure it; so the Most High forbade him this also, and said: “Do not hasten with the Qurʾān before its revelation is completed for you, and say, ‘My Lord! Increase me in knowledge’” (20:114).²⁰⁵ Thus He set him at rest with complete preservation and care; and the Messenger of God (ṣ) thereafter, when Gabriel came to him, would listen to him; and when he had departed, he would recite it as he had recited it to him.²⁰⁶ The Most High said: “We shall have you recite [the Qurʾān], then you will not forget [any of it]” (87:6).²⁰⁷

And in allusion to this manner of revelation, which was cast down into the heart, he (ṣ) said: “The Holy Spirit breathed into my rūʿ.”²⁰⁸ The rūʿ is the black core of the heart — a metonym for the inner secret; and what is meant is his noble soul.

3. Direct revelation

Perhaps the greater part of the revelation was direct, no angel mediating it, according to what has come in the Companions’ description of his (ṣ) state at the hour of the revelation’s descent upon him: it fell with severe incidence upon his noble self, straining his powers; an exhausting swoon would come over him, so that he would hang down his head, his face would turn grey, and he would stream with sweat; while an awesome dread would assail those present, and they would bow their heads in silence at the majesty of the awesome scene. The Most High said: “Indeed soon We shall cast on you a weighty word” (73:5).²⁰⁹

The Imam al-Ṣādiq (ʿa) said: “That was when the revelation came to him and there was none between him and God: that sabta²¹⁰ would befall him, and there would come over him what came over him, from the weight of the revelation upon him. But when Gabriel came to him with the revelation, he would say: Here is Gabriel — or: Gabriel said to me…”²¹¹

The Shaykh Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṣadūq said: “The Prophet (ṣ) would be among his companions when a swoon would come over him while he poured with sweat; and when he came to, he would say: God has said thus and thus; He has commanded you such, and He has forbidden you such. And most of our opponents allege that that was at the descent of Gabriel. But the Imam al-Ṣādiq (ʿa) was asked about the swoon that used to seize the Prophet (ṣ): was it at the descent of Gabriel? He said: No. Gabriel, when he came to the Prophet (ṣ), would not enter until he had asked his leave; and when he entered upon him, he would sit before him as the slave sits. That was only at the addressing of him by God, the Mighty and Majestic, without interpreter or intermediary.”²¹²

In what follows are descriptions that ran upon the tongues of the Companions, recounting what they witnessed of the state that would come over the Messenger of God (ṣ) at the hour of the revelation’s descent upon him:

The Commander of the Faithful (ʿa) said: “Sūrat al-Māʾida descended upon the Prophet (ṣ) while he was upon his mule al-Shahbāʾ. The revelation weighed upon her until she stood still and her belly sagged down — I saw her navel almost touching the earth — and a swoon fell upon the Messenger of God (ṣ), until he set his hand upon the crown-lock of Shayba ibn Wahb al-Jumaḥī…”²¹³

ʿUbāda ibn al-Ṣāmit said: “When the revelation descended upon the Prophet (ṣ), he was oppressed by it, and his face turned ashen.”²¹⁴ And in one version: “He hung down his head, and his companions hung down their heads; and when it was lifted from him, he raised his head.”²¹⁵

ʿIkrima said: “When revelation was made to the Messenger of God (ṣ), he would be stunned by it for a while, in the semblance of one overcome with drink.”²¹⁶

Ibn Arwā al-Dawsī said: “I saw the revelation descending upon the Prophet (ṣ) while he was upon his riding-camel: she would groan and twist her forelegs apart until I thought her foreleg would snap; sometimes she would kneel, and sometimes she would stand braced rigid, her legs planted like driven pegs, until it was lifted from him — from the weight of the revelation; and it would pour down from him like pearls.”²¹⁷

ʿĀʾisha said: “I saw the revelation descending upon him on a bitterly cold day; then it was lifted from him, and lo, his brow ran with sweat.”²¹⁸ And she said also: “Revelation would be made to the Messenger of God (ṣ) while he was upon his mount, and she would beat the ground with her jirān.”²¹⁹

Ibn ʿAbbās said: “When the revelation descended upon the Prophet (ṣ), he would suffer hardship from it, and severe pain and heaviness, and his head would throb.”²²⁰

And Ibn Shahrāshūb said: it is related that when the revelation descended upon him, he hung down his head, and his companions hung down their heads; and from this one speaks of the burḥāʾ of the revelation.²²¹

Ibn Qayyim related: “The revelation came to him once while his thigh was upon the thigh of Zayd ibn Thābit, and it weighed upon him until it almost crushed it.”²²²

And the author of al-Muntaqā related, saying: in the accepted hadith, revelation was made to him (ṣ) while he was upon his she-camel; and she knelt and set her jirān against the earth, and could not stir. And ʿUthmān used to write for the Prophet (ṣ), his thigh upon ʿUthmān’s thigh, when the revelation enveloped him; and his thigh grew so heavy upon the thigh of ʿUthmān that he said: I feared it would crush it.²²³

And finally, he (ṣ) has himself described the descent of the revelation upon him, in terms that astound:

ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar asked him: Do you sense the revelation? He said: “I hear ringing sounds (ṣalāṣil), and thereupon I fall silent; and never once is revelation made to me but I think my soul is about to be taken.”²²⁴

And al-Ḥārith ibn Hishām asked him, saying: O Messenger of God, how does the revelation come to you? He (ṣ) said: “Sometimes it comes to me like the clangour of the bell — and that is the severest of it upon me — then it breaks off from me, and I have retained what he said. And sometimes the angel is embodied for me as a man, and he speaks to me, and I retain what he says²²⁵ — and it is the lightest of it upon me.”²²⁶

As an appendix to this report — and it is mutawātir, up to a point — the reader must be alerted to some important points:

First: the clangour of the bell in this report is a metonym for a succeeding sound like the pealing, reverberating voice of the bell: he (ṣ) would hear an overlapping, continuous sound like the jangling of the bell — and it was the voice of the direct revelation — and he (ṣ) would give ear to it with his whole being until he had received it entire. It fell with severe incidence upon his noble self; and this expression, “the clangour of the bell,” betokens the severity of the incidence, in that the succession of the overtaking sound works upon the sense of hearing an influence that pierces to the depths, as though seizing the very pith of the heart with a sustained and powerful grip. Hence he (ṣ) said: I thought my soul was about to be taken.

And it appears that this clangour was a prelude to the descent of the revelation upon him (ṣ), that he might make himself ready for that intense spiritual contact. Hence his saying: “and thereupon I fall silent” — that is, I give ear, at the signal of the revelation’s descent.

Indeed, the revelation itself had a reverberation of surpassing severity, which the folk of the upper heavens could not sustain. Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Bāqir (ʿa) said, in exposition of the words of the Most High, “When fear is lifted from their hearts, they say, ‘What did your Lord say?’ They say, ‘The truth, and He is the All-exalted, the All-great’” (34:23)²²⁷: “The folk of the heavens had heard no revelation in the interval between Jesus (ʿa) and the sending of Muḥammad (ṣ). And when God sent Muḥammad (ṣ), the folk of the heavens heard the voice of the revelation of the Qurʾān like the fall of iron upon al-Ṣafā, and they swooned all together. Then, when the revelation was concluded, Gabriel descended; and whenever he passed the folk of a heaven, fear was lifted from their hearts — that is, that swoon was dispelled from them — and some of them fell to saying to others: ‘What did your Lord say?’ They said: ‘The truth, and He is the All-exalted, the All-great.’”²²⁸

And in the hadith of Ibn Masʿūd: “When God speaks the revelation, the folk of the heavens hear a clangour like the clangour of the chain upon the ṣafwān — the smooth rock — and they swoon.”²²⁹

And Ibn ʿAbbās said: “When the revelation descended, its voice was like the fall of iron upon the ṣafwān; and the folk of heaven swoon, ‘until, when fear is lifted from their hearts’ — that is, the fright is dispelled from them — ‘they say, “What did your Lord say?”’ The messengers (ʿa) said: ‘The Truth.’”²³⁰

And it is related of the Messenger of God (ṣ) that he said: “When God wills that a matter be revealed, He speaks the revelation; and when He speaks, the heaven takes a violent trembling from the fear of God the Most High; and when the folk of the heavens hear that, they swoon and fall down in prostration…”²³¹

This being so… it is scarcely to be wondered at that a swoon should come over the Messenger of God (ṣ) at the hour of the revelation’s descent upon him, if the folk of the heavens could not sustain the fall of its astounding voice.

Second: this severe mode of revelation, falling upon his noble self, was peculiar to the direct revelation, as his own hadith has already conveyed; and the report itself intimates this detail, in that it made of the first kind that which is like the clangour of the bell — the voice, that is, of the revelation descending upon him directly — whence he said: “and that is the severest of it upon me”; and it made of the second kind that which the angel speaks to him face to face, so that he comprehends what is revealed to him there and then — for he (ṣ) was at that hour in his ordinary state.

Jalāl al-Dīn [al-Suyūṭī] alleged that the two kinds to which the report points are these: the one, what the angel descending with the revelation brought while he was hidden; and the other, what he brought while embodied. But this is contrary to what is understood from the report itself, as our Shaykh al-Ṣadūq has alerted us²³²; and it has passed already in the hadith of the Imam al-Ṣādiq (ʿa).²³³

Third: the powerful spiritual seizure in the first form might perhaps give rise to the fancy that something of the revelation slipped away, when he (ṣ) lost his outward awareness. But he (ṣ) has made good this fancy: after his swoon had dispersed, he would find all that had been revealed to him present in his noble mind, as though it were written in a book, nothing of it having slipped from him. And this is the meaning of his (ṣ) saying: “it breaks off from me, and I have retained.”

The reason for this is that the revelation, in its direct form, mingled with his inmost pith and stole into the depths of his being, by what God cast into his noble heart: “We shall have you recite [the Qurʾān], then you will not forget [any of it].”²³⁴

By this becomes clear the meaning of the hadith which Ibn Abī Salama related from his uncle, that it reached him that the Messenger of God (ṣ) used to say: “The revelation comes to me in two manners: Gabriel comes to me and casts it upon me as one man casts upon another²³⁵ — and that is what slips away from me; and it comes to me in something²³⁶ like the voice of the bell, until it mingles with my heart — and that is what does not slip away from me.”²³⁷

His saying (ṣ), “that is what slips away from me,” means: that which was all but liable to slip away from him — because it was a hearing taken directly from the angel of the revelation, and man is quick to forget what he hears from another if he has not comprehended it with full attention. This mode of the revelation stood exposed to forgetfulness and the fear of escaping — as is the way of bare hearing, when it is not bound down by writing at its hour — not that anything did in fact slip away from him. Whereas in the form of the direct revelation — since it mingled with his pith and penetrated the depths of his noble heart — no escape was to be feared for it at all. Some researchers have fallen into confusion over this hadith, and others have rejected it; but its meaning, upon what we have stated, is sound, and the rest of the hadiths accord with it.²³⁸

A Spiritual Experiment

We have thought it fitting to adduce here the account of one eyewitness, out of hundreds of testimonies — reference has already been made to them — to the truth of the soul’s existence: that man has a spirit independent of the body, which does not dissolve with its dissolution, and which is capable of contact with the world beyond matter… It is the method of artificial sleep, or magnetic hypnotism. This experiment the learned master, the Shaykh Muḥammad ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm al-Zurqānī, attended in the year 1351 AH [1932] at Cairo, amid a cultivated gathering, and he witnessed its details himself, in the full sight and hearing of the assembly. The experiment established how influence may be worked upon the mind of the subject, and his conviction altered, by the act of the hypnotist, who suggests to him while he is in the state of trance and commands him to hold to it for such-and-such a term; then he wakes him — and lo, that which was suggested to him stands present in his mind until the term is complete:

“The lecturer arose — a master of magnetic hypnotism — and brought forward the subject, a youth in whom was a peculiar readiness to be influenced by the master, as in the master was a peculiar readiness to influence the subject: the first weak of soul, and the second strong of it. The master looked into the subject’s eyes with deep, piercing looks, and passed over him motions which they call ‘passes’; and it was but a moment before we saw the subject snoring with the snore of a sleeper: his colour had drained, his body had slackened, his ordinary sensation was gone — one of us would prick him with the needle, prick upon prick, and a second and a third would prick him likewise, and the subject’s hands made no movement, nor did any sign of his feeling or sensing it appear. Then were we certain that he had slept that artificial sleep.

“Thereupon the master took command of the subject and asked him: What is your name? He answered him with his true name. The master said: No, that is not your name; your name is Such-a-one — coining for him another name. Then he set about settling this new, false name in the subject’s soul, and effacing from him the trace of the old, truthful name, by means of fallacies he instilled into him in the guise of proofs, and by speech he addressed to him in the form of command and prohibition; and thus he dictated this fabrication upon him and imposed it by main force, until the subject bowed to it and yielded.

“Then the master fell to calling him by his true name time after time, at broken intervals, and in the midst of discourse at moments of inattention — and all the while he would not answer; then he would call him likewise by the manufactured name, and he would answer without hesitation or stammering.

“Then the master commanded his subject to remember always that this new name was his correct name, until half an hour past his waking. Then he woke him, and took up the completion of his lecture; and we would spring the true name upon the subject, and he would not answer; then we would spring his second name upon him, and he would answer — until, when the half hour appointed had run out, the subject returned to his first state of knowing his true name…”

The master al-Zurqānī said: “By this experiment there was established for me something near to the revelation, by way of a practical understanding. For the revelation is a spiritual contact, in which the recipient of the inspiration is wrought upon by what the inspirer casts to him, in a state in which the Messenger (ṣ) is stripped of his ordinary condition: the trace of the change shows upon him; he is engrossed in the taking and the receiving; and what he receives is imprinted in his self — so that when the revelation withdraws from him and he returns to his first condition, he finds what he had received standing fast in himself, present in his heart, as though it had been written in the page of his heart as in a book.

“Then I say: Do I suppose that the creature is able to work upon the soul of another creature that strange working, while the Master of all powers and all determinations is not able to work upon the soul of whomsoever He will of His servants by means of the revelation? No indeed, and again no — He has power over all things.”²³⁹

I say: While we do not concede all the details which the method of magnetic hypnotism has brought forward, nor give credence to all its manifestations absolutely — for at times they are not free of jugglery — we nevertheless acknowledge its soundness and its possibility in the main. Hence this modern scientific method, acknowledged in sum, has it in its power to establish the phenomenon of the revelation — be it only in sum; and in this is a sufficiency, by way of partial affirmation.

The Prophet’s Stance toward the Revelation

Here are two topics of great weight for the matter of the prophets’ message and the truthfulness of their summons to God, which must needs be treated in an acceptable scientific manner. The generality of the Sunnīs have spoken upon them in an unfamiliar way, which the innate reason can scarcely stomach in anything; whereas our Imāmī scholars have spoken upon them in a rational way, upon the basis of demonstrative inference, buttressed by the transmitted report from the Imams of the House (ʿa):

The first: How did the Prophet (ṣ) know that he was sent? And why did he not doubt that the one who came to him was a satan, and how was he assured that it was Gabriel?

The second: Is it admissible that the Prophet (ṣ) should err in what is revealed to him, so that vain imaginings are confounded upon him, appearing to him in the likeness of revelation; or that Iblīs should cast upon him and give him to fancy what he casts a revelation from God?

On the first topic, the most part have made the Prophet (ṣ) out to be alarmed at the first of his affair, fearing for himself the touch of madness, returning to the bosom of his loyal wife, who in her turn seeks succour of her cousin Waraqa ibn Nawfal; and he it is who sets his mind at rest that he is a prophet, and keeps confirming it to him until he is reassured and finds ease in it.

As for the second topic, they have allowed that Iblīs may toy with the revelation of heaven, casting upon the Prophet what he fancies to be revelation — as in the hadith of the gharānīq — were it not that Gabriel takes him in hand, so that the satan’s wile goes for nothing.

The Imams of the House (ʿa) have taken, in both topics, an unblemished way: they held the Prophet (ṣ) too honoured of God for Him to leave him to himself or to another; nor do the clear proofs of his noble prophethood fail to shine upon him in that critical hour — just as no way is left open to the satan to seize upon the sentiments of His noble prophet: “So submit patiently to the judgement of your Lord, for indeed you fare before Our eyes, and celebrate the praise of your Lord when you rise [at dawn]” (52:48).²⁴⁰

This said… it behoves us — seeking as we do to exonerate the person of the Messenger of God (ṣ) from what they have fastened upon his dignity — to speak of both fields in exhaustive fashion, each one apart.

Prophethood Coupled with Luminous Proofs

It is incumbent upon God — an obligation welling from the station of His grace and His tenderness toward His servants — that He couple His making a man prophet with luminous proofs which leave no scope in his soul for the channels of doubt; as He showed Abraham the dominions of the heavens and the earth, that he might be of those who possess certainty²⁴¹; and as “he was called, ‘O Moses! Indeed I am your Lord!’” (20:11–12)²⁴²; “O Moses! Indeed I am Allah, the All-mighty, the All-wise” (27:9)²⁴³; “O Moses! Do not be afraid. Indeed the apostles are not afraid before Me” (27:10).²⁴⁴

This is the requirement of the rule of grace (qāʿidat al-luṭf), which the scholars of kalām have investigated²⁴⁵; and it is summed up in the smoothing of the path of obedience: it is obligatory upon Him, the Most High, to pave for His servants all that draws them near to obedience and puts them at a distance from disobedience. And this obligation wells up from the station of His wisdom, the Most High, if He wills of His servants compliance; else it were a breach of His purpose in the imposition of the Law. Hence it is obligatory upon Him, the Most High, to raise up the prophets, to send down the revealed Laws, and to set among the nations that which lights for them the road of life — whether to felicity by their own choice, or to wretchedness by their own choice as well.²⁴⁶

In accordance with this rule He, the Most High, leaves no scope for the imposture of the people of crookedness and falsehood, but exposes them upon the instant: “Had he faked any sayings in Our name, We would have surely seized him by the right hand and then cut off his aorta” (69:44–46).²⁴⁷ The truth is ever uppermost, and nothing is set above it; and truth and falsehood are both upon plain evidence: the dust of falsehood never dims the face of the truth: “Rather We hurl the truth against falsehood, and it crushes its head, and behold, falsehood vanishes!” (21:18)²⁴⁸; “Indeed We shall help Our apostles and those who have faith in the life of the world” (40:51).²⁴⁹ And this is a victory and an ascendancy of principle: the truth is ever manifest and ever succoured, and the message of the prophets is ever the conquering victor: “Certainly Our decree has gone beforehand in favour of Our servants, the apostles, that they will indeed receive [Allah’s] help, and indeed Our hosts will be the victors” (37:171–173).²⁵⁰ Yes: “indeed the stratagems of Satan are always flimsy” (4:76).²⁵¹

The Imam al-Ṣādiq (ʿa) said: “God has refused that the truth be known for falsehood. God has refused to set the truth in the heart of the believer as a falsehood in which he doubts; and He has refused to set falsehood in the heart of the opposing unbeliever as a truth in which he does not doubt. And had He not made it thus, truth would not be known from falsehood.”

And he said: “No falsehood ever stands over against the truth but the truth overcomes the falsehood; and that is His word, the Most High: ‘Rather We hurl the truth against falsehood, and it crushes its head, and behold, falsehood vanishes!’”²⁵²

This said… Zurāra ibn Aʿyan asked the Imam Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ṣādiq (ʿa) upon this very matter. He said: I said to Abū ʿAbd Allāh: How was it that the Messenger of God (ṣ) did not fear, in what came to him from God, lest it be of that with which the satan tampers? He (ʿa) said: “When God takes a servant as messenger, He sends down upon him tranquillity and gravity — that is, assurance and equilibrium of mind — so that what came to him from God was like that which he sees with his own eye.”²⁵³

That is: He sets him in the plain light of the truth, upon which no dust ever settles, so that he sees the actual fact bright and manifest, doubting not, and wavering neither in his judgement nor in his mind. And the Imam (ʿa) has made this plain in another hadith. He (ʿa) was asked: How did the messengers know that they were messengers? He said: “The covering was lifted from them.”²⁵⁴

Al-ʿAllāma al-Ṭabrisī said: “God reveals to His messenger only with radiant demonstrations and manifest signs, which indicate that what is revealed to him is from God the Most High; so that he needs nothing else beside them, and does not take fright, and does not falter.”²⁵⁵

And al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ said: “It is not sound — that is, in His wisdom, the Most High (and it is an allusion to the rule of grace) — that the satan should take on for him the likeness of the angel, and confound the matter upon him: not at the first of the message, nor after it. And the reliance — that is, the assurance of the Prophet (ṣ) — in that, is upon the proof of the miracle. Nay, the Prophet (ṣ) did not doubt that what came to him from God was the angel, and His truthful messenger — whether by a necessary knowledge which God created for him, or by a manifest demonstration which God made appear before him: that the word of your Lord be fulfilled in truth and justice; there is no changer of the words of God.”²⁵⁶

Therefore the Prophet (ṣ) must needs be, at his being raised up a prophet, upon a knowledge of certainty — nay, upon the very eye of certainty — of his affair: not doubting and not wavering, in utter assurance, at rest of soul, regarded by the special care and grace of God the Most High, succoured and confirmed; above all at the commencement of the mission, when the Greatest Nāmūs comes to him — and it is the plain truth, eye-witnessed and beheld. It is a decisive hour of destiny, in which it beseems no prophet to totter or to take fright in that trying strait: “Indeed the apostles are not afraid before Me” (27:10).²⁵⁷

And again: the Prophet (ṣ) — God chose him not for His prophethood save after He had perfected his intellect and disciplined his manners with the fairest discipline, and had acquainted him of the secrets of the dominions of the heavens and the earth with what fitted him to rise to the office of the embassy and the delivery of the message of God to all the worlds — as He did with Abraham the Friend (ʿa). The Imam, the Commander of the Faithful (ʿa), said: “From the time that he (ṣ) was weaned, God coupled with him the greatest angel of His angels, to travel with him the road of noble deeds and the fair traits of the character of the world, his night and his day…”²⁵⁸ And the Imam al-ʿAskarī (ʿa) said: “God found the heart of Muḥammad (ṣ) the best of hearts and the most capacious of them, and so He chose him for His prophethood…”²⁵⁹ As he (ṣ) said: “God has never raised up a prophet nor a messenger until his intellect be perfected, and his intellect be more excellent than the intellects of the whole of his community…”²⁶⁰

Al-ʿAllāma al-Majlisī said: “From the time God perfected his intellect, he ceased not to be confirmed by the Spirit of Holiness: it would speak to him, and he would hear its voice, and see the truthful vision — until God raised him up as prophet and messenger.”²⁶¹

The proofs that he (ṣ) was, from his very beginning, the object of the grace of the Most High and of His special care are many. His people recognized in him native genius and intrinsic worth; they sensed in him truthfulness and trustworthiness, intelligence and sagacity; and they found him a compound of rectitude and soundness of judgement — so that he was endeared to men one and all, and they surnamed him the Truthful and Trustworthy (al-Ṣādiq al-Amīn): trusted in his opinion, and trusted in his conduct.

And shortly before his mission, the marks of prophethood began to show themselves to him: its signs appeared three years before his mission, while he was in the seven-and-thirtieth year of his age — as in the report of ʿAlī ibn Ibrāhīm al-Qummī²⁶² — so that he would see the truthful vision; and he would seclude himself in the cave of Ḥirāʾ, pondering the secrets of the dominion, sinking deep in contemplation of the essence of God, aspiring after the secret of creation — until the Truth came suddenly upon him when he had reached the age of forty. He had been made ready in himself for it, knowing the features of a matter whose first gleams had dawned since a while before.

Such a man does not take fright, does not falter, and does not suspect of himself madness or an evil accident, that he should flee for refuge to a woman who has no part in the secrets of the prophethoods, or to a man²⁶³ whose portion of knowledge it was to have read distorted books and faded traces — of whom it was never established, at that time, that he had touched anything of the realities and knowledges of the kingdom and the dominion as they existed in that day, unmarred from their first mould.

Add to this that the Prophet Muḥammad (ṣ) was the noblest of the prophets, the most excellent of the messengers, and the seal of the ambassadors of the Lord of all the worlds: God honoured him too much to leave him to himself and his own devices, writhing in the embraces of anxiety and turmoil, fearing for himself the touch of madness or the seizure of his noble mind — after the manner of what has come in narrations, to follow, which possess no worth with us.

Thus, then, the stance of the Prophet (ṣ) toward the descent of the Truth upon him — at the commencement of the mission — was the stance of a man aware, alive to the manifest of the affair, knowing the reality of the Truth descending upon him, in utmost assurance and stillness of soul and expansion of breast: he neither hesitated nor doubted nor wavered, even as he neither took fright nor panicked. And we shall relate the story of the commencement of the mission as it has come in the narrations of the House (ʿa) — narrations whose fulness is grandeur and reverence, splendour and majesty — expounding aspects of the stance of the Prophet (ṣ) at that hour.

The Story of Waraqa ibn Nawfal

Such was the story of the mission, according to what has come in the hadiths of the House — and the folk of the House know best what is in the House. Here now is another telling of the mission of the Prophet Muḥammad (ṣ), upon what has come in the narrations of others:

Al-Bukhārī, Muslim, Ibn Hishām, al-Ṭabarī and their fellows relate: “While the Prophet (ṣ) was secluded by himself in the cave of Ḥirāʾ, of a sudden he heard a voice calling him. Terror took him; he raised his head — and behold, an awesome form: it was this that was calling him. His panic increased, and dread fixed him where he stood; he took to turning his face away from what he saw — but lo, he saw it in all the horizons of the sky: he would step forward and step back, and the form withdrew from no quarter toward which he turned. He remained thus a long while, beside himself; and he had almost cast himself down from a precipice of the mountain, from the violence of what had come upon him of the dreadfulness of the awesome sight. Khadīja meanwhile had sent someone to seek out the Prophet (ṣ) at the cave, and he found him not — until, when the form withdrew, he came back returning, his heart in tumult, filled full of dread and terror; and he came in to Khadīja trembling with fright as though fevered; and he looked at his wife with the look of one come home seeking succour, saying: O Khadīja — what ails me?! And he told her what he had seen, and confided to her his fears that his own sight was playing him false. He said: I have feared for myself; I cannot but think that something has befallen me²⁶⁴; and he said: The wretch — meaning his own noble self — is surely a soothsayer, or mad!

“His loyal wife bent upon him the look of compassion and said: Never, O son of my uncle! Rejoice, and stand firm. By God, God will never disgrace you. By Him in whose hand is Khadīja’s soul, I hope indeed that you are the prophet of this community. You join the bond of kinship, and speak truly, and give hospitality to the guest, and lend aid against the calamities of fortune; and never has any shameful thing been laid to your charge. And thus she set him at rest with her delicate speech.

“Then she arose to a successful experiment. She said: O son of my uncle, can you tell me of this companion of yours, when he comes to you? He said: Yes. She said: Then when he comes to you, tell me of him. And the angel came to him as he was wont to come; and the Messenger of God (ṣ) said: O Khadīja, here he is — he has come. She said: So? Rise, O son of my uncle, and sit upon my left thigh. The Messenger of God (ṣ) rose and sat upon it. She said: Do you see him? He said: Yes. She said: Then shift, and sit upon my right thigh. The Messenger of God (ṣ) shifted and sat upon it. She said: Do you see him? He said: Yes. She said: Then shift, and sit in my lap. He shifted and sat in her lap. She said: Do you see him? He said: Yes. Then she bared herself²⁶⁵ and cast aside her veil, while the Messenger of God (ṣ) was sitting in her lap. She said: Do you see him, O son of my uncle? He said: No. She said: O son of my uncle, stand firm and rejoice: by God, he is assuredly an angel, and no satan!

“Then, in confirmation of what she had concluded from her experiment, she went off to her cousin Waraqa ibn Nawfal — he had become a Christian, and was a reader of the books — and recounted to him the tidings of her kinsman Muḥammad (ṣ); and Waraqa said: Holy, holy! If you have told me the truth, O Khadīja, there has come to him the Greatest Nāmūs, that used to come to Moses; and he is assuredly the prophet of this community. Would that I might live to overtake his days, to believe in him and lend him succour. So Khadīja returned to the Messenger of God (ṣ) and told him what he had said; and thereupon his mind found rest in it, his terror departed, and he was certain that he was a prophet.”²⁶⁶

I say: There is no doubt that the tale of the Prophet’s (ṣ) alarm at that hideous form is a legend, woven by simple, ignorant minds, unknowing of the station of the noble prophets of God; hence it is a derogation of their lofty standing, and a casting-down of their towering rank — if it be not a battering at the strongest pillar of the message of God!

First: The Prophet (ṣ) was too honoured of God for Him to terrify him in a critical hour that is the decisive point in the life of His noble messenger: the point of a tremendous transformation, from a complete man answerable for himself, to a man who is a messenger answerable for a whole community; a man who, before he attained to this trying station, had been advancing steadily toward the summit of the highest human perfection, upon a perilous journey whose setting-out was from the creation and whose bourne was the Truth Most High: he was journeying from the creation to the Truth. And now, having reached the summit, he had turned back from the Truth — bearing the Truth — unto the creation.²⁶⁷

So the hour of the mission is that decisive juncture: it is the link joining the two journeys, the going and the returning; and it is a strait position. God forbid that He should leave His beloved to drain the two bitterest of cups just when he had attained the summit of the encounter — and now that He wills to choose him as messenger to mankind — leaving him to writhe amid perilous forebodings, and terrifying him with that hideous form which all but drives away his noble soul, the dreadfulness of the awesome sight all but seizing possession of his mind!!

Is not Muḥammad (ṣ) more honoured with God than Abraham the Friend, and Moses the Interlocutor, and other great prophets besides them, whom He abandoned not in the hour of straitness to flee for refuge to some other man — far be that from a Lord tender and compassionate!!

Second: We hold our scholars — and they are men of verification and sifting — too high to prefer the mentality of a woman who had no concern with the secrets of the prophethoods, and the mentality of a man whose business it was to have been a reader of books, above the mentality of a complete man who had attained the summit which fitted him to bear the message of God. And further: that a decisive experiment should be mounted, by which the Messenger of the Lord of all the worlds is set at rest — he not knowing his own state! — reposing upon her word, or upon the word of a man whose affair was that he had read the books; and that age was no age of books containing indisputable truths and knowledge undistorted, definitive. Nor do we know what it was the Messenger of God (ṣ) found in the saying of those two to be the fount of his assurance, which he had not found in the Truth descending upon him from God, the All-mighty, the All-wise?!

Was not the truthful vision, which went before the mission; and the salutation of the angel descending upon him at its time; and the salutation of tree and stone whenever he passed them by, returning to the house of Khadīja; and his knowledge of his own self, which he had kept deepening through the term of his seclusion at Ḥirāʾ — did not all of this necessitate his certainty in the matter, above his needing the setting-at-rest of a woman, or of a man turned Christian?! This is naught but a hideous derogation of the station of the message of God — if it be not a foul outrage upon the dignity of the Messenger of God (ṣ), the inviolable.

Third: The divergence in the telling of the tale, in a fashion whose parts do not cohere one with another, is proof against it of its mendacity root and branch. In one version: Khadīja went off alone to Waraqa and told him what had passed. In another: “She went off with me to Waraqa, and said: Hear from the son of your brother. He questioned me, and I told him.” In a third: Waraqa ibn Nawfal met him while he was circumambulating the House, and said: O son of my brother, tell me what you have seen and heard. The Messenger of God (ṣ) told him, and Waraqa said: By Him in whose hand is my soul, you are assuredly the prophet of this community; and if I overtake that day, I shall surely aid God’s cause with an aid He shall know of.

In a fourth — from Ibn ʿAbbās, from Waraqa ibn Nawfal — he said: I said: O Muḥammad, tell me of this that comes to you — meaning Gabriel (ʿa). He said: “He comes to me from the sky: his two wings are of pearl, and the soles of his feet green.”²⁶⁸ And this is not in the versions of Khadīja’s recourse to Waraqa, upon what has come in the foregoing Ṣiḥāḥ. And in a fifth: Abū Bakr came in to Khadīja and she said: Take Muḥammad off to Waraqa. So the two of them went off, and they recounted it to him…²⁶⁹

Then — were the tale sound, why did Waraqa not believe in him then and there, since he had known that he was a prophet sent?!

For it is soundly established that he died an unbeliever, not believing in him. Sibṭ ibn al-Jawzī said: “He was the last to die of those who died in the fatra — the first years after the mission — and was buried at al-Ḥajūn.” He said: “And he was no Muslim.” And so it is related from Ibn ʿAbbās: that he died upon his Christianity.²⁷⁰ As for the matter of the Prophet’s (ṣ) vision of Waraqa — “Waraqa in white garments” — it is likewise a lying report, its isnād broken; else his name would surely have been registered among those who believed in him. Ibn ʿAsākir said: I know of no one who has said that he became Muslim.²⁷¹

And withal, he lived on for a time after the mission. The author of al-Imtāʿ mentions that Waraqa ibn Nawfal died in the fourth year of the mission; Burhān al-Dīn al-Ḥalabī said: with this agrees what has come in the Sīra of Ibn Isḥāq, and likewise what is from Kitāb al-Khamīs.²⁷² For it is related that he passed by Bilāl while he was being tortured.²⁷³ Ibn Ḥajar said: and this shows that he lived until his (ṣ) summons had appeared, and he had called Bilāl, who became Muslim. Why, then, did he abide in his unbelief and not enter Islam as the others entered? And why did he not succour him as the others succoured him — when he had thereby violated his pledge, as it came in the legend?

Revelation Admits No Confusion

This is the second topic — to which we pointed above: the Prophet (ṣ) does not err in what is revealed to him, nor is the matter ever confounded upon him at all. The Prophet, when revelation is being made to him, the covering is lifted from his eye, and he beholds actuality itself, in what his celestial spirit touches, cut off from the diversions of matter. He (ṣ) at that hour touches theophanies and irradiations of light that envelop him from the world of the dominion, so that he turns with the whole of himself to the meeting of the Spirit of God and the receiving of His words; and he sees the reality of the Truth descending upon him with waking consciousness and piercing insight — as one who sees the sun in the plainness of day: he admits no error in his seeing, and no confusion in what he comprehends.

And so the revelation: since it was no idea welling up from within the conscience — that error might enter into the ordering of the premisses of its inference — nor a beholding from afar — that confusion might enter into the correspondence²⁷⁴ — but was rather the witnessing of a present reality with a piercing eye: the supposition of error in it is impossible.

That is a scientific, philosophical method²⁷⁵ which guides us to the acknowledgement that the error of the revelation is impossible, for ever; and hence the Law of God, descending upon the hands of His trusted messengers, is guarded from the supposition of error root and branch.

And there is another, rational method, which makes necessary the inerrancy of the prophets in what they convey of the Laws of God; the scholars of kalām have set it out in detail, and it is summed up thus: the prophet who conveys from God must — in the light of the rule of grace — be blessed with complete soundness in the organs of his sensation, and entire health in the powers of his feeling and in his intellectual capacity; upright in his opinions and his theories, temperate in his character and his conduct, even in his build and his figure. In one comprehensive word: God must choose for His message a man complete in his creation and his character, so that men do not shy from his company, and so that they may rest assured in what he conveys to them from God; else it were a breach of the purpose of the Lawgiving.

The Prophet (ṣ), then, is preserved from error and from forgetfulness — above all in what touches the conveying of the ordinances of the Law. Upon this is the consensus of the Muslims — and of others besides them, of the reasonable who have owned the message of the prophets; and were it not so, the holding fast to the laws of religion were a folly which reason refuses.²⁷⁶

This, in addition to what God pledged to His prophet of care and preservation: “We shall have you recite [the Qurʾān], then you will not forget [any of it]” (87:6).²⁷⁷ He (ṣ), at the beginning of the Qurʾān’s descent, used to fear lest something of it escape him, and so would keep pace with Gabriel in each word he cast upon him; and He forbade him that: “Do not move your tongue with it to hasten it. Indeed it is up to Us to put it together and to recite it. And when We have recited it, follow its recitation. Then, its exposition indeed [also] lies with Us” (75:16–19)²⁷⁸; “And do not hasten with the Qurʾān before its revelation is completed for you, and say, ‘My Lord! Increase me in knowledge’” (20:114).²⁷⁹ Ibn ʿAbbās said: after that, the Messenger of God (ṣ), when Gabriel came to him, listened; and when Gabriel had gone, he recited it as he had recited it.²⁸⁰ And finally, His word, “Indeed We have sent down the Reminder, and indeed We will preserve it” (15:9)²⁸¹, cuts off every supposition of insinuation or tampering in the texts of the noble Qurʾān.

As for the supposed imposture of Iblīs — his intervening in what is revealed to the Prophet (ṣ), making his satanic embellishments in the guise of revelation, and dressing them upon the Prophet (ṣ), that he might allege them a revelation from God — it is a thing impossible: for the satan cannot prevail over the mentality of the messengers of God and His honoured servants: “As for My servants, you shall have no authority over them” (17:65).²⁸² It stands at odds, too, with His word, the Most High: “Had he faked any sayings in Our name, We would have surely seized him by the right hand…” (69:44–45)²⁸³; and with His word: “Nor does he speak out of [his own] desire: it is just a revelation that is revealed [to him], taught him by One of great powers” (53:3–5).²⁸⁴ The satan has himself said: “I had no authority over you, except that I called you and you responded to me” (14:22).²⁸⁵ And it stands at odds with the aforesaid rule of grace, and in contradiction with His wisdom, the Most High, in the raising up of the prophets (ʿa), upon an exposition whose detail has gone before.

Yes — the fellows of hadith among the generality have gone so far as to allow the satan’s prevailing over the mentality of the Messenger (ṣ), as their narration of the tale of the gharānīq has come down: a thing we deem impossible absolutely. It is, then, a legend, forged by such as wished to affront the station of the message, venting it upon the minds of the simple; and it fell a spoil into the hands of the enemies of Islam. Here follows the text of the legend, and its criticism, in order:

The Myth of the Cranes (Usṭūrat al-Gharānīq)

Ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī relates, with an isnād he alleged to be sound, from Muḥammad ibn Kaʿb, Muḥammad ibn Qays, Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, Ibn ʿAbbās and others: that the Prophet (ṣ) was in a gathering of the polytheists of Quraysh, in the court of the Kaʿba or in one of their assembly-clubs; and his soul had been communing with him: would that something might come to him from the Qurʾān that should draw near between him and his obdurate people — for he suffered at their estrangement, and hoped for concord with them, whatever the affair might cost. And when Sūrat al-Najm descended upon him, he fell to reciting it, until, when he reached “Have you considered Lāt and ʿUzzā? and Manāt, the third one?” (53:19–20)²⁸⁶, the satan cast upon him: “Those are the exalted gharānīq, and their intercession is indeed to be hoped for”²⁸⁷; and he took the two of them for revelation, and recited them to the assembly of Quraysh; then he passed on and recited the remainder of the sūra. When he had completed it, he prostrated; and the Muslims prostrated; and the polytheists prostrated also, in appreciation of what had fallen in with them — Muḥammad (ṣ) having accorded with them in the magnifying of their gods and the hope of their intercession. And the tidings flew, till they reached the emigrants of Abyssinia, who set about returning to their town Mecca, rejoicing at this sudden accord — even as the Prophet (ṣ) too rejoiced at the fulfilment of his old-cherished wish for the concord of his people.

And it is said: it was a white satan that appeared to the Prophet in the form of Gabriel, and cast upon him those two phrases.

And it is said: the Prophet (ṣ) was praying at the Maqām when he dozed a doze, and these two phrases ran out upon his tongue without his awareness.

And it is said: it was the Prophet (ṣ) himself who spoke them, of his own motion, in eagerness for the concord of the polytheists’ hearts; then he repented of his deed — this deed of his that was a fabrication against God!

And it is said: the satan compelled him to the uttering of this speech… and so forth.

Then, when night fell, Gabriel came to him, and he said to him: Present the sūra to me. The Prophet (ṣ) fell to reciting it to him, until, when he reached the two phrases, Gabriel said: Hold! Whence have you brought these two phrases? And the Messenger of God (ṣ) was smitten with remorse and said: I have fabricated against God, and said of God what He did not say!? And he grieved with a violent grief, and feared God with a great fear.

And it is said: the Prophet (ṣ) said to Gabriel: There came to me one in your form, and cast the two of them upon my tongue. Gabriel said: God forbid that I should have made you recite this… And the matter weighed heavily upon the Messenger of God. Then descended: “They were about to beguile you from what Allah has revealed to you so that you may fabricate against Us something other than that, whereat they would have befriended you. Had We not fortified you, certainly you might have inclined toward them a bit. Then We would have surely made you taste a double [punishment] in this life and a double [punishment] after death, and then you would have not found for yourself any helper against Us” (17:73–75).²⁸⁸

So the grief of the Messenger of God (ṣ) grew violent at this sudden stroke, and he ceased not downcast and sorrowing, until there descended upon him: “We did not send before you any apostle or prophet but that when he recited [the scripture] Satan interjected [something] in his recitation. Thereat Allah nullifies whatever Satan has interjected, [and] then Allah confirms His signs, and Allah is All-knowing, All-wise” (22:52)²⁸⁹; and it was a consolation to his grieving heart: thereat his sorrow was dispelled from him, and his soul was at ease.²⁹⁰

Criticism of the Ḥadīth’s Chain of Transmission

Such is the legend of the gharānīq — a calumny against the noble Prophet (ṣ). The orientalists, and the revilers of the upright religion of Islam, have doted upon this concocted legend, broadcasting it and raising about it a clamorous din of obscene speech.²⁹¹

Whereas it is a fabricated lie, wrought by the artifices of the story-tellers, who fathered it upon certain of the Followers — and, of the Companions, upon Ibn ʿAbbās; and the marks of lying and fabrication stand plain upon its brazen face:

First: the isnād of the hadith never once runs unbroken to a Companion. It is ascribed only to a company of the Followers, and of such as never overtook the lifetime of the Messenger of God (ṣ); the hadith is accordingly mursal, its chain unjoined to any witness of the affair — supposing such there were.

As for its ascription to Ibn ʿAbbās, it carries no more weight than the ascription to others: the birth of Ibn ʿAbbās falling in the third year before the Hijra, he never witnessed the tale at all; it was only transferred to him by supposition. The report, then, upon all its faces, is of isnād unjoined to any witnesses of the event — even had the event been real. And the canons of the art of sifting, in the isnād of narrations, refuse the admissibility of arguing from the like of this mursal hadith.

Ibn Ḥajar stood apart with his saying: it has three mursal chains whose men are trustworthy upon the condition of soundness. Then he fell to inveighing against those who alleged it invented, saying: “When the paths are many and their outlets divergent, that shows the affair has a basis”; and he said: “Such marāsīl as these are adduced in argument by him who argues from the mursal — nay, even by him who does not, on account of their lending strength one to another.”²⁹²

I say: And does the lie, when it gains currency, turn about in its essence and become truthful?!

Second: the testimony of the mass of the imams of hadith to the mendacity of this report, and that the paths to it are feeble and frail — and that, in what its isnād comprises, it is, in the eye of the art, fallen besides.

Ibn Ḥajar himself said: and all the paths of this tale — save the path of Ibn Jubayr — are either weak (the narrator not being trusted, or being accused of fabrication and lying) or broken (the link of joining between the first narrator and the last narrator being missing).²⁹³ And we shall relate that the affliction of Ibn Jubayr’s path is likewise mursal-ness, and weakness.

Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Bayhaqī — the greatest of the imams of the Shāfiʿiyya, famed for exactness of criticism and sifting — said: “This hadith, on the side of transmission, is not established; its narrators are impugned.”²⁹⁴

And Abū Bakr ibn al-ʿArabī said: “All that al-Ṭabarī relates in this matter is false; it has no basis.”²⁹⁵ And Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq ibn Khuzayma composed an epistle in which he demolished this concocted hadith, ascribing it to the fabrication of the zanādiqa.²⁹⁶

Al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ said: “This hadith none of the people of soundness has published, nor has any trustworthy narrator related it with a sound, connected chain; it is only the exegetes and the chroniclers who have doted upon it and its like — those enamoured of every strange thing, who snatch up from the scrolls everything sound and sick alike. And the Qāḍī Bakr ibn al-ʿAlāʾ al-Mālikī spoke truly where he said: mankind has been afflicted by certain people of caprice and of tafsīr; and the heretics have fastened upon that — with the weakness of its transmitters, the disorder of its narrations, the brokenness of its isnād, and the divergence of its words.”²⁹⁷

As for the path of Ibn Jubayr: Abū Bakr al-Bazzāz has mentioned that this hadith is not known to be traced back save through Shuʿba, from Umayya ibn Khālid and others, who transmit it mursal from Saʿīd ibn Jubayr; and it is known only from al-Kalbī, from Abū Ṣāliḥ, from Ibn ʿAbbās. Then he records his doubt of the soundness of the ascription to Ibn ʿAbbās, even in what was ascribed to Ibn Jubayr.²⁹⁸ And as for the path of al-Kalbī to Ibn ʿAbbās, by way of Abū Ṣāliḥ, it is enfeebled by common accord: Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī said: it is the frailest of the paths.²⁹⁹

Third: the agreement of the word of the verifiers among the scholars of Islam, early and late, that it is a hadith fabricated, adjudged a scandalous lie — paying no heed to the side of the isnād, joined or broken, sound or sick — because it is, before every other thing, in contradiction with the plain text of the Qurʾān, which “falsehood cannot approach, from before it nor from behind it, a [gradually] sent down [revelation] from One all-wise, all-laudable” (41:42)³⁰⁰; and a demolisher of the strongest foundations of the Law, and of its firmest pillar.

Al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā said: “As for the hadiths related in this chapter, no heed is to be paid them, inasmuch as they comprise that from which the intellects have declared the messengers (ṣ) exempt. And this, even had they not been in themselves impugned and feeble with the fellows of hadith. And how should he allow that of the Prophet (ṣ), who hears the word of God the Most High: ‘So it is, that We may strengthen your heart with it’ (25:32)³⁰¹, and His word: ‘Had he faked any sayings in Our name…’ (69:44)³⁰², and His word: ‘We shall have you recite [the Qurʾān], then you will not forget [any of it]’ (87:6)³⁰³…” Then he proceeded to the clarification of the argument.³⁰⁴

The Imam al-Fakhr [al-Rāzī] said: “This is the narration of the generality of the literalist exegetes. As for the people of verification, they have declared it false and forged, and have argued against it from the existence of reason and of transmission alike.”³⁰⁵

And al-Sayyid al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī said: “The definitive proofs of the inerrancy of the Prophet (ṣ) give the lie to the matn of the hadith, though the soundness of its chains were granted. It is obligatory to exonerate the sacred person of the Prophet (ṣ) from the like of these vilenesses, which touch the dignity of the prophets.”³⁰⁶

Al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ has discoursed in refutation of this hadith upon numerous sides, from which we have borrowed chapters in this exposition. And lastly, Dr. Ḥusayn Haykal has undertaken the refutation of the tale in a modern manner, which we have summarized at the end of the essay.

Criticism of the Ḥadīth’s Content

This hadith — its enfeebled isnād apart — is false in its purport upon every reckoning. First: its explicit contradiction of many texts of the noble Qurʾān, from every quarter. Second: its manifest incompatibility with the station of the prophets’ inerrancy, established by the proof of reason, by mutawātir transmission, and by consensus. Third: the impossibility of its cohering with the rest of the verses of the sūra itself, in cadence and in style — such that this side of it could not be confounded upon anyone who knows the ways of eloquent speech; how much less could the matter be confounded upon the most eloquent of all who have spoken the tongue of the Ḍād, and upon those present — and they the grandees of Quraysh and the flint-stones of the Arabs. In elucidation of these three grave aspects, we review what follows:

1. Its contradiction of the Qurʾān

We hold any discerning Muslim — not to speak of an expert critic like Ibn Ḥajar — too high to concede the truthfulness of this fabricated hadith, upon the strength of his allegation that its mursal chains are sound, and then fail to ponder its corrupt matn, whose manifest repugnance to many texts of the Mighty Book is patent. Here is a portion of that:

(a) The sūra opens with His word, the Most High: “By the star when it sets: your companion has neither gone astray, nor gone amiss. Nor does he speak out of [his own] desire: it is just a revelation that is revealed [to him], taught him by One of great powers” (53:1–5).³⁰⁷

This is an explicit testimony from God that Muḥammad (ṣ) neither strays nor errs, and does not speak save by a revelation from God, taught him by the Trustworthy Spirit. Were what they mention at the head of the twentieth verse sound, it would be a scandalous falsification of this testimony, and a granting of victory to the side of the satan over the side of the All-beneficent — He who has said: “indeed the stratagems of Satan are always flimsy” (4:76)³⁰⁸, and who has said: “Allah has ordained: ‘I shall surely prevail, I and My apostles.’ Indeed Allah is all-strong, all-mighty” (58:21).³⁰⁹

How then — one wonders — does Iblīs prevail over what God the Most High has guaranteed, annulling it openly, before He has even finished uttering His word from His throne of glory?! And does the weak, in his wile, prevail over the strong in His will?! Is this anything but a paltry inanity, and empty speech, which no reasonable man can bring himself to credit!

(b) And again: He, the Most High, says: “Had he faked any sayings in Our name, We would have surely seized him by the right hand and then cut off his aorta” (69:44–46)³¹⁰ — a metonym signifying that no one is able to fabricate against God, dressing falsehood upon the truth, but that God destroys him upon the instant: a matter which His wisdom, the Most High, requires, in course with the rule of grace, to which reference has already been made.

Do you suppose — after this asseveration — that Iblīs, the master of the flimsy wile, is able to fabricate against God, and to confound the matter upon the Messenger of God (ṣ) with what he supposes a revelation brought to him by Gabriel the Trustworthy?! Where, then, is the guarantee which God the Most High — the Prevailer over His affair — has given, and His pledge upon Himself, in the verse cited?!

(c) And He, the Most High, has said: “Indeed We have sent down the Reminder, and indeed We will preserve it” (15:9)³¹¹: He, the Most High, has guaranteed the safety of the Qurʾān from the tampering of the hands of the falsifiers, and its preservation from the intrigues of the obstinate. Is it then reasonable — after that — that He should leave Iblīs to his own devices, to toy at will with the Wise Reminder, the moment it descends upon His noble messenger?! Is this anything but an inanity of opinion, and an annulment of the guarantee of God?! And with it no confidence would remain in what God has promised the faithful of victory and prevailing — exalted is God above that, greatly!!

(d) And He, the Most High, has said: “Indeed he does not have any authority over those who have faith and put their trust in their Lord” (16:99)³¹²; and He has said: “As for My servants, you shall have no authority over them” (17:65).³¹³ How then may we allow — after this explicit, confirmed guarantee — that Iblīs should master the most sincere of the honoured servants of God, dressing upon him the nāmūs of Grandeur, and in the most vital concerns of his guaranteed message?!

Indeed the Qurʾān declares outright: Iblīs has no authority over anyone at all, beyond his deceitful whispering and his summons to evils; as for practical intervention in the affairs of creature or of Creator, to that Iblīs has no path whatever. God — glorified be He — has recounted from the very tongue of Iblīs: “I had no authority over you, except that I called you and you responded to me” (14:22).³¹⁴

2. Its incompatibility with the station of inerrancy

Al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ said: “The proof has been established, and the umma has reached consensus, upon his (ṣ) inerrancy and his exemption from the like of this vileness: whether his wishing that the like of this — the praise of gods other than God — should descend upon him, and that is unbelief; or that the satan should insinuate upon him and assimilate the Qurʾān to him, so that he inserts into it what is not of it, and the Prophet (ṣ) supposes that to be of the Qurʾān until Gabriel (ʿa) alerts him — and all of that is precluded in his (ṣ) regard; or that the Prophet (ṣ) should say it of himself deliberately — and that is unbelief — or inadvertently: and he is preserved from all of this together.”

“And we have established, by demonstrations and by consensus, his (ṣ) inerrancy from the flowing of unbelief upon his heart or upon his tongue, neither deliberately nor in error; and from its being confounded, what the angel casts to him with what the satan casts; and from the satan’s having any path over him; and from his fabricating against God what He did not reveal — and He has said: ‘Had he faked any sayings in Our name…’ (69:44)³¹⁵, and He has said: ‘Then We would have surely made you taste a double [punishment] in this life and a double [punishment] after death’ (17:75).”³¹⁶

And again: were it not for the inerrancy observed in the delivering of the message of God, confidence in religion would vanish, and doubts would take up their stations in the ordinances, the impositions and the revealed laws which the Prophet (ṣ) delivers from God the Most High!!

And in extension of the side of his (ṣ) inerrancy, and that Iblīs has no path to any of his affairs — kept inviolate as they are by the inerrancy of God the Most High — he said: “Whoever has seen me has seen me indeed, for the satan cannot take on my likeness.”³¹⁷ The scholars have understood from this hadith a universal rule: Iblīs is not able to take on the likeness of any walī among the sincere servants of God; and — with all the greater force — his inability to take on the likeness of Gabriel, the angel of the revelation, the near-stationed, the trustworthy!!

How, then, should Iblīs come to toy with the revelation of heaven, or to counterfeit the form of a messenger from among the noblest messengers of God! Never: “They do not eavesdrop on the Supernal Elite but are shot at from every side” (37:8).³¹⁸

3. Its incoherence with the verses of the sūra

Al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ said — again: “There is a second facet: the impossibility of this tale in reason and in usage alike. For this speech, had it been as related, would be far from all coherence: contradictory in its parts, praise mingled with blame, disjointed in composition and order; and neither the Prophet (ṣ), nor those in his presence of the Muslims and of the grandees of the polytheists — among whom such a thing could never pass unmarked — would have failed to perceive it. This is hidden from no man of the least reflection: how then from him who was surpassing in judgement, and ample in the field of exposition, and in the knowledge of the eloquence of speech and its science?”³¹⁹

Is it, then, conceivable, in respect of the Prophet Muḥammad (ṣ) — and he the knower of the placements of speech, the critic of the most eloquent sayings of the eloquent Arabs — that a fallen speech should be confounded upon him, ill-suited to the rest of the sentences and verses that were then descending upon him?! Or how does what they mention harmonize with His word, the Most High: “These are but names which you have coined — you and your fathers — for which Allah has not sent down any authority” (53:23)?³²⁰ Or how should the polytheists be satisfied — and they people of criticism and eloquence — with that scandalous flattery: a doubtful praise coupled to that trenchant censure, and take it for a principled rapprochement between their idolatry and the summons which Muḥammad (ṣ) raised, founded as it was upon the effacement of polytheism and the purifying of the ḥanīf religion — above all with what follows it in the sequel: “How many an angel there is in the heavens whose intercession is of no avail in any way” (53:26)?³²¹ Does this pure speech of tawḥīd cohere with that fabrication: “and their intercession is indeed to be hoped for”?!

And finally: had the tale been sound, it would have spread and been noised abroad; the polytheists would have seized upon it as a hold against the face of the Muslims the length of the summons, and would never have credited the Prophet (ṣ) in his claim of abrogation, whatever the affair might cost. This — whereas history has registered nothing of that concocted yarn beyond its telling by people removed from its time by a distant age; and history has recorded no one who says: I witnessed it! — a matter which makes us categorical of its falsity. And perhaps it is of the exposed Isrāʾīliyyāt, woven by the hands of those who bore spite against Islam, in the era of the dominion of the darknesses over the quarters of the Islamic lands, under the shadow of the rule of Banū Umayya, the enemies of the religion and of the Qurʾān; and this is the most probable, in our view. In the chapters of this book to come, the stance of this faction, insolent against Islam, will become clearer still.

The master Haykal said: “The hadith of the gharānīq is a hadith of manifest incoherence; a little sifting undoes it. It is, besides, a hadith which undoes the inerrancy that belongs to every prophet in the delivering of the messages of his Lord. The wonder is that some writers of the sīra, and some Muslim exegetes, should take it up. For this reason Ibn Isḥāq did not hesitate, when he was asked of it, to say: it is of the fabrication of the zanādiqa. But some of those who took it up have attempted to justify their taking of it, resting upon His word, the Most High: ‘They were about to beguile you…’ (17:73)³²², and upon His word: ‘…but that when he recited [the scripture] Satan interjected [something] in his recitation’ (22:52).³²³ And Sir William Muir adds that the return of the Muslims who had emigrated to Abyssinia, after a stay there of three months, is decisive proof of the soundness of this tale.”

Now these arguments, which the assertor of the gharānīq hadith’s soundness parades, are flimsy arguments that do not stand before sifting. As for the Muslims’ return, its cause was a political disturbance that had spread through the quarters of Abyssinia in the wake of a fresh revolt that had arisen there.

As for the arguing from the two verses, it is an inverted argument: the first verse does not intimate the occurrence of the affair — “Had We not fortified you, certainly you might have inclined toward them a bit” (17:74)³²⁴: the verse says that God fortified him, and so he did not do it. And as for the verse of the tamannī, it has no bond with the hadith of the gharānīq; its case has already been noticed.

And there is another proof, stronger and more decisive: the context of the sūra, and its admitting no possibility of the matter of the gharānīq: for it is explicit censure, in a tone of upbraiding that harmonizes with no such insertion at all — a matter that could scarcely be hidden from the Arabs of that day.

Again: the description of the gods of Quraysh as gharānīq occurs neither in their poetry nor in their oratory; nor is there anything in the meaning of the ghurnūq that suits the meaning of the gods which the Arabs so described — as the Shaykh Muḥammad ʿAbduh has said.

There remains a decisive argument, which we adduce in demonstration of the impossibility of this tale of the gharānīq, drawn from the life of Muḥammad himself: “From his childhood, his boyhood and his youth, lying was never once found in him — until he was surnamed al-Amīn, the Trustworthy; and his truthfulness was a matter conceded by all men without exception. How then should any man credit that he would say of his Lord what He did not say, and fear men — when God is worthier that he should fear Him! This is an impossible thing; its impossibility is grasped by those who have studied these strong and excelling souls, which know steadfastness in the truth and dissemble in it for no consideration whatever.”³²⁵

As for the two verses — of Sūrat al-Isrāʾ and Sūrat al-Ḥajj — they touch the tale of the gharānīq in nothing; they mean, rather, another thing, which the exegetes have mentioned. The detailed discourse upon them will come in the conclusion of Part Three of this book, at the treatment of the question of inerrancy, in speaking of the inerrancy of the Seal of the Prophets (ṣ). Here now is the summary account of them:

As for the verse of Sūrat al-Isrāʾ — “Had We not fortified you, certainly you might have inclined toward them a bit…” (17:74)³²⁶ — it is, as Haykal has indicated, explicit that he (ṣ) did not do it… by the proof of the lawlā of preclusion. If it indicates anything, it indicates only that the station of his (ṣ) inerrancy — which is a care from God peculiar to His elect friends — is that which ever stands between him and the committing of any vileness whatever, be it small or great…

And how often have the people of crookedness and corruption sought to bend the straight course of Islam — whether by their intrigues during the life of the Messenger (ṣ), or after his passing… but how should they attain to it from a place so remote… “Indeed We have sent down the Reminder, and indeed We will preserve it” (15:9).³²⁷

The verse, then, is a guarantee of the safety of this revealed Law from the falsification of the corrupters… and the address to the Prophet came only in the manner of the saying: “It is you I mean — but listen, O neighbour!”, as has come in the tafsīr… that it might stand as a lesson to the saints of the Muslims along the covenant of history, for ever…

So likewise the verse of Sūrat al-Ḥajj: “We did not send before you any apostle or prophet but that when he recited [the scripture] Satan interjected [something] in his recitation. Thereat Allah nullifies whatever Satan has interjected, [and] then Allah confirms His signs” (22:52)³²⁸ — it has no touch upon the tale of the gharānīq, after its pointing to a natural phenomenon that ever stirs within the souls of the great reformers: namely, the confirming of the edifices of their reforming summons, the buttressing of its foundations and its pillars, without collapse or loss or corruption; and that the Law of God be applied among the generality of creatures and the totality of the nations; and that its landmarks flourish, and its lights glow, in the quarters of the inhabited world. This is the aspiration (umniyya) of every messenger or prophet — nay, of every one who rises up for reform, sincerely devoted in it to the religion.³²⁹

Yet the intrigues of the people of crookedness and corruption may bar the realization of this aspiration; but it is a thwarting that has no permanence, because it is of the wile of the satan: “indeed the stratagems of Satan are always flimsy” (4:76)³³⁰; and God has ordained: “I shall surely prevail, I and My apostles” (58:21)³³¹; “Indeed We shall help Our apostles and those who have faith in the life of the world” (40:51)³³²; “Indeed Allah is all-strong, all-mighty” (57:25)³³³; “Rather We hurl the truth against falsehood, and it crushes its head, and behold, falsehood vanishes!” (21:18)³³⁴; “As for the scum, it leaves as dross, and that which profits the people remains in the earth” (13:17).³³⁵ So this verse too is a guarantee of the endurance of this religion, and of its safety from the reaching hands of the corrupters: “Indeed We have sent down the Reminder, and indeed We will preserve it.”

The Scribes of the Revelation

The Prophet (ṣ) was — according as his people knew him — ummī: he did not read, and he did not write; and so has the Qurʾān described him: “—those who follow the Apostle, the uninstructed prophet, whose mention they find written with them in the Torah and the Evangel…” (7:157)³³⁶; “So have faith in Allah and His Apostle, the uninstructed prophet, who has faith in Allah and His words…” (7:158).³³⁷ And his people were an ummī nation, not knowing the Book: “It is He who sent to the unlettered [people] an apostle from among themselves” (62:2)³³⁸ — that is, those ascribed to the Mother of the Towns, as has come in His word, the Most High: “Thus have We revealed to you an Arabic Qurʾān that you may warn [the people of] the Mother of the Towns and those around it” (42:7)³³⁹; or those who do not know the Book, as has come in His word: “And among them” — the Jews — “are the illiterate who know nothing of the Book except hearsay” (2:78)³⁴⁰ — that is, they have no skill in the understanding of the Book beyond reciting it from memory, after mere wishful recitals which they con over; and they are the ignorant among the common run of men.

The Qurʾān has declared the Prophet’s being ummī in this second sense in the verse: “You did not use to recite any scripture before it, nor did you write it with your right hand, for then the impugners would have been skeptical” (29:48).³⁴¹ The verse does not negate his knowledge of that; it is only a negation of his people’s knowing him for it — which suffices for the verse’s purpose. The Prophet (ṣ), then, was not known for writing³⁴², and the good lay in their not knowing him for it. Hence the need pressed for the employment of scribes, who should write his epistles alongside the writing of the revelation, that it might not be lost.

ʿAlī (ʿa) was the first who wrote for him (ṣ), in Mecca; and he continued until the end of his life.

Among his (ʿa) distinctions is this: nothing of the revelation escaped him but he registered it in a book — even that which descended in his absence the Prophet (ṣ) would keep in trust for him until he attended, and would then dictate it to him to write.

And another distinction: that he (ṣ) did not confine himself to dictating to him the text of the revelation, but would follow it with what it required of interpretation and taʾwīl; so he dictated to him the tanzīl and the taʾwīl together.

Sulaym ibn Qays al-Hilālī al-ʿĀmirī — of his (ʿa) eminent companions, who died about the year 90 AH [709 CE] — related, saying: I sat with ʿAlī (ʿa) in Kūfa, in the mosque, the people about him. He said: Ask me before you lose me; ask me of the Book of God — for by God, no verse ever descended but the Messenger of God (ṣ) had me recite it, and taught me its taʾwīl! Ibn al-Kawwāʾ³⁴³ said: And what of that which descended upon you while you were absent? He said: Rather, he would preserve for me what I had been absent from; and when I came to him he would say to me: “O ʿAlī, God has sent down after you thus and thus” — and he would have me recite it — “and its taʾwīl is thus and thus” — and he would teach it to me.³⁴⁴

The first who wrote for him in Medina was Ubayy ibn Kaʿb al-Anṣārī; he was of those, counted few, who wrote well in that age; and he was the first to close the epistles with “and So-and-so has written…” The Prophet (ṣ) undertook the presenting of the Qurʾān to him entire; and he attended the Final Presentation among those who attended; and thence he undertook the supervision of the scribes in the era of ʿUthmān, and was the referee in whatever they differed over.³⁴⁵

Zayd ibn Thābit dwelt in the neighbourhood of the Prophet (ṣ); he was a sturdy youth who wrote a good hand; and when Ubayy was absent, the Prophet sent to Zayd that he might write for him, until he became one of his official scribes; for the most part it was he who took in hand the writing of his correspondence. He ordered him to learn Hebrew, in Jewish schools that were there under the name of “Māsila,” that he might have its help in the writing of his Hebrew epistles.

The mainstay of the official scribes, then, are these three: ʿAlī, Ubayy and Zayd; as for others, they stand in the second degree. Ibn al-Athīr says: ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Arqam al-Zuhrī was of those assiduous in the writing of the epistles; as for the pacts and the treaties, it was ʿAlī (ʿa) who wrote them. And he counted among his scribes a company: among them the three caliphs, al-Zubayr ibn al-ʿAwwām, Khālid and Abān the two sons of Saʿīd ibn al-ʿĀṣ, Ḥanẓala al-Usayyidī, ʿAlāʾ ibn al-Ḥaḍramī, Khālid ibn al-Walīd, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Rawāḥa, Muḥammad ibn Maslama, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Salūl, al-Mughīra ibn Shuʿba, ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ, Muʿāwiya ibn Abī Sufyān, Jahm — or Juhaym — ibn al-Ṣalt, Muʿayqib ibn Abī Fāṭima, and Shuraḥbīl ibn Ḥasana.

And he adds, saying: the first of Quraysh to write for him was ʿAbd Allāh ibn Saʿd ibn Abī Sarḥ; he emigrated with him to Medina; then he apostatized and fled to Mecca, defaming the Messenger of God (ṣ) for his indulgence in the matter of the revelation. He would say to Quraysh: I used to turn Muḥammad wherever I wished: he would dictate to me “ʿAzīz Ḥakīm” — All-mighty, All-wise — and I would say: or “ʿAlīm Ḥakīm” — All-knowing, All-wise? — and he would say: Yes, all is right! When the day of the Conquest came, the Prophet (ṣ) declared his blood licit; but ʿUthmān — who was his brother by suckling — interceded for him, and pressed the suit, and did not leave off until he spared him — after a long silence, in which he had wished that one of them would forestall him and kill him. He died in the care of Muʿāwiya, in the year 37 AH [657 CE].³⁴⁶

Ibn Abī l-Ḥadīd said: That upon which the verifiers among the people of the sīra agree is that the revelation was written by ʿAlī (ʿa), Zayd ibn Thābit and Zayd ibn Arqam; and that Ḥanẓala ibn al-Rabīʿ al-Taymī and Muʿāwiya ibn Abī Sufyān wrote for him to the kings and to the chiefs of the tribes, and wrote his needs before him, and wrote down what was gathered of the moneys of the alms and what was divided among their owners.³⁴⁷

And it appears that those we have mentioned were the company known for their acquaintance with writing, whom the Messenger of God (ṣ) employed in his needs.

Al-Balādhurī relates from al-Wāqidī, who said: Islam appeared while in Quraysh seventeen men knew writing: ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān, Abū ʿUbayda ibn al-Jarrāḥ, Ṭalḥa ibn ʿUbayd Allāh, Yazīd ibn Abī Sufyān, Abū Ḥudhayfa ibn ʿUtba ibn Rabīʿa, Ḥāṭib ibn ʿAmr — brother of Suhayl ibn ʿAmr al-ʿĀmirī — Abū Salama ibn ʿAbd al-Asad al-Makhzūmī, Abān ibn Saʿīd ibn al-ʿĀṣ ibn Umayya and his brother Khālid ibn Saʿīd, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Saʿd ibn Abī Sarḥ al-ʿĀmirī, Ḥuwayṭib ibn ʿAbd al-ʿUzzā al-ʿĀmirī, Abū Sufyān ibn Ḥarb ibn Umayya, Muʿāwiya ibn Abī Sufyān, Juhaym ibn al-Ṣalt ibn Makhrama ibn al-Muṭṭalib ibn ʿAbd Manāf, and al-ʿAlāʾ ibn al-Ḥaḍramī.

And of the women who knew writing since Islam appeared: Umm Kulthūm bint ʿUqba, Karīma bint al-Miqdād, and al-Shifāʾ bint ʿAbd Allāh al-ʿAdawiyya — of whom the Messenger of God (ṣ) requested that she teach Ḥafṣa bint ʿUmar writing, as she had taught her the ruqyat al-namla.³⁴⁸ And Umm Salama could read the muṣḥaf but could not write; and so also ʿĀʾisha bint Abī Bakr.

Al-Wāqidī said: Ḥanẓala ibn al-Rabīʿ ibn Rabāḥ al-Usayyidī, of Banū Tamīm, wrote once before the Messenger of God (ṣ), and so was named Ḥanẓala the Scribe. He said: writing in Arabic among Aws and Khazraj was scant; some of the Jews had learned the Arabic script, and the boys used to be taught it in Medina in the early time; so Islam came while in Aws and Khazraj a number could write, namely: Saʿd ibn ʿUbāda ibn Dulaym, al-Mundhir ibn ʿAmr, Ubayy ibn Kaʿb, Zayd ibn Thābit — who wrote Arabic and Hebrew³⁴⁹ — Rāfiʿ ibn Mālik, Usayd ibn Ḥuḍayr, Maʿn ibn ʿAdī al-Balawī, Bashīr ibn Saʿd, Saʿd ibn al-Rabīʿ, Aws ibn Khawlī, and ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ubayy the hypocrite.

He said: the first who wrote for the Messenger of God (ṣ) at his arrival in Medina was Ubayy ibn Kaʿb al-Anṣārī — and he was the first to write, at the close of a letter: “and So-and-so has written.” When he was not present, the Messenger of God (ṣ) called Zayd ibn Thābit al-Anṣārī, and he wrote for him. So Ubayy and Zayd used to write the revelation before him, and his epistles to the horizons.³⁵⁰

The Descent of the Qurʾān (Nuzūl al-Qurʾān)

There is here a question of moment, touching the side of the revelation’s descent as Qurʾān, and its bond with the commencement of the message: the mission — and it fell in the month of Rajab — was coupled with the descent of something of the Qurʾān (five verses from the beginning of Sūrat al-ʿAlaq); whereas the Qurʾān itself declares its own descent to have been on the Night of Qadr, of the month of Ramaḍān! What, then, is the face of reconciliation? Likewise, the fixing of the period during which the Qurʾān descended gradually; and the sūras that descended before the Hijra — to be, in the terminology, Meccan — and those that descended after it, to be Medinan. And is there an exception, of verses contrary to the sūras within which they are set? The weightier view: that there is no exception; that a sūra, if Meccan, is Meccan in the whole of its verses; and so also the Medinan sūras — since there is no proof of exception beyond what we shall set forth… Here follows the detail of these aspects:

The Commencement of the Revelation’s Descent: the Mission (al-Biʿtha)

The venerable and trusted Shaykh, ʿAlī ibn Ibrāhīm al-Qummī, said: When the Prophet (ṣ) came to seven-and-thirty years, he would see in his sleep as though one came to him and said: “O Messenger of God!” A span of time passed over him while he concealed it. Then, on one of the days, as he pastured sheep for Abū Ṭālib in the mountain defiles, he saw a person who said to him: “O Messenger of God!” He said to him: Who are you? He said: “I am Gabriel; God has sent me to you, that He may take you for a messenger.” Then he taught him the ablution and the prayer. And that was when his forty years were complete. And ʿAlī (ʿa) came in upon him while he prayed, and said: O Abā l-Qāsim, what is this? He said: “This is the prayer which God has commanded me.” So he fell to praying with him, and Khadīja was the third of them. ʿAlī (ʿa) would pray at the right wing of the Messenger of God, and Khadīja behind him; then Abū Ṭālib ordered his son Jaʿfar to pray at the left wing of the Messenger of God. And Zayd ibn Ḥāritha, the freedman of the Messenger of God³⁵¹, had become Muslim already, when the Messenger of God (ṣ) was made prophet, and prayed with them also. And with this gathering the seed of Islam was knit.³⁵²

And in the Tafsīr of the Imam: The Messenger of God (ṣ) would go out every day to Ḥirāʾ, and gaze upon the traces of the mercy of God, plumbing the depths of the dominions of the heavens and the earth, and worshipping God as He has the right to be worshipped — until he completed the age of forty; and God found his noble heart the most excellent of hearts, the most august of them, the most obedient and the most humble. Then He gave leave to the gates of heaven, and they were opened; and gave leave to the angels, and they descended, while Muḥammad (ṣ) gazed on; and mercy descended upon him from beside the leg of the Throne. And he looked upon the Trustworthy Spirit, Gabriel, ringed about with light, who swooped down to him, and took him by the arm and shook him, saying: “O Muḥammad, read!” He said: “And what shall I read?” He said: “O Muḥammad: ‘Read in the Name of your Lord who created; created man from a clinging mass. Read, and your Lord is the most generous, who taught by the pen, taught man what he did not know’ (96:1–5).”³⁵³

Then he revealed to him what his Lord revealed to him; and Gabriel ascended to his Lord; and Muḥammad (ṣ) came down from the mountain, and there had come over him — from the grandeur of God and the majesty of His splendour — the like of what a piercing³⁵⁴ fever brings; and there had grown heavy upon him what he feared of Quraysh’s giving him the lie, and their imputing madness to him — he being the most intelligent of the creation of God, and the noblest of His creatures; and the most hateful of things to him were the satan and the deeds of madmen. So God willed to hearten his heart and to expand his breast: and whenever he passed by stone or tree, it called to him: “Peace be upon you, O Messenger of God!”³⁵⁵

And in Sharḥ al-Nahj: certain of the companions of Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Bāqir (ʿa) asked him of the word of God, the Mighty and Majestic — “except to an apostle He approves of. Then He dispatches a sentinel before and behind him” (72:27)³⁵⁶ — and he said: “God entrusts to His prophets angels who keep count of their deeds, and convey to Him their delivering of the message; and He entrusted to Muḥammad (ṣ) a great angel, from the time he was weaned, to guide him to the ways of good and the noble traits of character, and to bar him from evil and from vile traits; and it was he who would call to him: ‘Peace be upon you, O Muḥammad, O Messenger of God!’ — while he was yet a youth, not having attained the degree of the message; and he would suppose it to be from stone and earth, and would reflect, and see nothing.”³⁵⁷

And see the Khuṭba Qāṣiʿa, among the discourses of the Commander of the Faithful (ʿa) in this regard; we have already cited a portion of it above. It is Discourse no. 238 in Ibn Abī l-Ḥadīd’s Sharḥ al-Nahj.

And in the History of al-Ṭabarī: The Messenger of God (ṣ), before Gabriel (ʿa) appeared to him with the message of God to him, used to see and behold traces and tokens, of the traces of God’s willing to honour him and to single him out for His grace. Of these, what has already passed in his report of the two angels who came to him and split open his belly, and drew out what rancour and defilement was in it — while he was with his wet-nurse Ḥalīma³⁵⁸; and of these: that when he went along a way, he passed by no tree and no stone but it saluted him. And so also, when he went out for his need, he would go far off, till he saw no house, and would come down to the defiles and the bottoms of the valleys; and he would pass by no stone and no tree but it said: “Peace be upon you, O Messenger of God!” — and he would turn to his right and his left and behind him, and see no one.³⁵⁹

Al-Yaʿqūbī said: Gabriel used to appear to him and speak with him; and sometimes his call came to him from the sky, and from the tree, and from the mountain. Then he said to him: “Your Lord commands you to shun the defilement of the idols” — and this was the first of his command. And the Messenger of God would come to Khadīja, the daughter of Khuwaylid, and tell her what he heard, and speak of it to her; and she would say: “Conceal it, O son of my uncle! For by God, I hope indeed that God will work good by you.”³⁶⁰

The Messenger of God (ṣ) was sent on the day his forty years stood complete, twenty years having passed of the reign of Kisrā Abarwīz, son of Hurmuz, son of Anūshirwān.³⁶¹ Al-Yaʿqūbī said: his (ṣ) mission was in the month of Rabīʿ al-Awwal; and it is said: in Ramaḍān; and of the months of the non-Arabs: in Shubāṭ [February]. He said: And Gabriel came to him on the night of Saturday and the night of Sunday; then he showed himself to him with the message on Monday.³⁶² Ibn Saʿd said: the angel descended upon the Messenger of God (ṣ) at Ḥirāʾ on Monday, the seventeenth of Ramaḍān.³⁶³

Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṭabarī said: this — that is, the descent of the revelation upon him with the message on a Monday — is of what admits no dispute among the people of knowledge; they differed only as to which Monday that was. Some of them said: the Qurʾān descended upon the Messenger of God (ṣ) on the eighteenth of Ramaḍān; others said: the twenty-fourth of it; and others said: the seventeenth of Ramaḍān — calling to witness for this His word, the Most High: “…and what We sent down to Our servant on the Day of Separation, the day when the two hosts met” (8:41)³⁶⁴ — that being the meeting of the Messenger of God (ṣ) and the polytheists at Badr, on the morning of the seventeenth of Ramaḍān.³⁶⁵

But there is in the verse no indication that his mission coincided with that day.

First: because what is meant is: what was sent down upon him on that day of the proofs of the truth and the signs of victory — not the Qurʾān in its entirety, nor the commencement of its descent.

Second: we shall relate that the commencement of the Qurʾān’s descent — under the title of its being a heavenly book — came later than the day of his mission with the message: he (ṣ) was sent as messenger to mankind on the twenty-seventh of Rajab, and the Qurʾān was sent down upon him in the month of Ramaḍān, on the Night of Qadr; and perhaps that was after an interval of three years, as follows.

Third: the meaning of the Day of Separation (yawm al-furqān) is: the day on which truth was parted from falsehood, and truth prevailed over falsehood, which stood vanishing — a decisive day in the life of the Muslims, on which the satan despaired of ever being worshipped or obeyed again.³⁶⁶

Al-Masʿūdī said: the first of the Qurʾān that descended upon him: “Read in the Name of your Lord.” Gabriel came to him on the night of Saturday, then on the night of Sunday, and then addressed him with the message on Monday, at Ḥirāʾ — and it is the first place in which the Qurʾān descended; and he addressed him with the first of the sūra as far as His word: “taught man what he did not know”; and its completion descended after that. And that was five years after the building of the Kaʿba, at the head of twenty years of the reign of Kisrā Abarwīz, and at the head of two hundred years from the day of the covenant at al-Rabadha.³⁶⁷ And it was the year 609 of the era of the birth of the Messiah (ʿa).³⁶⁸

The sound view with us, in the fixing of the day of his (ṣ) mission, is that it is the twenty-seventh day of the month of Rajab al-Aṣabb — the Out-pouring — according to what has come in the narrations of the House (ʿa); its fast is recommended, and its vigil, with proprieties, devotions and worships peculiar to it, which the Imāmī Shīʿa keep, every year, in sanctification of this blessed day, on which mercy was sent down upon mankind altogether, and the gates of the general blessing were opened upon the people of the earth — since the Prophet (ṣ) was raised up a mercy to all the worlds. What a blessed day it is!

The Imam al-Ṣādiq (ʿa) said: “On the twenty-seventh day of Rajab the prophethood descended upon the Messenger of God (ṣ).”³⁶⁹ And he said: “Do not leave off the fast of the twenty-seventh day of Rajab, for it is the day on which the prophethood descended upon Muḥammad (ṣ).”³⁷⁰

And the Imam al-Riḍā (ʿa) said: “God — the Mighty and Majestic — raised up Muḥammad (ṣ) a mercy to the worlds on the twenty-seventh of Rajab; whoever fasts that day, God writes for him the fast of sixty months.”³⁷¹ And the narrations in this regard, by the paths of the House (ʿa), are many.³⁷²

And so also have narrations come by the paths of the people of the Sunna, fixing the very same day:

The Ḥāfiẓ al-Dimyāṭī adduced, in his sīra, from Abū Hurayra, who said: “Whoever fasts the day of the twenty-seventh of Rajab, God the Most High writes for him the fast of sixty months; and it is the day on which Gabriel descended upon the Prophet (ṣ) with the message, and the first day on which Gabriel came down.”³⁷³

And al-Bayhaqī related, in Shuʿab al-īmān, from Salmān al-Fārisī, who said: “In Rajab there is a day and a night: whoever fasts that day and stands that night in vigil, it shall be as though he fasted a hundred years and kept vigil a hundred years; and it is the three remaining of Rajab; on it God sent Muḥammad (ṣ).”³⁷⁴

And the author of al-Manāqib related from Ibn ʿAbbās and Anas ibn Mālik, that the two of them said: “God revealed to Muḥammad (ṣ) on Monday, the twenty-seventh of Rajab, he being forty years old.”³⁷⁵

Al-ʿAllāma al-Majlisī said: they have differed over the day on which the Prophet Muḥammad (ṣ) was raised up, upon five sayings: the first, the seventeenth of the month of Ramaḍān; the second, the eighteenth of the month of Ramaḍān; the third, the twenty-fourth of the month of Ramaḍān; the fourth, the twelfth of Rabīʿ al-Awwal; the fifth, the twenty-seventh of the month of Rajab. He said: and upon the last is the agreement of the Imāmiyya.³⁷⁶

I say: There is a sixth saying: the eighth of Rabīʿ al-Awwal; and a seventh saying: the third of Rabīʿ al-Awwal — both mentioned by Ibn Burhān al-Ḥalabī in his sīra. He then adduced the saying that it was the twelfth of Rabīʿ al-Awwal — the day of his noble birth — so that the saying might accord with his being sent at the head of the fulfilment of his forty years.³⁷⁷

And we shall relate that the majority of those who hold his (ṣ) mission to have been in the month of Ramaḍān have perhaps had confounded upon them the commencement of the event of prophethood with the commencement of the event of the Qurʾān’s descent as a book, in which is the exposition of every thing; and this confounding shows itself from their arguing, for the fixing of the day of the mission, by that which indicates that the Qurʾān descended on the Night of Qadr, of the month of Ramaḍān. And we shall verify: that there is no bond between the two events: he (ṣ) was sent in Rajab, on the 27th; but the Qurʾān — under its stamp as a book set forth in detail — its descent upon the Prophet (ṣ) began in the month of Ramaḍān, on the Night of Qadr, after three years of his prophethood; so the term of his (ṣ) prophethood was three-and-twenty years, while the period of the Qurʾān’s descent, dispersed piecemeal, took up twenty years: it began with the entry of the fourth year from the mission, and was sealed in the tenth year of the Hijra, with his (ṣ) passing.

The Commencement of the Qurʾān’s Descent

There is no doubt that the Qurʾān descended upon the Messenger of God (ṣ) on the Night of Qadr, of the blessed month of Ramaḍān, by His word, the Most High: “The month of Ramaḍān is one in which the Qurʾān was sent down” (2:185)³⁷⁸; and His word: “Indeed We sent it down on a blessed night” (44:3)³⁷⁹; and His word: “Indeed We sent it down on the Night of Ordainment” (97:1).³⁸⁰

And the Night of Qadr — with us — hesitates between two nights in the last ten of the blessed month of Ramaḍān: the twenty-first, or the twenty-third? The weightier: that it is the second, for the hadith of al-Juhanī.³⁸¹ And al-Ṣadūq said: our masters (may God be pleased with them) are agreed that it is the night of the twenty-third.³⁸²

Discourse upon the fixing of the Night of Qadr is not of our present inquiry; what concerns us is only the treatment of certain aspects of this determination — that is, of the Qurʾān’s descent in one night, the Night of Qadr, of the month of Ramaḍān:

First: its incompatibility — in appearance — with what we have advanced, of the agreement of the Imāmiyya, and a number of the hadiths of others, that the mission was in Rajab; and there is no doubt that the mission was coupled with the descent of verses of the Qurʾān: five verses from the beginning of Sūrat al-ʿAlaq. How, then, does that stand together with the saying that the Qurʾān — the whole of it, or the commencement of its descent — was in the month of Ramaḍān, on the Night of Qadr?

Second: what should be meant by the Qurʾān’s descent in one night, which is the Night of Qadr? Did the Qurʾān, all of it, descend in a single lot on that night? — when it is known that the Qurʾān descended piecemeal, over a period of twenty or three-and-twenty years, according to the differing occasions and circumstances, which have been called the “occasions of revelation” (asbāb al-nuzūl). How, then, can that be?

Third: what is the first verse, or sūra, that descended of the Qurʾān? If it was Sūrat al-ʿAlaq, or verses of it, why then was Sūrat al-Ḥamd named “Fātiḥat al-Kitāb” — the Opening of the Book? For the meaning is not that it was written at the opening of the muṣḥaf: this arrangement is a thing that came about after the passing of the Prophet (ṣ) — or, at the least, supposing otherwise, in a late period of his life — whereas it was called Fātiḥat al-Kitāb from the very beginning of its descent: “No ṣalāt save with Fātiḥat al-Kitāb”³⁸³ — a hadith transmitted from the tongue of the Prophet (ṣ) himself!

In answer to these three questions — summarily — we say: the commencement of the mission differs from the commencement of the Qurʾān’s descent as a heavenly book. For he (ṣ) was made prophet, and was not commanded with the general proclamation until after three years, during which he summoned in secret — until the verse descended: “So proclaim what you have been commanded, and turn away from the polytheists” (15:94).³⁸⁴ And from this time the Qurʾān was made to descend in succession, under the stamp of its being a book sent down from heaven; and it was registered upon the palm-stalks and the thin white stones, written down by those of the faithful who knew writing — and they were few in number — through the space of twenty years.

And the commencement of the Qurʾān’s descent — after that interval — was on the Night of Qadr, of the month of Ramaḍān. Upon this reckoning, the expression is sound that the Qurʾān descended on the Night of Qadr, although its descent, in succession, took up twenty years: for every momentous event that has a term and an extension has its date registered according to the commencement of its inception, as we shall set out in detail.

As for the first verses that descended: they are the five verses from the beginning of Sūrat al-ʿAlaq, and the remainder of it descended in a later period. But the first complete sūra that descended of the Qurʾān is Sūrat al-Ḥamd; and thence it was named Fātiḥat al-Kitāb — the Opening of the Book. This is the summary of the discourse upon these three questions; as for the detail, it is as follows:

An Interval of Three Years

Let it be granted that the mission was in Rajab, according to the narration of the House and of a company besides them; yet the Qurʾān — under the stamp of its being a heavenly book, an eternal divine constitution — did not descend upon him save after an interval of three years. The Prophet (ṣ), during these, concealed his affair from the concourse of the people, and summoned to God in secret; and hence the polytheists offered him no hurt beyond thrusts of the tongue, since they saw in his affair nothing of what they should fear for their religion.

There prayed with the Messenger of God (ṣ), in those days, four: ʿAlī, Jaʿfar, Zayd and Khadīja; and whenever a band of Quraysh passed them by, they mocked at them.

ʿAlī ibn Ibrāhīm al-Qummī said: When three years had passed over that, God sent down upon him: “So proclaim what you have been commanded, and turn away from the polytheists. Indeed We will suffice you against the deriders” (15:94–95).³⁸⁵ He said: and that was after he had been made prophet by three years.³⁸⁶

And al-Yaʿqūbī said: “The Messenger of God (ṣ) abode in Mecca three years, concealing his affair.”³⁸⁷

And Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq said: three years after his mission descended “So proclaim what you have been commanded”; and he was commanded to proclaim the summons aloud, and to make the warning general.³⁸⁸

The Imam al-Ṣādiq (ʿa) said: “The Messenger of God (ṣ) stayed in Mecca, after the revelation had come to him from God — the Blessed and Most High — thirteen years; of them, three years concealed, in fear, not showing his affair, until God commanded him to proclaim what he was commanded; then he made the summons manifest.”³⁸⁹

These narrations, when we observe them together with narrations that say: the period of the Qurʾān’s descent upon the Prophet (ṣ) took up twenty years — give us this: that the commencement of the Qurʾān’s descent came later than the mission by three years; since there is no doubt that the Qurʾān continued descending upon him until the year of his (ṣ) passing. Therewith coheres the saying that the commencement of the Qurʾān’s descent was in the month of Ramaḍān, on the Night of Qadr, as the noble Qurʾān has itself declared.

The Imam al-Ṣādiq (ʿa) said: “Then the Qurʾān descended through the length of twenty years” — as it has come in the riwāya of al-Kulaynī³⁹⁰ and of al-ʿAyyāshī³⁹¹; and al-Ṣadūq has pointed to it³⁹², and al-Majlisī.³⁹³ And the texts fixing the period of the Qurʾān’s descent at twenty years are abundant.³⁹⁴

To this meaning points the riwāya from Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyab, who said: the Qurʾān was sent down upon the Prophet (ṣ) when he was a son of three-and-forty³⁹⁵ — that is, the Qurʾān began to descend upon him then; since there is no doubt that prophethood descended upon him (ṣ) at the completion of his forty years: this is the consensus of the umma and the agreement of their word — how should it be hidden from the like of Saʿīd?!

And al-Wāḥidī related, with his isnād to al-Shaʿbī, who said: God parted its sending-down: between its first and its last there were twenty years, or thereabouts.³⁹⁶

Clearer than that is what the Imam Aḥmad related, with a chain connected to ʿĀmir al-Shaʿbī: that prophethood descended upon the Messenger of God (ṣ) when he was forty; and Isrāfīl was coupled with his prophethood for three years, and would teach him the word and the thing, while the Qurʾān had not yet descended. When three years had passed, Gabriel was coupled with his prophethood, and the Qurʾān descended upon his tongue for twenty years: ten in Mecca and ten in Medina; and he died a son of sixty-three. Ibn Kathīr said: it is a sound isnād to al-Shaʿbī.³⁹⁷

This riwāya — though there be in it things we do not acknowledge, which are perhaps of al-Shaʿbī’s own particular ijtihād — what we want of it is only the side that fixes the Qurʾān’s descent within the term of twenty years, and that its descent came three years later than the mission; and this is a thing agreed upon.

Opinions and Interpretations

As for the interpretation of the Qurʾān’s descent on the Night of Qadr, of the month of Ramaḍān — it being known that the Qurʾān descended piecemeal through the length of twenty or three-and-twenty years, at intervals, and upon particular occasions, which have been called the occasions of revelation — the scholars have, in this, opinions and interpretations:

1. That the commencement of its descent was on the Night of Qadr, of the month of Ramaḍān.

This is the choice of Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq³⁹⁸ and of al-Shaʿbī.³⁹⁹ The Imam al-Rāzī said: that is because the commencements of creeds and of states are that by which dates are reckoned — as being the noblest of times; and because they are, moreover, fixed and known times.⁴⁰⁰ And so did al-Zamakhsharī interpret the verse; he said: “the descent of it was begun therein.”⁴⁰¹

And it is what we ourselves hold, in view of this: that every momentous event, when it has a term and a temporal extension, it is the commencement of its inception that is registered as its date — as when one is asked of the date of a state, or of an institution, or of the formation of a party; or is asked of the date of a student’s course of study, or of his particular taking of it upon himself, and the like of that: the answer is the fixing of the start of the setting-out, or of the founding — no other.

And again: His word, the Most High, “in which the Qurʾān was sent down”, and the other verses, are the recounting of a matter already past, which this recounting speech cannot include within itself; else the wording would have been in the form of the imperfect tense, or of the descriptive participle. So this very speech is proof that some of the Qurʾān descended later than the Night of Qadr — unless by some manner of interpretation without support, as will come.

Moreover, the difference of the verses’ occasions, according to circumstances and motives, is the greatest of proofs for the difference of the placements of their descent, since it binds each verse to an incident within the bond of its own time: each verse descended concerning some event or occurrence fallen in its particular time, and a verse came treating of it at that same time. All of that is proof that the Qurʾān did not descend in a single lot; else there would have been no place for the polytheists’ word: “Why has not the Qurʾān been sent down to him all at once?” He said, the Most High — in reply to this objection: “So it is, that We may strengthen your heart with it, and We have recited it [to you] in a measured tone” (25:32)⁴⁰² — that is: the Qurʾān’s descent in succession, and at suitable intervals, was the more supportive of the assurance of your heart, through the sense of God’s continuous care at every season and on every occasion.⁴⁰³

To this opinion went — likewise — Ibn Shahrāshūb, in al-Manāqib: “the month of Ramaḍān in which the Qurʾān was sent down” — that is, in which its descent was begun. And he said in Mutashābihāt al-Qurʾān: the sound view is that “the Qurʾān,” in this place, does not convey generality; it conveys only the genus: so whatever thing of it descended therein, the outward sense stands verified.⁴⁰⁴

And it appears from al-Shaykh al-Mufīd — at the close of his words in refutation of Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṣadūq, which are to come — that he chose this saying also. He said: what has come in the report, of the Qurʾān’s descending in one lot on the Night of Qadr, may bear this sense: that there descended of it, in one lot, on the Night of Qadr, a portion; then the rest of it followed in succession, down to the passing of the Prophet (ṣ). As for its descending in its bulk and its entirety on the Night of Qadr, that is far from what the outward of the Qurʾān requires, and the mutawātir of the reports, and the consensus of the scholars notwithstanding their divergence of opinions.⁴⁰⁵

2. That there descended upon the Prophet (ṣ), on every Night of Qadr of every year, whatever mankind would have need of in that year of the Qurʾān; then Gabriel would send it down, according to the placements of need, little by little, as God the Most High commanded him. The meaning of “the month of Ramaḍān” would then be the kind — not one particular Ramaḍān. And this is a surmise of the Imam al-Rāzī as well.⁴⁰⁶

This is the choice of Ibn Jurayj⁴⁰⁷ and of al-Suddī — and the latter traced it to Ibn ʿAbbās also⁴⁰⁸; and al-Qurṭubī transmitted it from Muqātil ibn Ḥayyān; and al-Ḥalīmī and al-Māwardī, and others besides them, concurred in it.⁴⁰⁹

Yet the outward of His word, “in which the Qurʾān was sent down”, or “Indeed We sent it down” — the recounting of an event gone by — contradicts this choice; had this saying been sound, the fitting expression would have been: “in which We send it down” — a description of the standing state.

And it is refuted, further, by what we shall adduce against the fifth opinion, to come: what is the profit contemplated in the descent of Qurʾān before the need for it has arisen — above all in the form of the past-tense clause, or the circumstantial, which invites the understanding that it descended for an occasion belonging to its own time, and not for a placement of descent prior to that, according to the verbal expression!

3. That “the month of Ramaḍān in which the Qurʾān was sent down” means: concerning which the Qurʾān was sent down — that is, concerning the obligation of its fast — as one says: [a revelation] descended about So-and-so, or: such-and-such Qurʾān descended on such an occasion. What is meant by “the Qurʾān” would then be a verse of it, or verses.⁴¹⁰

Al-Ḍaḥḥāk said: “The month of Ramaḍān is one in which the Qurʾān was sent down” (2:185)⁴¹¹ — that is, whose fast was sent down in the Qurʾān.⁴¹² And Sufyān ibn ʿUyayna said: its meaning: there descended [Qurʾān] in its excellence. Al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Faḍl chose it, and Ibn al-Anbārī.⁴¹³

But this facet is peculiar to the verse of al-Baqara; it does not run in the two verses of al-Dukhān and al-Qadr, as is plain. Besides which, it is an interpretation of the wording for which there is no justifier and no support.

4. That the greater part of it descended in the months of Ramaḍān, whence the ascription of the whole of it to them holds good.

This is a second surmise, entertained by Sayyid Quṭb; he said: the month in which the Qurʾān was sent down — either in the sense that the commencement of its descent was in it, or that the greater part of it descended in the months of Ramaḍān.⁴¹⁴

But there is no proof that most of the verses of the Qurʾān descended in the months of Ramaḍān, or on the Night of Qadr in particular; and perhaps actuality refuses this surmise root and branch.

5. That the Qurʾān descended in one lot, on one night — the Night of Qadr — to Bayt al-ʿIzza, the House of Glory, or to the Inhabited House (al-Bayt al-Maʿmūr); then it descended upon the Messenger of God (ṣ) at intervals and on occasions, through the length of twenty, or three-and-twenty, years.

To this saying went a company of the masters of hadith, in view of the outward of hadiths related in the matter.

Al-Shaykh al-Ṣadūq — upon him be mercy — said: the Qurʾān descended in the month of Ramaḍān, on the Night of Qadr, in one lot, to the Inhabited House, in the fourth heaven; then it descended from the Inhabited House through the space of twenty years. And God gave His prophet the knowledge in one lot, and then said to him: “And do not hasten with the Qurʾān before its revelation is completed for you” (20:114).⁴¹⁵

Al-ʿAllāma al-Majlisī — commenting upon this speech — said: the verses have indicated the Qurʾān’s descent on the Night of Qadr, and the apparent sense is the descent of the whole of it therein; while the traditions and the reports have indicated the Qurʾān’s descent in twenty⁴¹⁶ or three-and-twenty years⁴¹⁷; and in some of the narrations it has come that the Qurʾān descended on the first night of the month of Ramaḍān⁴¹⁸; and some have indicated that the commencement of its descent was at the mission.⁴¹⁹ So he reconciles between them thus: that on the Night of Qadr the Qurʾān descended in one lot from the Preserved Tablet to the fourth heaven — the Inhabited House — that it might descend from the fourth heaven to the earth gradually; and that on the first night of the month of Ramaḍān the whole of the Qurʾān descended upon the Prophet (ṣ), that he might know it — he himself — without reciting it to men; then its descent began, verse by verse and sūra by sūra, at the mission and otherwise, that he might recite it to men…⁴²⁰

Al-Ṭabarānī and others have published, from Ibn ʿAbbās, who said: the Qurʾān was sent down on the Night of Qadr, in one lot, to the lowest heaven, and was set in Bayt al-ʿIzza, the House of Glory; then it was sent down piecemeal upon the Prophet (ṣ) through the length of twenty years. Jalāl al-Dīn said: this is the soundest of the sayings and the most famous of them. And he related, in that regard, many narrations, upon most of which soundness has been adjudged, relating them from al-Ḥākim, al-Ṭabarānī, al-Bayhaqī, al-Nasāʾī and others.⁴²¹

And al-Ṭabarī related, with his isnād, from Wāthila ibn al-Asqaʿ, from the Prophet (ṣ), who said: “The ṣuḥuf of Abraham were sent down on the first night of the month of Ramaḍān; and the Torah was sent down when six had passed of Ramaḍān; and the Gospel was sent down when thirteen had passed; and the Qurʾān was sent down when four-and-twenty had passed of Ramaḍān.”⁴²²

And in the same, from al-Suddī, from Ibn ʿAbbās, who said: “the month of Ramaḍān,” and “the blessed night”: the Night of Qadr; for the Night of Qadr is the blessed night, and it is in Ramaḍān; the Qurʾān descended in one lot from the Scriptures (al-Zubur) to the Inhabited House — and it is the placement of the stars (mawāqiʿ al-nujūm), in the lowest heaven, where the Qurʾān alighted; then it descended upon Muḥammad (ṣ) after that, in command and in prohibition, and in the wars, portion upon portion.⁴²³

And ʿAṭiyya ibn al-Aswad — doubt had fallen into his soul from this verse, the Qurʾān having descended in all the months of the year — asked Ibn ʿAbbās of that; and he answered him with what has gone before.⁴²⁴

And so also Jalāl al-Dīn related, with his chain, to Jābir ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Anṣārī — the pleasure of God be upon him — who said: God sent down the ṣuḥuf of Abraham on the first night of Ramaḍān; and He sent down the Torah upon Moses when six had passed of Ramaḍān; and He sent down the Zabūr upon David when twelve had passed of Ramaḍān; and He sent down the Gospel upon Jesus when eighteen had passed of Ramaḍān; and He sent down the Furqān upon Muḥammad (ṣ) when four-and-twenty had passed of Ramaḍān.⁴²⁵

And by our own paths: al-ʿAyyāshī related from Ibrāhīm, that he asked the Imam al-Ṣādiq (ʿa) of His word, the Most High: “The month of Ramaḍān is one in which the Qurʾān was sent down” (2:185)⁴²⁶ — how was the Qurʾān sent down in it, when the Qurʾān descended through the length of twenty years, from its first to its last?! The Imam (ʿa) said: “The Qurʾān descended in one lot, in the month of Ramaḍān, to the Inhabited House; then it was sent down from the Inhabited House through the length of twenty years.” Then he said: the Prophet (ṣ) said: “The ṣuḥuf of Abraham descended on the first night of the month of Ramaḍān; and the Torah was sent down when six had passed of Ramaḍān; and the Gospel when thirteen had passed of Ramaḍān; and the Zabūr when eighteen had passed of Ramaḍān; and the Qurʾān was sent down when four-and-twenty had passed of Ramaḍān.”⁴²⁷

The hadith has come in al-Kāfī, save that at its end: “and the Qurʾān was sent down on the three-and-twentieth of the month of Ramaḍān”; and the riwāya is from Ḥafṣ ibn Ghiyāth.⁴²⁸ And in al-Tahdhīb a portion of the hadith has come, by the riwāya of Abū Baṣīr, at whose end: “and the Furqān descended on the Night of Qadr.”⁴²⁹

These are a body of transmitted narrations, interpreting the Qurʾān’s descent in one lot on one night: either to the Inhabited House in the fourth heaven, as in the narrations of the Shīʿa; or to Bayt al-ʿIzza in the lowest heaven, as in some narrations of the generality; and thereafter its verses descended from it, dispersed, upon the Messenger of God (ṣ), according to circumstances and occasions, portion upon portion…

The literalists among the fellows of hadith have taken these narrations at their outward, resting content in themselves with their outward purport, as a matter of pure devotional submission.

As for the verifiers among the scholars, it did not please them to take up what admits of no rational conception; nor is there any ground for devotional submission in what does not return to the principles of the acts of worship. Hence they set about criticizing these hadiths with a scientific criticism, asking: what is the profit contemplated behind the Qurʾān’s descending in one lot in one of the upper heavens, thereafter to descend gradually upon the Messenger of God (ṣ)?!

In answer to this question, al-Fakhr al-Rāzī said: it is possible that this was for a smoothing of the matter to Gabriel, or in the interest of the Prophet (ṣ), in the expectancy of the revelation from the nearest of the directions.⁴³⁰

This answer is the utmost of feebleness and collapse — besides its being a conjecture at the unseen; and we wonder at the issuing of such empty speech from the like of this man, so versed in verification!!

And al-Mawlā al-Fayḍ al-Kāshānī said: it is as though what were meant thereby is the descent of its meaning upon the heart of the Prophet (ṣ), as He, the Most High, said: “brought down by the Trustworthy Spirit upon your heart” (26:193–194)⁴³¹; then it descended, through the length of twenty years, piecemeal, from the inward of his heart to the outward of his tongue, whenever Gabriel (ʿa) came to him with the revelation and recited it upon him in its very wording.⁴³²

Thus he (may God have mercy on him) interpreted the Inhabited House as the heart of the Messenger of God (ṣ). And perhaps al-Ṣadūq (may God be pleased with him) intended this very meaning by his saying: “and He gave His prophet the knowledge in one lot.”

And upon the like of this fell the choice of al-Shaykh Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Zanjānī, in the interpretation of this narration. He said: and we may say that the spirit of the Qurʾān — which is its universal purposes, at which the Qurʾān aims — was made manifest to his noble heart on that night: “brought down by the Trustworthy Spirit upon your heart” (26:193–194)⁴³³; then it appeared, upon his blessed tongue, dispersed, through the length of years: “We have sent the Qurʾān in [discrete] parts so that you may read it to the people a little at a time, and We have sent it down piecemeal” (17:106).⁴³⁴

Al-ʿAllāma al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī took up this interpretation, and added to it by way of verification. He said: the Book has another reality, behind that which we understand of it by ordinary understanding — a reality possessed of unity, cohesive, admitting neither detailing nor partition, by reason of its return to a single meaning, in which are no parts and no chapters; and it is only this witnessed detailing that supervened upon the Book after that consolidation (iḥkām). He, the Most High, has said: “[This is] a Book, whose signs have been made definitive and then elaborated, from One [who is] all-wise, all-aware” (11:1)⁴³⁵; and He has said: “This is indeed a noble Qurʾān, in a guarded Book — no one touches it except the pure ones” (56:77–79)⁴³⁶; and He has said: “Certainly We have brought them a Book, which We have elaborated with knowledge” (7:52).⁴³⁷… Therefore what is meant by the sending-down of the Qurʾān on the Night of Qadr is the sending-down of the unified reality of the Book upon the heart of the Messenger of God (ṣ) in one descent — even as the Qurʾān set forth in detail was sent down upon his heart gradually also, with intervals and circumstances, through the term of the prophetic summons…⁴³⁸

I say: This is subtle speech; but it goes not beyond an interpretation that rests upon no proof; and the question, before every other thing, is a transmitted one — it is not of the theoretical intellections. Hence we ask of these eminences: by what warrant have you interpreted the Inhabited House — which is in the fourth heaven, according to the narrations of the Shīʿa, or Bayt al-ʿIzza, according to the narrations of the generality — as the heart of the Messenger of God (ṣ)?! And where has this expression occurred, in this wording?! And we shall discuss with the Sayyid, the ʿAllāma, his choice of another existence for the Qurʾān — simple, behind this detailed existence — when we speak of it in the chapter of the mutashābihāt, God willing.⁴³⁹

An Instructive Verification (Taḥqīq Mufīd)

The learned muḥaqqiq, Shaykh Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Mufīd, said: That which Abū Jaʿfar [al-Ṣadūq] has held in this matter — its basis is a single ḥadīth (that is, it is not among the recurrent reports [al-mutawātir] established beyond doubt), and such a report entails neither [certain] knowledge nor [obligatory] practice. Now the Qurʾān’s descent upon events as they befell, one occasion after another, indicates the contrary of what this ḥadīth contains.⁴⁴⁰ For the Qurʾān contains the ruling upon what occurred, and recounts what came to pass in the very manner of its passing; and this cannot be so in truth save at the moment of the event’s occurrence, upon the occasion of its cause.

For example, His words, the Most High: “Allāh has certainly heard the speech of her who pleads with you about her husband and complains to Allāh. Allāh hears the conversation between the two of you” (58:1)⁴⁴¹ — this verse came down concerning Khawla bint Khuwaylid, who came to complain of her husband Aws ibn al-Ṣāmit, who had pronounced the ẓihār against her; and this had counted as a divorce in the Jāhiliyya.⁴⁴² And His words: “But when they sight a deal or a diversion, they scatter off towards it and leave you standing!” (62:11)⁴⁴³ And His words: “…of them are some who have fulfilled their pledge, and of them are some who still wait, and they have not changed in the least” (33:23)⁴⁴⁴

And in the Qurʾān there is much recourse to the words “they said” (qālū), “he said” (qāla), “they came” (jāʾū), and “he came” (jāʾa) — in the form of the past tense — as also that in it are the abrogating and the abrogated; none of which accords with its descent all at once, at a time when none of these things had yet come to pass.

He (may God have mercy upon him) said: Were we to trace the narratives of the Qurʾān, there would come of what we have mentioned so much that this discourse could not contain it. And how closely does that which this ḥadīth requires resemble the doctrine of the Anthropomorphists (al-Mushabbiha), who alleged that God — glorified be He — has never ceased speaking the Qurʾān — that is, the doctrine of the Qurʾān’s pre-eternity — and informing of what would be with the word “was” (kāna); yet the people of [divine] unity have refuted them in the manner we have set forth.

He said: It may be allowable, in the report transmitted concerning the Qurʾān’s descent all at once on the Night of Ordainment, [to understand it thus]: that a portion of it descended all at once on the Night of Ordainment, and thereafter there followed what descended of it up to the death of the Prophet (ṣ). But that it should have descended in its entirety and its totality on the Night of Ordainment — that is far from what the outward sense of the Qurʾān requires, and from the recurrent reports, and from the consensus of the scholars, notwithstanding their divergence of views.⁴⁴⁵

And al-Murtaḍā, ʿAlam al-Hudā (may God have mercy upon him), said: “As for that whereof Abū Jaʿfar ibn Bābawayh (may God have mercy upon him) was certain — namely that it was sent down all at once…” — if he relied in this upon the transmitted reports that he related, then those are solitary reports [akhbār āḥād] which yield no [certain] knowledge and compel no certainty; and set against them are many reports, better known and more numerous than they, which require that it was sent down piecemeal, and that a part of it descended at Mecca and a part at Medina — and it is for this reason that a part of the Qurʾān is designated Meccan and a part Medinan. And [they require] that he (ṣ) used to pause, upon the befalling of events such as the ẓihār and the like, awaiting the descent of what would be sent down to him of the Qurʾān, saying (ṣ): “Nothing has been sent down to me concerning this.” Had the Qurʾān been sent down all at once, this would not have come to pass, and the ruling upon the ẓihār and the other matters wherein he paused would have been known to him. And matters so manifest and so widely current are not to be relinquished upon the strength of solitary reports in particular.

As for the Qurʾān itself, it indicates this [piecemeal descent]; namely His words, the Most High: “The faithless say, ‘Why has not the Qurʾān been sent down to him all at once?’ So it is, that We may strengthen your heart with it, and We have recited it [to you] in a measured tone” (25:32)⁴⁴⁶ Had it been sent down all at once, the answer to them would have been “it has already been sent down as you demanded”; and the answer would not have been “So it is, that We may strengthen your heart with it.” And all the exegetes have explained this by saying: the meaning is “Thus have We sent it down” — that is, piecemeal, that [the Prophet] might proceed unhurriedly in causing it to be heard, and advance by degrees in receiving it. And tartīl, too, is the coming of one thing in the train of another; to divert it to [signify] knowledge of it is not sound, for the outward sense is otherwise. Nor did those [who denied] say “Would that we knew of its descent all at once,” but rather “Why was it not sent down to you all at once”; and the answer to them, had it been sent down thus, would be to say “that which you sought has already come to pass.” And there is no arguing for its piecemeal descent from what is stated concerning its descent in the remainder of the verse.

As for His words, “The month of Ramaḍān is one in which the Qurʾān was sent down” (2:185)⁴⁴⁷, this indicates only that the genus of the Qurʾān (its greater part, or the commencement of its beginning) descended in this month; it does not indicate the descent of the whole of it therein. And as for His words, “Do not hasten with the Qurʾān before its revelation is completed to you” (20:114)⁴⁴⁸, we do not perceive from what aspect it indicates that it was sent down all at once; [al-Ṣadūq] ought to have shown the aspect of its so indicating. Rather, this verse is the fitter to indicate that it was not sent down all at once, for He, the Most High, said “before its revelation is completed to you,” and this requires that in the Qurʾān there is somewhat awaited whose revelation has not yet been completed.

We were asked, long ago, to dictate the interpretation of this verse, and we dictated upon it an exhaustive treatment, wherein we set down, from the people of exegesis, two aspects, and joined to them a third aspect in which we stood alone.

The first of the two aspects: that he (ṣ), when the Angel descended to him with somewhat of the Qurʾān, would recite it together with the delivering Angel before the delivery was complete, out of his (ṣ) eagerness to commit it to memory and to master it; and so he (ṣ) was commanded to hold back until the delivery reached its term, since the parts of the discourse are bound one to another. The second aspect: that he (ṣ) was forbidden to convey aught of the Qurʾān before its meaning and its interpretation [taʾwīl] had been revealed to him. The third aspect — in which we stood alone —: that he (ṣ) was forbidden to seek to draw from the Qurʾān that which had not yet been revealed to him; for that in which there is a benefit must needs be sent down even if it be not sought, since He, the Most High, does not withhold benefits from them; while that in which there is no benefit He does not send down in any case — so that there is no sense in [the Prophet’s] seeking it. Thus the verse has no bearing upon the point at issue.⁴⁴⁹

Inzāl and Tanzīl (al-Inzāl wa-l-Tanzīl)

Among the things adduced by the proponents of the view that the Qurʾān descended twice — once all at once (dafʿiyyan) and once by degrees (tadrījiyyan) — is the distinction between the two expressions (inzāl and tanzīl) with respect to the Qurʾān’s descent. They said: wherever the expression employed is the inzāl of the Qurʾān, what is intended is its descent all at once, as in His words, the Most High: “The month of Ramaḍān is one in which the Qurʾān was sent down” (2:185)⁴⁵⁰, and His words: “Indeed We sent it down on a blessed night” (44:3)⁴⁵¹, and “Indeed We sent it down on the Night of Ordainment” (97:1)⁴⁵². As for the expression tanzīl, it signifies its gradual descent: “We have sent the Qurʾān in [discrete] parts so that you may read it to the people a little at a time, and We have sent it down piecemeal” (17:106)⁴⁵³

Al-Zamakhsharī said — concerning His words, the Most High: “He has sent down to you the Book with the truth, confirming what was [revealed] before it, and He had sent down the Torah and the Evangel” (3:3)⁴⁵⁴ —: Why did He say, of the Book, nazzala [sent down by degrees], but of the Torah and the Evangel anzala [sent down all at once]? And he answered: because the Qurʾān descended in installments [munajjaman], whereas the two [other] Books descended all at once.⁴⁵⁵

And al-Rāghib said: the distinction between inzāl and tanzīl, in describing the Qurʾān and the angels, is that tanzīl is proper to the case in which the descent is piecemeal, one time after another, whereas inzāl is general. He said — concerning the first three verses —: the term inzāl alone, and not tanzīl, was employed because of what is related, that the Qurʾān descended all at once to the heaven of this world, and thereafter descended star by star [najman fa-najman]. And in His words, the Most High: “The Bedouins are more obdurate in unfaith and hypocrisy, and more apt to be ignorant of the precepts that Allāh has sent down to His Apostle” (9:97)⁴⁵⁶, He particularized the term inzāl that it might be the more general. And in His words: “Had We sent down this Qurʾān upon a mountain” (59:21)⁴⁵⁷ — and He did not say “had We sent it down by degrees” [nazzalnā], to give notice that, had We bestowed upon it [the mountain] once that which We bestowed upon you many times, “you would have surely seen it humbled…”.⁴⁵⁸

And our master the ʿAllāma al-Ṭabāṭbāʾī followed the two of them in this, affirming it and insisting that the expression inzāl was employed only in view of the descent of the Qurʾān’s simple reality [ḥaqīqat al-Qurʾān al-basīṭa] all at once on the Night of Ordainment in the month of Ramaḍān; whereas the tanzīl is the descent of its particulars, by degrees, over the whole span of the [prophetic] mission.⁴⁵⁹

But the truth appears to be otherwise. For Allāh has related, on the tongue of the Arabs [who denied], their saying: “Why has not the Qurʾān been sent down to him all at once?” (25:32)⁴⁶⁰ — and here the expression for the all-at-once descent of the whole Qurʾān came in the form of tanzīl [nuzzila]. And likewise His words, the Most High: “We would have sent down to them an angel-apostle from the heaven” (17:95)⁴⁶¹ — and the angel is a single individual, who does not descend little by little in succession. And His words: “They say, ‘Why has not some sign been sent down to him from his Lord?’” (6:37)⁴⁶² — and the sign descends as a single [entity]. And His words: “The faithful say, ‘Why has not a sūra been sent down?’” (47:20)⁴⁶³ — that is, its descent all at once. And His words: “Had We sent down to you a Book on paper so that they could touch it” (6:7)⁴⁶⁴ — that is, its descent in its entirety.

And there stands refuted, against the ʿAllāma, that which he supposed — the restriction of the term inzāl to the simple [realities] — by His words, the Most High: “It is He who has sent down to you the Book. Parts of it are definitive verses, which are the mother of the Book, while others are metaphorical” (3:7)⁴⁶⁵; for the Book sent down, in which are the definitive [muḥkam] and the metaphorical [mutashābih], is this very Qurʾān, in which there is elaboration and exposition. And His words: “It is He who has sent down to you the Book, well-elaborated” (6:114)⁴⁶⁶ — and that which is sent down “well-elaborated” [mufaṣṣalan] is this very Qurʾān, which descended in installments. And He has combined the two expressions, concerning this very Qurʾān, in a single verse: “…We have sent down the reminder to you so that you may clarify for the people that which has been sent down to them, so that they may reflect” (16:44)⁴⁶⁷

And al-Zamakhsharī erred here in two respects. The first: that which he supposed concerning the Evangel [Injīl] — that it is a “book,” whereas it is nothing but the glad tidings [bashāʾir] that [Jesus] delivered to the disciples, and there was for him no “book” in the technical sense of the term.⁴⁶⁸ As for His words [reporting Jesus], “He has given me the Book” (19:30)⁴⁶⁹, by “the Book” is intended the sharīʿa [the sacred Law] itself — a common technical usage — as He, the Most High, said: “…who will recite to them Your signs and teach them the Book and wisdom” (2:129)⁴⁷⁰, that is, teach them the Law alongside wisdom [ḥikma], which is insight in religion. The second: that which he supposed concerning the Torah — that it descended from heaven in the form of a book; whereas it was rather tablets [alwāḥ] that Moses (ʿa) took with him, to inscribe upon them what the All-Merciful dictated to him upon Mount Ṭūr. Thus the “book” of Moses — in the Qurʾān’s own expression⁴⁷¹ — he wrote with his own hand; while that which Allāh sent down upon him were dictations [imlāʾāt] that He dictated to him by degrees throughout his sojourn upon Mount Ṭūr.⁴⁷²

The First to Be Sent Down (Awwal mā Nazala)

The researchers into the affairs of the Qurʾān have differed as to which of its verses or sūras descended first. The opinions upon this are three:

1. Sūrat al-ʿAlaq. For his (ṣ) prophethood began with the descent of three, or five, verses from the beginning of Sūrat al-ʿAlaq. That was when the Truth came suddenly upon him while he was in the cave of Ḥirāʾ, and the Angel said to him, “Recite!” He said, “I am no reciter.” So he pressed him hard, then said to him: “Read in the Name of your Lord who created; created man from a clinging mass. Read, and your Lord is the most generous,⁴⁷³ who taught by the pen, taught man what he did not know” (96:1–5).⁴⁷⁴

And in Tafsīr al-Imām: Gabriel descended to him, and took him by the upper arm, and shook him, saying: “O Muḥammad (ṣ), recite!” He said, “And what shall I recite?” He said: “O Muḥammad, ‘Read in the Name of your Lord who created; created man from a clinging mass. Read, and your Lord is the most generous, who taught by the pen, taught man what he did not know.’”⁴⁷⁵

And it is related from Imam al-Ṣādiq (ʿa): “The first to be sent down upon the Apostle of Allāh (ṣ) was ‘In the Name of Allāh, the All-beneficent, the All-merciful. Read in the Name of your Lord’; and the last to be sent down upon him was ‘When Allāh’s help comes.’”⁴⁷⁶

2. Sūrat al-Muddaththir. For it is related from Ibn Salama, who said: “I asked Jābir ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Anṣārī: which [part] of the Qurʾān was sent down first? He said: ‘O you wrapped up in your mantle!’ I said: Or was it ‘Read in the Name of your Lord’? He said: I tell you what the Apostle of Allāh (ṣ) told us: ‘I had sojourned at Ḥirāʾ; and when I had fulfilled my sojourn I descended, and made my way into the depths of the valley, and I looked before me and behind me, and to my right and to my left’ — and it may be that he heard a caller — ‘then I looked toward the heaven, and lo, there he was’ — meaning Gabriel — ‘and a trembling seized me; so I came to Khadīja, and bade them, and they wrapped me up; and Allāh sent down: “O you wrapped up in your mantle! Rise up and warn.”’”⁴⁷⁷

This being so… it may be that Jābir judged of his own accord that it [al-Muddaththir] was the first sūra to descend, for there is nothing in the Apostle’s (ṣ) words to indicate this; and the likelier [view] is that what Jābir related occurred after the interval of the cessation of revelation [fatra], so that Jābir supposed it to be the commencement of the revelation.⁴⁷⁸

And here for you is the ḥadīth of the interval of the cessation of revelation, in Jābir’s narration also. He said: I heard the Apostle of Allāh (ṣ) speaking of the interval [fatra] of revelation. He said: “While I was walking, of a sudden I heard a caller from the heaven; so I raised my head, and lo, the Angel who had come to me at Ḥirāʾ was seated upon a throne between the heaven and the earth. I was stricken with dread of him — that is, I was seized with terror — and I returned and said: ‘Wrap me up! Wrap me up!’ So they wrapped me; and Allāh, blessed and exalted, sent down: ‘O you wrapped up in your mantle! Rise up and warn! Magnify your Lord, and purify your cloak, and keep away from all impurity’ (74:1–5)⁴⁷⁹ — and it [al-rujz] means the idols.” He (ṣ) said: “Then the revelation came in continuous succession.” And in al-Bukhārī’s wording: “Then the revelation grew intense, and came in continuous succession.”⁴⁸⁰

3. Sūrat al-Fātiḥa. Al-Zamakhsharī said: the greater number of the exegetes hold that al-Fātiḥa was the first to be sent down.⁴⁸¹ And the ʿAllāma al-Ṭabrisī related, from the master Aḥmad al-Zāhid, in his book al-Īḍāḥ, with his isnād from Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyab, from ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (ʿa), that he said: “I asked the Prophet (ṣ) concerning the reward of the Qurʾān, and he informed me of the reward of each sūra, in the order of their descent from the heaven: and the first to be sent down upon him at Mecca was al-Fātiḥat al-Kitāb, then ‘Read in the Name of your Lord,’ then ‘Nūn. By the pen…’”⁴⁸²

And al-Wāḥidī related, in Asbāb al-nuzūl, with his isnād, from Abū Maysara ʿAmr ibn Shuraḥbīl, who said: When the Apostle of Allāh (ṣ) was alone by himself, he would hear a call and be startled by it; and, the last time, the Angel called to him: “O Muḥammad!” He said: “At your service.” He said: “Say: ‘In the Name of Allāh, the All-beneficent, the All-merciful. All praise belongs to Allāh, Lord of all the worlds’ (until he reached:) ‘nor are astray.’”⁴⁸³

I say: There is no doubt that the Prophet (ṣ) was performing the ṣalāt from [the time of] his mission, and that ʿAlī, Jaʿfar, Zayd ibn Ḥāritha, and Khadīja prayed together with him;⁴⁸⁴ and there is no ṣalāt for one who does not recite al-Fātiḥat al-Kitāb;⁴⁸⁵ and it has come in the tradition that the first thing wherewith Gabriel began was to teach him the ablution [wuḍūʾ] and the ṣalāt.⁴⁸⁶ So Sūrat al-Fātiḥa must needs have been conjoined with the very mission. Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī said: it is not preserved [in the record] that there was ever, in Islam, a ṣalāt without al-Fātiḥat al-Kitāb.⁴⁸⁷

And so — we perceive no essential contradiction among the three opinions; for the three or five verses from the beginning of Sūrat al-ʿAlaq descended only as an annunciation of his (ṣ) prophethood — and this is the consensus of the people of the [Muslim] community; then, after an interval [fatra], verses came to him — again — from the beginning of Sūrat al-Muddaththir, as came in Jābir’s ḥadīth in the second place. As for Sūrat al-Fātiḥa, it is the first sūra to descend in complete form, and bearing the mark of its being a sūra of the Qurʾān — that is, a heavenly Book for the Muslims; and so it is the first “Qurʾān” sent down upon him (ṣ) under this particular designation. As for verses other than it that preceded it in descent, these descended only for other purposes, even if they were afterward recorded as “Qurʾān” among its verses and sūras.

And from this it is that the designation of Sūrat al-Ḥamd as “al-Fātiḥa” [the Opening] is valid — that is, the first complete sūra to descend bearing this particular mark. This surpassing solicitude for it at the outset of the mission, and the singling out of its recitation as obligatory in all the ṣalāts, made it — in point of merit — the counterpart [ʿadl] of the Mighty Qurʾān: “Certainly We have given you [the sūra of] the seven oft-repeated verses and the great Qurʾān” (15:87)⁴⁸⁸; for Allāh bestowed a favour upon His Apostle by this particular descent, over against the rest of the Qurʾān. Yes — were we to reckon the sūras by [the order of] their openings, then Sūrat al-Ḥamd would fall fifth, as comes in the narration of Jābir ibn Zayd⁴⁸⁹ which follows.

The Last to Be Sent Down (Ākhir mā Nazala)

It comes in our [Shīʿī] narrations that the last to be sent down was Sūrat al-Naṣr. It is related that, when it descended and he (ṣ) recited it to his Companions, they rejoiced and were glad — save al-ʿAbbās ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, for he wept. He (ṣ) said: “What makes you weep, uncle?” He said: “I think your own death has been announced to you, O Apostle of Allāh.” He said: “It is even as you say.” And he (ṣ) lived two years after it.⁴⁹⁰

Imam al-Ṣādiq (ʿa) said: “And the last sūra to descend was ‘When Allāh’s help comes with victory.’” (110:1)⁴⁹¹ And Muslim reported, from Ibn ʿAbbās, who said: the last sūra to descend — he said — was “When Allāh’s help comes with victory.”⁴⁹²

And it is related that the last sūra to descend was Barāʾa [al-Tawba]. It descended in the ninth year, after the Year of the Conquest, upon his (ṣ) return from the raid of Tabūk; verses from its beginning descended, and the Prophet sent them with ʿAlī (ʿa), that he might recite them to an assembly of the polytheists.⁴⁹³

And it is related: the last verse to descend was “And beware of a day in which you will be brought back to Allāh. Then every soul shall be recompensed fully for what it has earned, and they will not be wronged” (2:281)⁴⁹⁴. Gabriel descended with it and said: “Set it at the head of [verse] two hundred and eighty of Sūrat al-Baqara.” And the Apostle (ṣ) lived after it one-and-twenty days; and it is said, seven days.⁴⁹⁵

Ibn Wāḍiḥ al-Yaʿqūbī said: And it has been said that the last to be sent down upon him (ṣ) was “Today I have perfected your religion for you, and I have completed My blessing upon you, and I have approved Islam as your religion” (5:3)⁴⁹⁶. He said: and this is the sound, established, and explicit narration. And its descent was on the day of the [prophetic] designation [naṣṣ] of the Commander of the Faithful, ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (may God’s blessings be upon him), at Ghadīr Khumm.⁴⁹⁷

I say: There is no doubt that Sūrat al-Naṣr descended before Barāʾa, for it was an annunciation of the Conquest, or [descended] at Mecca in the Year of the Conquest;⁴⁹⁸ whereas Barāʾa descended a year after the Conquest. So the way to harmonize these narrations is this: the last sūra to descend complete was Sūrat al-Naṣr — whereupon he (ṣ) said: “Verily, my own death has been announced to me”⁴⁹⁹ — while the last sūra to descend, reckoned by [the order of] its opening, is Sūrat Barāʾa. As for the verse “And beware of a day in which you will be brought back to Allāh” (2:281)⁴⁹⁴, if it be sound that it descended at Minā, on the Day of Sacrifice, during the Farewell Pilgrimage — as comes in al-Māwardī’s narration⁵⁰⁰ — then the last verse to descend is the verse of Perfection [āyat al-ikmāl], as al-Yaʿqūbī mentioned; for it descended upon his (ṣ) return from the Farewell Pilgrimage, on the eighteenth of Dhū l-Ḥijja. Otherwise — if it be sound that the Prophet lived after the verse “And beware…” one-and-twenty days, or seven, or nine — then this [2:281] is the last verse sent down upon him (ṣ).

And the likelier [view], in our estimation, is that which al-Yaʿqūbī held; for it [5:3] is the verse announcing the perfection of the religion, and so was a notice of the termination of revelation upon him (ṣ), as to both conveyance [balāgh] and delivery [adāʾ]. So it may be that that verse [2:281] was the last of the verses of legal ordinances [āyāt al-aḥkām], while this one [5:3] is the last of the verses of revelation absolutely. And there are other opinions and views, of no worth, since they rest upon no infallible text [naṣṣ maʿṣūm].

Qāḍī Abū Bakr [al-Bāqillānī] said, in al-Intiṣār: none of these opinions is [traced back] to anything raised up to the Prophet (ṣ); it may be that [each transmitter] said it by a kind of ijtihād and the preponderance of conjecture [ẓann], not by [certain] knowledge; and knowledge of that is not among the obligatory duties of religion, such that the reproach the detractors have levelled — [namely] want of exact preservation [ḍabṭ] — should follow. And it may be that each of them reported the last thing he himself heard from the Apostle of Allāh (ṣ), while another heard from him something after that. And it may be — also — that the verse which is the last verse the Apostle (ṣ) recited [in a given sitting] was sent down together with other verses that descended with it, so that he was commanded to have it inscribed together with what came down, and to recite it to them, after having already had the later-revealed matter inscribed and recited; so that one who hears this supposes it to be the last in [the order of] descent.⁵⁰¹

The Meccan and the Medinan (al-Makkī wa-l-Madanī)

The knowledge of the Meccan as distinct from the Medinan — whether it be a whole sūra or a single verse — has a great utility, bearing upon the several aspects of the occasions of revelation [asbāb al-nuzūl], and furnishing the exegete and the jurist [with means] in determining the tendency of the verse, and in the domain of distinguishing the abrogating from the abrogated, the particular from the general, the qualified from the absolute, and the like. Hence the scholars have exerted their utmost in distinguishing the Meccan passages from the Medinan; their consensus fell upon a large portion, and they differed over the remainder. They likewise excepted Medinan verses occurring within Meccan sūras, and the reverse; and of this there is an engaging detailing, which follows.

Approaches to Determining the Meccan and the Medinan

The criterion for determining the Meccan and the Medinan varies according to the divergence of views and perspectives upon it; and in what follows are three theories that have become well known. The first: reckoning it by the Hijra of the Prophet (ṣ) and his arrival at Medina the Illumined. Thus whatever descended before the Hijra, or during the journey before his arrival at Medina, is Meccan, and whatever descended after that is Medinan. The criterion, on this reckoning, is temporal: whatever descended before the time of the Hijra — even if outside Mecca — is Meccan; and whatever descended after the Hijra — even if outside Medina, and even if it descended at Mecca in the Year of the Conquest or during the Farewell Pilgrimage — is Medinan, in view of its descending after the Hijra. Upon this convention, all the verses that descended during the campaigns and during his (ṣ) journeys — inasmuch as they descended after the Hijra — are all Medinan.

Yaḥyā ibn Sallām said: whatever descended at Mecca, or on the road to Medina before he (ṣ) reached it, is Meccan; and whatever descended after he (ṣ) arrived at Medina, or during some of his journeys and campaigns, is Medinan. Jalāl al-Dīn [al-Suyūṭī] said: this is a subtle point, from which is drawn that whatever descended during the journey of the Hijra is Meccan by convention.⁵⁰² And that is as in His words, the Most High: “Indeed He who has revealed to you the Qurʾān will surely restore you to the place of return” (28:85)⁵⁰³ — it is said this descended at al-Juḥfa, while the Prophet (ṣ) was upon the road of his Hijra to Medina.⁵⁰⁴

The second: whatever descended at Mecca and its environs — even if after the Hijra — is Meccan, and whatever descended at Medina and its environs is Medinan; while whatever descended outside the two towns, far from them, is neither Meccan nor Medinan — as in His words, the Most High: “Thus have We sent you to a nation before which many nations have passed away, so that you may recite to them what We have revealed to you, while they defy the All-beneficent. Say, ‘He is my Lord; there is no god except Him. In Him I have put my trust, and to Him will be my return’” (13:30)⁵⁰⁵ It is said this descended at al-Ḥudaybiyya, when the Prophet (ṣ) made peace with the polytheists of Quraysh; for the Apostle of Allāh (ṣ) said to ʿAlī (ʿa): “Write: ‘In the Name of Allāh, the All-beneficent, the All-merciful…’” — and Suhayl ibn ʿAmr and the rest of the polytheists said: “We know no ‘All-beneficent’ [al-Raḥmān] save the master of al-Yamāma” — meaning Musaylima the Arch-liar — so the verse descended.⁵⁰⁶ And likewise the verse of al-Anfāl⁵⁰⁷ descended at Badr, when the Muslims disputed over the division of the spoils;⁵⁰⁸ [and so it is] neither Meccan nor Medinan, upon this convention.

The third: whatever was an address to the people of Mecca is Meccan, and whatever was an address to the people of Medina is Medinan. This convention is taken from the words of Ibn Masʿūd: everything in which “O mankind” descended is [from] Mecca, and everything in which “O you who have believed” descended is [from] Medina.⁵⁰⁹ Al-Zarkashī said: because unbelief predominated among the people of Mecca, and faith among the people of Medina.⁵¹⁰ This divergence in defining the Meccan and the Medinan has occasioned a divergence concerning many verses and sūras — [as to] whether they are Meccan or Medinan.⁵¹¹ Yet the reliable one among these conventions is the first; it is the well-known one, upon which the majority of the people of learning have proceeded, and our forthcoming determination of the arrangement of the sūras by the sequence of their descent relies upon this convention.⁵¹²

Yes — the ways to knowing the sites of descent — that they were at Mecca, or at Medina, or elsewhere — are very few, because the early scholars did not accord this important aspect any considerable attention, apart from what they mentioned in passing; and it is a very slight benefit. Hence, to know that, one must observe the indications and contextual signs from the wording of the verse, or draw upon the tenor of the discourse, together with the address directed according to the nature of the situation of those addressed: whether it was in war or in peace, promise or threat, guidance or [legal] obligation. [This matters] where it yields [certain] knowledge, or a decisive resolution of a problem in the wording of the verse — as in His words: “So whoever makes ḥajj to the House, or performs the ʿumra, there is no sin upon him to circuit between them” (2:158)⁵¹³ — for the problem of its indicating mere permission, rather than obligation, is resolved by what is transmitted concerning the occasion of its descent,⁵¹⁴ a matter that necessitates confidence in the soundness of the report, without regard to the examination of its chain; and hence it is Medinan.

Al-Jaʿbarī said: for knowing the Meccan and the Medinan there are two ways, one based on transmission [samāʿī] and one based on inference [qiyāsī]. The transmission-based is that whose descent at one of the two [places] has reached us by report. As for the inference-based: ʿAlqama said, on the authority of Ibn Masʿūd, that every sūra in which is “O mankind” only, or “Nay!” [kallā], or whose opening is the disjoined letters — save the two radiant ones [al-Zahrāwān] (al-Baqara and Āl ʿImrān), and al-Raʿd, in one view — or in which is the story of Adam and Iblīs, save the longest (al-Baqara), or in which are the tales of the prophets and the bygone nations, is Meccan; and every sūra in which is a [penal] ḥadd or a [prescribed] obligation is Medinan. And in another narration: every sūra in which is “O you who have believed” is Medinan.

Al-Zarkashī said: this last statement, if taken absolutely, is questionable; for Sūrat al-Baqara is Medinan, yet in it is “O mankind! Worship your Lord” (2:21)⁵¹⁵, and in it is “O mankind! Eat of what is lawful and pure in the earth” (2:168)⁵¹⁶; and Sūrat al-Nisāʾ is Medinan, yet in it is “O mankind! Be wary of your Lord” (4:1)⁵¹⁷, and in it is “If He wishes, He will take you away, O mankind” (4:133)⁵¹⁸. So if the exegetes intend that the predominant case is that [correspondence], it is correct; and therefore Makkī ibn Ḥamūsh said: this holds only in the majority of cases, and is not universal — and in many of the Meccan sūras is “O you who have believed.”⁵¹⁹

And Qāḍī Abū Bakr said: custom would require that the Companions preserved that knowledge; yet there was from the Prophet (ṣ) no statement upon it, nor is it transmitted from him (ṣ) that he said, “such-and-such descended at Mecca, and such-and-such at Medina.” He did not do so only because he was not commanded to it, and God did not make the knowledge of that among the obligations of the Community; and likewise the Companions and the Successors after them — since they did not reckon it among the obligations of religion — the motives were not abundant enough to report it and keep conveying it to their hearers. This being so, it was allowable that those who came after them should differ concerning part of the Qurʾān — whether it is Meccan or Medinan — and should employ, in speaking of it, a kind of opinion [raʾy] and ijtihād.⁵²⁰

Confusions concerning the Meccan and the Medinan

In recent times, confusions [shubuhāt] have been stirred up concerning the subject of the Meccan and the Medinan, resting upon an alleged premise that the Qurʾān was affected by [its] environment, and that it was subject to various human circumstances that left their traces upon the style of the Qurʾān and its manner of presentation, and upon its substance and the themes with which it concerned itself.

But we must distinguish between the notion of the Qurʾān’s being affected and acted upon by the objective circumstances of the environment and the like — in the sense of its being passively stamped by them — and the notion of the Qurʾān’s taking these circumstances into account with the aim of influencing them and developing them for the good of the [prophetic] call [daʿwa].

For the first notion means, in truth, the merely-human character of the Qurʾān, in that it places the Qurʾān at the level of lived reality, making it a part of the social environment, affected by it even as it affects it. This is contrary to the second notion, which means nothing of the sort; for the nature of the Qurʾānic stance, which aims at transformation, and the nature of the aims and ends the Qurʾān seeks to realize, may well require this taking-into-account, in that the end and the aim determine the very fashion of the style that must be pursued to attain it.

There is, then, a difference between the circumstances and reality imposing themselves upon the Message, and the aims and ends the Message seeks to realize through [engaging] reality imposing a style and a method upon it; for the aim and the end are not two things separate from the essence of the Message, such that their effect upon it would be an effect imposed from without.

The confusions presented in this domain reduce to the manifest difference between the Meccan portion of the Qurʾān and the Medinan — [namely] the brevity and concision observable in the Meccan sūras and verses, as against the elaboration and expansiveness in the Medinan — which [they claim] indicates a severance of the link between the two portions, and the affectedness of each by the environment in which the Prophet of Islam was living. For, the society of Mecca having been an unlettered [ummī] society, the Prophet was not able to expatiate in expounding concepts and elaborating them; rather, the capacity for that came to him only when he came to dwell in the cultured, civilized society at Yathrib.

So too the difference in the character of severity and vehemence with which the Meccan sūras are marked, as against the Medinan, marked with the character of gentleness and calm; and in the Meccan sūras the presentation of proofs and demonstrations predominates, while in the Medinan it is legislation and rulings. But these are distinctions that go back to the nature of the [prophetic] call in its movement: at the outset, when it was in a state of struggle; and, after establishment and ascendancy, when it was in a state of untroubled ease, free to devote itself to amplitude, expansion, and elaboration.

Moreover, those distinctions are not invariable, seeing that among the Medinan sūras we find short ones — such as Sūrat al-Naṣr, Sūrat al-Zalzala, and Sūrat al-Bayyina, all Medinan — and among the Meccan, long ones, such as Sūrat al-Anʿām and Sūrat al-Aʿrāf; as, likewise, in certain Medinan sūras there is much rebuke and reproach, especially concerning the hypocrites and those of the People of the Book who consorted with them.⁵²¹ This, then, with regard being had to the difference of circumstances — at Mecca, persecution and harshness; at Medina, spaciousness and compassion — and thereby the colouring of the [prophetic] call and its proclamation naturally differs.

The Order of Descent (Tartīb al-Nuzūl)

In this presentation we have relied upon several agreed-upon narrations, in which the scholars have for the most part placed their trust; the mainstay of them is the narration of Ibn ʿAbbās, transmitted by several routes and chains that the masters of the discipline have acknowledged.⁵²² Imam Badr al-Dīn al-Zarkashī said: upon this order the narration from the trustworthy authorities settled.⁵²³ We have taken it as the primary basis in this presentation, and have completed what was dropped from it by the narration of Jābir ibn Zayd and others, as also by reliable historical texts;⁵²⁴ true, there was among them some divergence — whether on account of the difference in defining the Meccan and the Medinan, or in the number of Meccan passages within the Medinan sūras — and hence their divergence came to bear upon some thirty-odd sūras, [as to] whether they are Meccan or Medinan.

The regard, in this presentation, was to the opening of the sūras: so that a sūra of which a few verses from its beginning descended, after which another sūra descended, and after that the first was completed — the first is counted as preceding the second in the order of descent, according to this convention. And here for you is the list of the Meccan sūras — their number being eighty-six sūras, preceding the Medinan sūras, whose number is twenty-eight sūras — leaving aside the sūras that are disputed; and we shall speak of that in a coming section.

The Meccan Sūras in the Order of Their Descent (86)

Listed by the sequence of their descent, each with the number it bears in the muṣḥaf.

The Medinan Sūras in the Order of Their Descent (28)

The Sūras Arranged Alphabetically

An index of all 114 sūras by the Arabic initial of their names, giving the muṣḥaf number, the Meccan or Medinan class, and the sūra after which each descended.

Sūras concerning which There Is Disagreement

As a result of what has preceded, the Meccan sūras were eighty-six — the first of them Sūrat al-ʿAlaq and the last Sūrat al-Muṭaffifīn — and the Medinan sūras twenty-eight, the first of them Sūrat al-Baqara and the last Sūrat Barāʾa. But this determination has not been agreed upon by all: in more than thirty sūras, some have differed from what we have set down in the two lists. What follows is a brief survey of this disagreement, with a short indication of the ground of our own choice in the matter; the detailed treatment we defer to our intermediate commentary.

1. Sūrat al-Fātiḥa. Mujāhid said it is Medinan.⁵²⁸ Al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Faḍl said: this is a slip on Mujāhid’s part, for the scholars are against his statement,⁵²⁹ as is the saying of ʿAlī (ʿa): “al-Fātiḥat al-Kitāb descended at Mecca, from a treasure beneath the Throne”;⁵³⁰ and [against it too are] His words, the Most High: “Certainly We have given you [the sūra of] the seven oft-repeated verses and the great Qurʾān” (15:87)⁵³¹ — for Sūrat al-Ḥijr is Meccan by agreement, and this is an intimation of something already past. And [al-Fātiḥa is Meccan] because it is the first complete sūra to descend upon the Apostle of Allāh (ṣ), which Gabriel taught him,⁵³² and for which reason it was named “al-Fātiḥa” (the Opening),⁵³³ so that he (ṣ) used to pray with it in the first congregation in whom the seed of Islam was knit together; and there is no ṣalāt save with al-Fātiḥat al-Kitāb.⁵³⁴ Jalāl al-Dīn [al-Suyūṭī] said: no ṣalāt without al-Fātiḥat al-Kitāb is anywhere recorded.⁵³⁵

2. Sūrat al-Nisāʾ. Al-Naḥḥās alleged it to be Meccan, in view of His words, the Most High: “Indeed Allāh commands you to deliver the trusts to their [rightful] owners” (4:58)⁵³⁶; for Ibn Jurayj said it descended at Mecca in the Year of the Conquest, concerning the key of the Sacred House — the Prophet (ṣ) wished to hand it to al-ʿAbbās ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, but Allāh commanded him to hand it to ʿUthmān ibn Ṭalḥa, from whom he (ṣ) had earlier taken it.⁵³⁷ But the exegetes agreed that it is Medinan, in view of the weakness of this ḥadīth’s chain; besides, the descent of a verse or a sūra at Mecca in the Year of the Conquest does not make it Meccan, upon the well-known convention that whatever descended after the Hijra is Medinan even if at Mecca; and finally, a whole sūra is not to be stamped with the mark of a single verse within it whose descent differed.

3. Sūrat Yūnus. In an anomalous [shādhdha] narration from Ibn ʿAbbās, it is Medinan;⁵³⁸ but this narration is not established, besides contradicting the earlier-cited text from Ibn ʿAbbās himself on the order of the sūras’ descent, which was virtually agreed upon.

4. Sūrat al-Raʿd. Muḥammad ibn al-Sāʾib al-Kalbī, Muqātil, and ʿAṭāʾ said it is Meccan,⁵³⁹ and so too in a narration related by Mujāhid from Ibn ʿAbbās.⁵⁴⁰ Sayyid Quṭb preferred this view, saying: the Meccan character of this sūra is of intense clarity — whether in the nature of its theme, its manner of delivery, or its general atmosphere, which no one who lives in the shade of this Qurʾān can fail to breathe in.⁵⁴¹ But the order-narrations agreed that it is Medinan, descended after Sūrat al-Qitāl [Muḥammad], as in the narration of ʿIkrima and al-Ḥusayn ibn Abī l-Ḥasan, and the narration of Khuṣayf from Mujāhid from Ibn ʿAbbās himself;⁵⁴² and so said al-Ḥasan and Qatāda.⁵⁴³ As for the sūra’s context, it is a general directing of mankind toward the verses of challenge, a matter in which the Meccan and the Medinan sūras share alike, as do many verses of Sūrat al-Baqara and other Medinan sūras. The mainstay of judgement is the agreement of the order-narrations, as will become clearer in the discussion of Sūrat al-Raḥmān.

5. Sūrat al-Ḥajj. Abū Muḥammad Makkī ibn Abī Ṭālib said it is Meccan,⁵⁴⁴ and that is related from Mujāhid by a weak chain:⁵⁴⁵ he said, “I asked Ibn ʿAbbās about the descent of the sūras until he reached Sūrat al-Ḥajj, and he said it was sent down at Mecca, save the three verses (19, 20, and 21), which descended at Medina”;⁵⁴⁶ and [it is called Meccan] on account of what al-Ṭabarī related from the ḥadīth of the “cranes” (al-gharānīq), and because its severe tone suits a Meccan descent.⁵⁴⁷ I say: none of that can withstand the agreement of the order-narrations and the texts of the historians. Mujāhid’s narration — besides the weakness of its chain — is contradicted by the agreed-upon order-narrations;⁵⁴⁸ the ḥadīth of the gharānīq is a fabricated tale with no basis;⁵⁴⁹ and the severe tone is only predominant, not invariable, and so cannot serve as a basis for judgement.

6. Sūrat al-Furqān. Al-Ḍaḥḥāk alleged it to be Medinan, in view of verses at its end said to be Medinan;⁵⁵⁰ but this alone does not prove it Medinan, after the agreement of the order-narrations.

7. Sūrat Yā Sīn. It is said to be Medinan,⁵⁵¹ but the one who said so is not known, nor the proof on which he relied; and the consensus is settled that it is Meccan.

8. Sūrat Ṣād. Likewise it is said to be Medinan; and this is anomalous, contrary to the consensus.⁵⁵²

9. Sūrat Muḥammad (ṣ). Concerning it there is a weak view that it is Meccan;⁵⁵³ and this is odd, given that it was “the sūra of fighting” [sūrat al-qitāl].

10. Sūrat al-Ḥujurāt. It is said to be Meccan; but it is Medinan by consensus, with one voice.⁵⁵⁴

11. Sūrat al-Raḥmān. It comes in the text of al-Fihrist and in al-Yaʿqūbī that it is Meccan, and the well-known view also went to that. Jalāl al-Dīn [al-Suyūṭī] said: this is the correct view, on account of what al-Tirmidhī and al-Ḥākim related from Jābir, who said: when the Apostle of Allāh (ṣ) had recited Sūrat al-Raḥmān to his Companions to the end, he said, “Why do I see you silent? The jinn were better than you in response! Never did I recite “So which of the bounties of your Lord will you both deny?” (55:13)⁵⁵⁵ but they answered, ‘By none of Your blessings, our Lord, do we deny; to You be praise.’” Jalāl al-Dīn said: and the episode of the jinn was at Mecca.⁵⁵⁶ He said: and more explicit than that is what Aḥmad related in his Musnad from Asmāʾ bint Abī Bakr, who said: I heard the Apostle of Allāh (ṣ), as he prayed toward the Corner before he proclaimed openly what he was commanded, and the polytheists were listening, [reciting] “So which of the bounties of your Lord will you both deny?” — [al-Suyūṭī] said: and this is a proof that it descended before Sūrat al-Ḥijr.⁵⁵⁷ Sayyid Quṭb said: in the very pattern of the sūra the marks of the Meccan Qurʾān are clear.⁵⁵⁸

I say: there is no doubt that its captivating cadence resembles the cadence of most of the Meccan sūras; yet this alone is no proof of a Meccan descent, since it is no distinguishing peculiarity, for it is found in Medinan sūras also — as in Sūrat al-Zalzala, Sūrat al-Bayyina, and Sūrat al-Insān — while many Meccan sūras came in a calm tone, such as Yūsuf, Yūnus, Hūd, al-Anʿām, and al-Aʿrāf. As for the ḥadīth of the jinn, it is no proof that the sūra was at Mecca, since there is no necessary link between it and the ḥadīth of the descent of Sūrat al-Jinn at Mecca; it may have been another episode, at Medina. As for the ḥadīth of Asmāʾ — if sound — it would indicate a descent at the very dawn of the mission, which no one holds, for she said “before he proclaimed the command openly”; and this is besides the weakness of its chain (in the Musnad), owing to Ibn Lahīʿa, the qāḍī of Egypt, who is impugned — Ibn Maʿīn deemed him weak and said his ḥadīth is not to be used as proof, and Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd held him to be nothing.⁵⁵⁹ In the end, such feeble justifications cannot withstand the agreed-upon order-narrations.⁵⁶⁰

12. Sūrat al-Ḥadīd. Some said it is Meccan,⁵⁶¹ relying on the ḥadīth of ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb’s conversion: that he entered upon his sister and found with her a page containing Sūrat al-Ḥadīd, and read it until he reached “…should you be faithful?” (57:8)⁵⁶², whereupon Islam was made dear to him, and he came and embraced it at the Prophet’s (ṣ) hands.⁵⁶³ But this ḥadīth is contradicted by that of Ibn Isḥāq — that the page contained Sūrat Ṭā Hā, which he read until “…that every soul may be recompensed for its endeavour” (20:15)⁵⁶⁴; and it is also said the page contained, with Ṭā Hā, “When the sun is wound up” (81:1)⁵⁶⁵, and that ʿUmar reached in his reading “then a soul shall know what it has readied” (81:14), whereupon his heart softened and he desired Islam.⁵⁶⁶ It is contradicted, too, by the ḥadīth of Shurayḥ ibn ʿUbayd: ʿUmar said, “I went out to waylay the Apostle of Allāh (ṣ) before I was Muslim, and found he had preceded me to the mosque; I stood behind him, and he began Sūrat al-Ḥāqqa, and I began to marvel at the composition of the Qurʾān, and when he finished it, Islam took full hold in my heart.”⁵⁶⁷ Both this and that are mursal, transmitted in mursal form by one not to be trusted; Ibn Ḥajar noted that the chain contains Isḥāq ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Farwa,⁵⁶⁸ pointing thereby to a defect in it, for this Ibn Abī Farwa is impugned, his ḥadīth abandoned [matrūk].⁵⁶⁹ Some clung to the ḥadīth of Ibn Masʿūd: “between our becoming Muslim and our being reproved by His words — “Is it not time yet for those who have faith that their hearts should be humbled to the remembrance of Allāh…” down to His words “…so their hearts were hardened, and many of them are transgressors” (57:16)⁵⁷⁰ — there was but four years, and the believers began to reproach one another.”⁵⁷¹ I say: this too is contradicted by ḥadīths stating that it descended a year after the Hijra, concerning the hypocrites,⁵⁷² or after the believers had grown affluent so that their hearts nearly hardened.⁵⁷³

13. Sūrat al-Ṣaff. Ibn Ḥazm said it is Meccan;⁵⁷⁴ but the majority and the order-narrations are against him, so the correct view is that it is Medinan — and Ibn al-Ghars ascribed that view to the majority.⁵⁷⁵

14. Sūrat al-Jumuʿa. Medinan by consensus; the dissenter is unknown. Jalāl al-Dīn [al-Suyūṭī] said: it is established, in sound texts, that it is entirely Medinan.⁵⁷⁶

15. Sūrat al-Taghābun. It is said to be Meccan up to His words, the Most High, “So in Allāh let all the faithful put their trust” (64:13)⁵⁷⁷ — that being ascribed to Ibn ʿAbbās;⁵⁷⁸ but the order-narrations concur that it is entirely Medinan.

16. Sūrat al-Mulk. Concerning it there is an odd view, that it is Medinan;⁵⁷⁹ but the correct view is that it is Meccan, with one voice.

17. Sūrat al-Insān. ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Zubayr said it descended at Mecca,⁵⁸⁰ and a group followed him in this — those to whom it is pleasing to deny any excellence to the Ahl al-Bayt (ʿa); and that is the very pivot upon which the millstone of this strange vaunting turns, ibn al-Zubayr’s hostility to the Ahl al-Bayt being well known.⁵⁸¹ Sayyid Quṭb likewise insisted it is Meccan, adducing the context, and said: “the possibility that this sūra is Medinan is — in our view — very weak, and may be disregarded.”⁵⁸² Al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Ḥaskānī said: some of the Nawāṣib objected that the sūra is Meccan by the exegetes’ agreement, and that this episode — if it happened — is Medinan, so how could it be the occasion of the sūra’s descent? He replied: how can he claim consensus when the majority say it is Medinan? — then cited the imams’ texts on the order of the sūras, stating explicitly that it descended at Medina, after Sūrat al-Raḥmān and before Sūrat al-Ṭalāq, as we have already presented.⁵⁸³ So too the ʿAllāma al-Ṭabrisī established it in his commentary, as did others of the exacting exegetes; the mainstay of judgement is the concurrence of the order-narrations, from which not a single narration deviates in this,⁵⁸⁴ the argument from context being flimsy once it is neither universal nor invariable. Al-Sayyid Shubbar said: the view that it is Meccan is belied by sound transmission.⁵⁸⁵

18. Sūrat al-Muṭaffifīn. Al-Yaʿqūbī said it is the first sūra to descend at Medina;⁵⁸⁶ and it is said it descended upon him (ṣ) while emigrating, on his way to Medina.⁵⁸⁷ Jalāl al-Dīn [al-Suyūṭī] said: al-Nasāʾī and others reported, with a sound chain, from Ibn ʿAbbās: when the Prophet (ṣ) came to Medina, its people were among the worst in giving [short] measure, so Allāh sent down this sūra, and they thereafter gave good measure.⁵⁸⁸ I say: this contradicts the order-narrations, which agree that it is the last of the Meccan sūras; moreover, the sūra’s violent tone ill suits the first days of the Prophet of Mercy’s coming to a Medina whose people had submitted to him — especially with the repeated “Nay!” [kallā], which betrays the obstinacy and malicious denial of the one addressed, comporting ill with the sound faith the Medinans then displayed. And al-Jaʿbarī’s rule has already preceded: every sūra containing “Nay!” is Meccan.⁵⁸⁹

19. Sūrat al-Aʿlā. It is said to be Medinan, relying on His words, the Most High, “Felicitous is he who purifies himself, and celebrates the Name of his Lord, and prays” (87:14–15)⁵⁹⁰ — taken as an allusion to the ʿĪd prayer and the zakāt al-fiṭra.⁵⁹¹ I say: the verse is general, and the narration — if sound — came only to apply this generality to one of its instances, that being the primary intended instance, nothing more; and even granting that these two verses descended at Medina, that does not make the whole sūra Medinan. So the correct view is that the sūra is Meccan, even if some of its verses are Medinan — besides the testimony of its tone to a Meccan origin.

20. Sūrat al-Fajr. Meccan by agreement; the one who holds the contrary is unknown.⁵⁹²

21. Sūrat al-Balad. Meccan by consensus, for “the town” [al-balad] is Mecca the Ennobled by agreement; so how can anyone call it Medinan?⁵⁹³

22. Sūrat al-Layl. It is said to be Medinan, in view of a reported occasion of descent: a date-palm whose branches hung over into a poor man’s yard, whose children would take of its dates, while the palm’s owner — a wealthy man — rebuffed them; the Prophet (ṣ) offered him a palm in Paradise in exchange, but he refused, until an Anṣārī bought it for forty palms and gave it to the Prophet (ṣ), who gave it to the poor man; whereupon, it is said, there descended “But as for him who is stingy and self-complacent, and denies the best promise” (92:8–9)⁵⁹⁴. Yet the chain is broken, not connected, and the verse does not exactly fit the story; so the correct view is that the verse is general — [concerning] every miser as regards the right of Allāh, who does not fear His punishment — as in our narrations and in many of others’.⁵⁹⁵

23. Sūrat al-Qadr. Ibn Ḥazm and Abū Muḥammad said it is Medinan,⁵⁹⁶ on account of what al-Ḥākim related from al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī (ʿa): the Prophet (ṣ) saw the Banū Umayya leaping upon his pulpit as monkeys leap, and it grieved him, so [the sūra] descended as a consolation for his noble heart.⁵⁹⁷ Jalāl al-Dīn [al-Suyūṭī] said: al-Mizzī said, “this is a rejected [munkar] ḥadīth”;⁵⁹⁸ but that is a scandalous partisanship, for al-Ḥākim related it with a sound chain and pronounced the isnād sound, and al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Dhahabī confirmed him in the Talkhīṣ, adding another route and deeming it reliable too, then saying, “I do not know whence its defect comes.”⁵⁹⁹ I say: its “defect” came of an Umayyad bent, imbibed in hearts ruled by Jāhilī tribal passions, which therefore find it hard to yield to the truth however far it reach recurrence and certainty.⁶⁰⁰ And, after all, this ḥadīth’s indication that the sūra is Medinan rests only on the word “pulpit,” since the Prophet (ṣ) had no pulpit at Mecca; but this alone proves nothing, for he (ṣ) may well have been shown that vision at Mecca before the Hijra, as a glad tiding of the exaltation of his renown and a foretokening of the usurpation the worst of his community would commit; so the narration does not conflict with the order-narrations at all. In support we note that the verse “We did not appoint the vision that We showed you except as a test for the people, and the tree cursed in the Qurʾān” (17:60)⁶⁰¹ points to the very vision in question, and is from Sūrat al-Isrāʾ, Meccan by agreement, with no one excepting this verse though they excepted others, as will come.

Thus Ibn Abī Ḥātim reported from Ibn ʿUmar that the Prophet (ṣ) said, “I saw the offspring of al-Ḥakam ibn Abī l-ʿĀṣ upon the pulpits like monkeys, and Allāh sent down concerning that: We did not appoint the vision that We showed you except as a test for the people; and the cursed tree means al-Ḥakam and his offspring.” He also reported from Yaʿlā ibn Murra that the Apostle (ṣ) said, “I was shown the Banū Umayya upon the pulpits of the earth; they will come to possess you, and you will find them evil masters” — and the Apostle (ṣ) was distressed, so the verse descended. And Ibn Mardawayh reported from ʿĀʾisha that she said to Marwān ibn al-Ḥakam, “I heard the Apostle of Allāh (ṣ) say to your father and grandfather: you are the tree cursed in the Qurʾān.” And Ibn Abī Ḥātim, Ibn Mardawayh, al-Bayhaqī, and Ibn ʿAsākir reported from Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyab that the Apostle (ṣ) saw the Banū Umayya upon the pulpits, and it grieved him, so Allāh revealed to him that it was but a worldly [portion] they were given — that being His words We did not appoint the vision that We showed you except as a test for the people, meaning an affliction for the people.⁶⁰² Al-Nīsābūrī said: some objected that the Banū Umayya’s days were blameworthy, so how are they mentioned in the context of magnifying the Night of Qadr? He answered: it is a preferring of a spiritual felicity and a true, lasting majesty over an outward, formal, fleeting one; and in Ibn al-Musayyab’s ḥadīth just cited there is an allusion to this answer.⁶⁰³

24. Sūrat al-Bayyina. Makkī ibn Abī Ṭālib said it is Meccan;⁶⁰⁴ but the order-narrations and their texts agree that it is Medinan, supported by the report that when it descended the Prophet (ṣ) summoned Ubayy ibn Kaʿb and recited it to him — and Ubayy was an Anṣārī who embraced Islam at the Apostle’s (ṣ) hands at Medina.⁶⁰⁵

25. Sūrat al-Zalzala. Al-Ḍaḥḥāk and ʿAṭāʾ said it is Meccan; so said Makkī ibn Abī Ṭālib, and Sayyid Quṭb agreed, in view of its stirring tone.⁶⁰⁶ But the narrations agreed with one voice that it is Medinan;⁶⁰⁷ and Ibn Abī Ḥātim reported from Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī: when “So whoever does an atom’s weight of good will see it” (99:7)⁶⁰⁸ descended, I said, “O Apostle of Allāh (ṣ), shall I truly see my own deeds?” He said, “Yes.” I said, “Those great, great ones?” He said, “Yes.” I said, “The small, small ones?” He said, “Yes.” I said, “Woe to my mother!”⁶⁰⁹ — and Abū Saʿīd was an Anṣārī who did not come of age until after the battle of Uḥud.⁶¹⁰

26. Sūrat al-ʿĀdiyāt. From Qatāda: it is Medinan,⁶¹¹ on the strength of a narration ascribed to Ibn ʿAbbās, who said it descended concerning a cavalry-troop the Apostle of Allāh (ṣ) had sent out on a raid, which was slow to return so that it distressed him, whereupon Allāh informed him of what had befallen them.⁶¹² But this narration is far-fetched and manifestly flimsy, and is at the same time contradicted by what Ibn Jarīr, Ibn Abī Ḥātim, Ibn al-Anbārī, al-Ḥākim — who declared it sound — and Ibn Mardawayh reported from Ibn ʿAbbās: that ʿAlī (ʿa) rebuked him for interpreting al-ʿĀdiyāt as the horses that raid in the way of Allāh, and explained to him that they are the surging forth [al-ifāḍa] of the pilgrims from ʿArafāt to al-Muzdalifa; Ibn ʿAbbās said, “so I abandoned my view and returned to the view of ʿAlī (ʿa).”⁶¹³

27. Sūrat al-Takāthur. Jalāl al-Dīn [al-Suyūṭī] preferred its being Medinan, resting his choice on the following:⁶¹⁴ (1) the ḥadīth of Ibn Burayda, that it descended concerning two tribes of the Anṣār who vied in boasting; (2) Qatāda’s statement that it descended concerning the Jews; (3) the report of Ubayy ibn Kaʿb — himself an Anṣārī — “we used to reckon ‘were the son of Adam to possess a valley of gold, he would crave a second’ a Qurʾānic verse, until Rivalry [in worldly gain] distracted you descended”; and (4) the report from ʿAlī (ʿa), “we used to doubt the punishment of the grave until it descended” — Jalāl al-Dīn saying that the punishment of the grave was mentioned only at Medina, as in the sound ḥadīth of the Jewess.

I say: all that he relied upon is void. First, this sūra does not touch the matter of tribal boasting; it treats rather the side of vainglorious rivalry [takāthur]. Second, how could Ubayy ibn Kaʿb remain in doubt about a Qurʾānic verse, when the Apostle of Allāh (ṣ) is the first to whom the sūra was recited? Third, how can we allow ourselves to credit a narration ascribing doubt to one like the Commander of the Faithful ʿAlī (ʿa), in a matter of the Hereafter — he (ʿa) being the gate of the Prophet’s (ṣ) knowledge! And restricting its descent to the Jews ill fits the sūra’s general tenor, since it treats a general matter touching the life of mankind as they journey after base desiderata. The correct view — as in the concurring order-narrations — is that it is among the earliest of the Meccan sūras; Jalāl al-Dīn himself stated this in al-Durr al-manthūr, relating it from Ibn ʿAbbās,⁶¹⁵ besides what we sense of the sūra’s vehement tone, which suits the atmosphere of Mecca, intensely ruled by the materialist bent — the vehemence heightened by the word “Nay!” [kallā], peculiar to the Meccans, as has passed.

28. Sūrat al-Māʿūn. Al-Ḍaḥḥāk said it is Medinan;⁶¹⁶ but the order-narrations and their agreed texts reject this. Moreover, the sūra’s tone is a fierce rebuke of those who deny the Religion, so it more resembles the earliest Meccan sūras — indeed it was the seventeenth in the descent order, descending after Sūrat al-Takāthur.⁶¹⁷

29. Sūrat al-Kawthar. From ʿIkrima and al-Ḍaḥḥāk: it is Medinan;⁶¹⁸ and Jalāl al-Dīn preferred this, as did al-Nawawī in his commentary on Muslim, on account of what Muslim related from Anas: while the Apostle of Allāh (ṣ) was among us, he dozed lightly, then raised his head and said, “A sūra has just been sent down to me,” and recited it. But we have already discussed this ḥadīth⁶¹⁹ and shown spurious its indication that a “Qurʾān” descended upon him (ṣ) in that state; we cited al-Rāfiʿī’s reading — that it merely came to his mind then, so he recited it to them, having descended upon him earlier — supported by Muslim’s own relating of the ḥadīth by another chain, without “it was sent down to me”: “the Prophet (ṣ) dozed lightly, then raised his head and recited it.”⁶²⁰ And finally the exegetes concurred that it is Meccan, descended to console the Apostle of Allāh’s (ṣ) heart when that accursed “cut-off one” [al-abtar] reviled him,⁶²¹ besides the order-narrations’ concurrence that it descended at Mecca; so a disordered ḥadīth cannot withstand that consensus and agreement.

30. Sūrat al-Tawḥīd [al-Ikhlāṣ]. Jalāl al-Dīn preferred its being Medinan, on account of ḥadīths concerning its descent; he said it descended concerning a group of the Jews of Medina who asked the Apostle of Allāh (ṣ) to describe his Lord to them, whereupon Gabriel came down with Sūrat al-Tawḥīd.⁶²² But against these are other narrations attributing the question to the polytheists of Mecca, who said, “Trace for us your Lord’s lineage, O Muḥammad (ṣ),” whereupon it descended⁶²³ — besides the concurrence of the order-narrations. Hence some researchers said it descended twice. I say: that is not far-fetched; but the meaning of a twofold descent is that the second was a reminder to the Prophet (ṣ) on its then-present occasion — it being possible that the Jews put a question like one the polytheists had earlier put, so that the Prophet (ṣ) hesitated to recite to them the sūra that had already answered the polytheists, in view of the difference between the two audiences’ levels, whereupon Gabriel came down [indicating] the sufficiency of the same first answer; for the Qurʾānic sūras are not confined to one people or one level, since people at their varying levels all benefit from the whole of the Qurʾān, though the quality of the benefit differs by the degree of their cultures. Upon this, the sūra is Meccan, even if its descent was repeated at Medina too.

31–32. The Two Sūras of Refuge (al-Muʿawwidhatān) [al-Falaq and al-Nās]. Al-Yaʿqūbī counted them among the last of the Medinan sūras,⁶²⁴ and Jalāl al-Dīn said the preferred view is that they are both Medinan, because they descended in connection with the episode of the sorcery of Labīd ibn al-Aʿṣam.⁶²⁵

The episode — as it comes in the two Ṣaḥīḥs⁶²⁶ — was related by ʿĀʾisha: “A man of the Jews of Banū Zurayq, called Labīd ibn al-Aʿṣam, bewitched the Apostle of Allāh (ṣ), until he would imagine he was doing a thing when he was not — in another wording: until he fancied he was coming to his wives when he was not. (Sufyān said: this is the severest kind of sorcery.)⁶²⁷ Until, one day or night, the Apostle of Allāh (ṣ) prayed, and prayed, and prayed, then said: ‘O ʿĀʾisha, are you aware⁶²⁸ that Allāh has instructed me in what I asked of Him? Two men came to me;⁶²⁹ one sat at my head, the other at my feet, and the one at my head asked the other: what ails the man? He said: he is bewitched [maṭbūb].⁶³⁰ Who bewitched him? Labīd ibn al-Aʿṣam. In what? In a comb, combed-out hair,⁶³¹ and the spathe-sheath of a male palm. Where is it? In the well of Dharwān.’ So the Apostle of Allāh (ṣ) went to it with some companions, then returned and said: ‘O ʿĀʾisha, by Allāh, its water was as though an infusion of henna,⁶³² and its palms as though the heads of devils.’ I said: did you not take it out? He said: ‘No; as for me, Allāh has healed me, and I feared to stir up evil among the people.’ Then he ordered the well filled in, and it was buried.”

In another wording: “…in the spathe-sheath of a male palm, under a raised stone [rāʿūfa]⁶³³ in the well of Dharwān; so the Prophet (ṣ) came to the well and took it out.”⁶³⁴ Al-Suyūṭī, noting that the two Ṣaḥīḥs contain no evidence for the sūras’ descent, sought to remedy this with weaker routes: al-Bayhaqī reported in the Dalāʾil, from ʿĀʾisha, a fuller version — that in the sheath were the Prophet’s comb and combings, a wax figure of him with a needle stuck in it, and a cord of eleven knots; then Gabriel came with the Two Sūras of Refuge, saying, “Say: I seek the protection of the Lord of the daybreak,” and untie a knot; “from the evil of what He has created,” and untie a knot — until all the knots were untied.⁶³⁵ In another narration, Gabriel told him a Jew had bewitched him and the sorcery lay in a well, so he sent ʿAlī (ʿa), who fetched it, and untied the knots reciting [the verses] until the Prophet (ṣ) rose as though loosed from a rope.⁶³⁶ And it is said the daughters of Labīd, with their father, were the sorcerers, tying eleven knots, so Allāh sent down the Two Sūras of Refuge — eleven verses by the number of the knots — and healed His Apostle (ṣ).⁶³⁷

And after all: this episode, even if granted, affords no evidence in the two Ṣaḥīḥs’ narration that the two sūras descended concerning it; while the remaining routes are not sound enough to rely on, let alone to found upon them a judgement in a matter of the Qurʾān, wherein no Muslim should speak without knowledge or a reliable support. Jalāl al-Dīn himself said the root of the episode has evidence in the two Ṣaḥīḥs but without the sūras’ descent, then claimed corroboration from elsewhere — namely al-Bayhaqī’s report by the route of al-Kalbī from Abū Ṣāliḥ from Ibn ʿAbbās, carrying mention of the episode and the descent;⁶³⁸ yet he himself stated, in al-Itqān, that the flimsiest of the routes to Ibn ʿAbbās is precisely that of al-Kalbī from Abū Ṣāliḥ from Ibn ʿAbbās,⁶³⁹ and cited a further corroboration through Abū Jaʿfar al-Rāzī from al-Rabīʿ ibn Anas from Anas ibn Mālik⁶⁴⁰ — though Ibn Ḥibbān said the ḥadīth-scholars are wary of al-Rabīʿ ibn Anas’s ḥadīth when it comes by Abū Jaʿfar al-Rāzī, for in his ḥadīths from him is much disorder.⁶⁴¹ Do you not, then, marvel at a man versed in ḥadīth and tafsīr, entangling himself in a self-contradictory choice, floundering after a proof from the wrong quarter, and thereupon speaking on the Book of Allāh without a reliable support?

As for us, the Imāmiyya: the principles of our creed rule out the possibility of magic affecting the heart of a noble prophet, the place of descent of Allāh’s revelation and the trusted repository of His knowledge; still less could Labīd tamper with the mind of one like the Apostle of Allāh (ṣ), the best of Allāh’s creation and the noblest of His prophets. He, the Most High, says: “As for My servants, you shall have no authority over them; and your Lord suffices as trustee” (17:65)⁶⁴² — so Labīd is the likelier to have been incapable of mastering the heart of the noblest of Allāh’s servants, whose heart (ṣ) is the House of God and gives no place to any vile thing ever to draw near it. Moreover, were we to allow that magic could affect the noble Prophet’s consciousness so that he all but imagined doing what he did not, then confidence in what he utters as revelation would collapse — for perhaps that too is a sorcerer’s effect, made to seem revelation?

Al-ʿAllāma al-Ṭabrisī said this is inadmissible, for to call him bewitched is as good as claiming his mind deranged, which Allāh refused in His words: “You are just following a bewitched man. Look, how they draw comparisons for you; and cannot find the way” (25:8–9)⁶⁴³ — though it is possible that the Jew, or his daughters, exerted themselves in it but could not prevail, and Allāh apprised His Prophet (ṣ) of their deception so that he brought it out, a token of his truthfulness; for how could the illness be of their doing, since, had they been able, they would have killed him and many believers, given their fierce enmity?⁶⁴⁴ Al-ʿAllāma al-Majlisī said the well-known Imāmī view is that magic has no effect upon the prophets and imams, so they interpreted away some of the reports and rejected the rest that admit no interpretation.⁶⁴⁵ And al-Quṭb al-Rāwandī said it is related that a Jewish woman worked magic against him (ṣ), supposing her scheme would take effect — though magic is null and impossible — save that Allāh guided him to it, and he sent one who brought it out, found just as they had described and by the number of knots tied.⁶⁴⁶

And it comes in Ṭibb al-aʾimma: that Gabriel came to the Prophet (ṣ) and told him that so-and-so the Jew had bewitched him, describing the sorcery and its place; so the Prophet (ṣ) sent ʿAlī (ʿa), who came to the well and searched but did not find it, then strove until he found it and brought it to the Prophet (ṣ); and behold, it was a small vessel [ḥuqqa] holding a piece of palm-fibre, within which was a cord of eleven knots — and Gabriel (ʿa) had already brought down the Two Sūras of Refuge. So the Prophet (ṣ) ordered ʿAlī (ʿa) to recite them over the cord, and each time he recited a verse a knot came undone, until he finished; and Allāh lifted from His Prophet what he had been bewitched with, and healed him.⁶⁴⁷ This narration — even if its isnād is unsound — contains no [claim of] an effect upon the Apostle’s (ṣ) mind; yes, in another narration an effect on his noble body appears, that he felt severe pain, which is the sense of “Allāh lifted [it] and healed him” in Ṭibb al-aʾimma — that He healed him of the pain he felt. This is possible; but the sounder view with us is al-Quṭb al-Rāwandī’s: that the sorcery did not penetrate him (ṣ) at all — they intended a scheme by it, but it was they who became the losers.

Verses Said to Be Excepted (al-Āyāt al-Mustathnayāt)

The early [scholars] took up the excepting of verses from sūras that differ from them in [the place of] descent — for many a Meccan sūra is said to contain Medinan verses, or the reverse. Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī pursued this exhaustively in al-Itqān, but relied, in most cases, on weak narrations and reports; then the later [scholars] adopted it in imitation, without verification⁶⁴⁸ — while most who assert these exceptions did so by conjecture, or by ijtihād of opinion, without resting on a sound transmitted text. Ibn al-Ḥaṣṣār said: among people are those who relied, in [these] exceptions, on ijtihād rather than transmission.⁶⁴⁹

We, in taking up this topic, turn away from all they have said, since it rests on no acceptable proof. There is no doubt that the verses were recorded successively in each sūra after the descent of its basmala, one after another, in a natural order following [the sequence of] descent. That a Meccan verse should remain unrecorded until a sūra descended at Medina and then be entered in it is a strange thing, outside the known method of fixation [thabt]; and that a Medinan verse be recorded in a Meccan sūra needs a specific, explicit text — not a matter into which conjecture or theoretical ijtihād may enter. Ibn Ḥajar said: as for a part of a sūra descending at Mecca while the bulk of the sūra is delayed to Medina, I have seen it only rarely; for they agreed that al-Anfāl is Medinan, yet it is said that His words “When the faithless plotted against you…” (8:30)⁶⁵⁰ descended at Mecca and then Sūrat al-Anfāl descended at Medina — and this is very strange.⁶⁵¹ We shall [later] show the falsity of this allegation. Here, then, are specimens of the two types, with our summary indication of the verified view:

Verses Excepted from Meccan Sūras

1. Sūrat al-Fātiḥa (Meccan). Abū l-Layth al-Samarqandī related a view that half of it descended at Medina; Jalāl al-Dīn said there is no proof for this.⁶⁵² As has passed, it is among the first sūras to descend, complete, at Mecca, and the Muslims used to recite it in the ṣalāt.

2. Sūrat al-Anʿām (Meccan). The ḥadīth runs: “It descended at Mecca all at once, escorted by seventy thousand angels with a clamour of glorification and praise, filling [the space] between heaven and earth; it was a Friday night, and there was awe and majesty at their descent, so the Apostle of Allāh (ṣ) began saying, ‘Glory be to Allāh the Mighty, glory be to Allāh the Mighty,’ and fell prostrate; then he summoned the scribes, who wrote it that very night.” This ḥadīth is widely transmitted [mustafīḍ], related by both parties by mutually reinforcing routes;⁶⁵³ Jalāl al-Dīn said these are corroborations that strengthen one another.⁶⁵⁴ Hence no weight attaches to Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ’s claim that the report comes only from Ubayy ibn Kaʿb’s ḥadīth, whose isnād is weak, that no sound chain for it was found, and that the contrary is related;⁶⁵⁵ for I say: the wide diffusion of the routes to several Companions besides Ubayy also suffices for reliance, while the contrary narration is weak and unestablished.

Ibn al-Ḥaṣṣār said that nine of its verses are excepted, though no sound transmission supports this;⁶⁵⁶ the Amīrī muṣḥaf and some imitators’ books likewise except nine verses, without verification — and we shall below discuss what they alleged sound of the exception-narrations.⁶⁵⁷ We examine each. The first: “Those whom We have given the Book recognize him just as they recognize their sons” (6:20)⁶⁵⁸; the second: “Then their only excuse will be to say, ‘By Allāh, our Lord, we were not polytheists’” (6:23)⁶⁵⁹. There is no evidence at all for excepting these two; perhaps the reason is the mention of the People of the Book in them (with an obscurity in the second), but that is no proof, since the People of the Book are named in many Meccan sūras — as in “Do not argue with the People of the Book except in the best manner” (29:46)⁶⁶⁰, which none excepted, and “Thus have We sent down the Book to you; so those to whom We have given the Book believe in it” (29:47)⁶⁶¹, and the like is frequent.

The third: “They did not regard Allāh with the regard due to Him when they said, ‘Allāh has not sent down anything to any human.’ Say, ‘Who had sent down the Book that Moses brought as a light and guidance for the people…’” (6:91)⁶⁶² (Ibn Kathīr and Abū ʿAmr read it in the third person, yajʿalūnahu … yukhfūna.)⁶⁶³ It is said it descended concerning a group of Jews who said, “O Muḥammad (ṣ), has Allāh sent down a book upon you?” — “Yes.” — “By Allāh, Allāh has sent down no book from heaven”; or concerning Mālik ibn al-Ṣayf, a corpulent rabbi of the Jews of [Banū] Qurayẓa, to whom the Prophet (ṣ) said, “I adjure you by Him who sent down the Torah to Moses — do you not find in it ‘Allāh hates the fat rabbi’?” so that he grew angry and said, “Allāh has sent down nothing upon any human”; or that the disputant was Finḥāṣ ibn ʿĀzūrāʾ the Jew; or that it descended concerning the polytheists of Quraysh, who denied prophethood outright.⁶⁶⁴

Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṭabarī said the worthiest of these of correctness is the last, since no mention of the Jews had preceded; the denial of revelation to a human is not something the Jews profess — rather their religion is known to acknowledge the scriptures of Abraham and Moses and David’s Psalms; the report that it descended concerning the Jews is not sound of connected chain, nor did the exegetes agree on it; and the sūra’s context, from its start to here, has run with [reference to] the polytheists, so this verse too fits as connected to what precedes, not cut off — and we may not claim its separation save by a decisive proof from report or reason.

Perhaps what led the [exception-]sayer into the said illusion was his finding, in tajʿalūnahu…, the mode of direct address; but the more correct reading is with the third-person yāʾ.⁶⁶⁵ I say: while concurring with Abū Jaʿfar in this verification, I add that the story told of Mālik ibn al-Ṣayf’s exchange with the Prophet (ṣ) is utterly at odds with the Apostle’s noble character — he never wounds a person’s feelings — and we exalt the Book of Allāh above addressing such trivial matters, or a verse descending over them. So “and you were taught…” is an address to the polytheists, after that third-person account of the People of the Book, as Abū Jaʿfar preferred. As for the well-known reading with the tāʾ throughout, it does not confine the address to the People of the Book but [reaches] mankind, in view of some upon whom the Book was sent down — especially given the polytheist Arabs’ contact and mixing with the Jews of the Peninsula, whence talk of the Children of Israel came in many Meccan sūras, as in al-Aʿrāf.⁶⁶⁶ This is attested by “So ask the People of the Reminder if you do not know” (16:43)⁶⁶⁷, addressed to the Meccans — and likewise in Sūrat al-Anbiyāʾ, also Meccan;⁶⁶⁸ for the Arabs had a close, trusting bond with the People of the Book, deeming them people of knowledge and often consulting them on the history of nations and prophets, so it was fitting they be addressed with [matter involving] the neighbouring, trusted Jews among them.

The fourth: “And who is a greater wrongdoer than him who fabricates a lie against Allāh, or says, ‘It has been revealed to me,’ while nothing was revealed to him, and he who says, ‘I will bring the like of what Allāh has sent down’?” (6:93)⁶⁶⁹ They said it descended concerning ʿAbd Allāh ibn Saʿd ibn Abī Sarḥ, ʿUthmān’s foster-brother, who had embraced Islam and used to write the revelation for the Apostle of Allāh (ṣ): when there descended “…man from an extract of clay” (23:12)⁶⁷⁰, the Prophet (ṣ) dictated it to him, and when he reached “then We produced him as [yet] another creature” (23:14)⁶⁷¹ ʿAbd Allāh marvelled at the detailing of man’s creation and said, “Blessed is Allāh, the best of creators!”; the Apostle (ṣ) said, “thus was it sent down to me” — whereupon ʿAbd Allāh doubted, saying, “if Muḥammad (ṣ) is truthful, it was revealed to me as to him; and if he lies, I said as he said,” and apostatised, joining the Meccans, who taunted him, “how were you writing the Qurʾān for Ibn Abī Kabsha?” He said, “I wrote however I wished — he would dictate ʿalīman ḥakīman and I would write ghafūran raḥīman, adding, subtracting, and altering, the Prophet (ṣ) not noticing”; so he disbelieved and joined Quraysh, and the Prophet (ṣ) declared his blood forfeit, but ʿUthmān gave him refuge on the day of the Conquest and pressed the Apostle (ṣ) until he pardoned him.⁶⁷² They said also that “or says, ‘It has been revealed to me,’ while nothing was revealed to him” descended concerning Musaylima and al-Aswad al-ʿAnsī, who had claimed prophethood in the Apostle’s (ṣ) lifetime.⁶⁷³

But the ḥadīth is fabricated at root, since Sūrat al-Muʾminūn is Meccan and no one excepted that verse — so how could Ibn Abī Sarḥ write it at Medina and then apostatise back to Mecca? And how could a human fabricate against Allāh and pass it off as revelation, when Allāh has guaranteed the preservation of His noble Book, and how could the Apostle fail to notice a fabricator’s insertion into what was sent down to him? Would any confidence remain — after such a supposition — in the texts of the Mighty Book, which falsehood approaches neither from before it nor from behind it?

Yes, there are three verses, in three sūras, each said to have descended concerning Ibn Abī Sarḥ. This [6:93] is one; the second is “but those who open up their breasts to unfaith” (16:106)⁶⁷⁴; and the third is “Indeed those who believe and then disbelieve, then believe [again] and then disbelieve, and then increase in disbelief” (4:137)⁶⁷⁵ — this last being the most fitting and worthiest of acceptance, as related from the two Imams, Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Bāqir and Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad al-Ṣādiq (ʿa).⁶⁷⁶

So the correct view of the first verse [6:93] is al-Ṭabarī’s: it is general, describing man’s stance toward the messages of the prophets (ʿa) — the obstinate denier who believes no message from Allāh, and the weak, credulous one who believes every claim to messengership, even a satanic prompting, without reflection or sound thought; the verse rebukes this base credulity, and that wrongful audacity toward the Lord of Glory by which one fabricates against Him, the Most High. The verse has no special bearing on the affair of Ibn Abī Sarḥ; indeed “I will bring the like of what Allāh has sent down” (6:93)⁶⁷⁷ does not fit his stance toward the Apostle (ṣ) — it would fit him only were the verse “I will bring the like of what Muḥammad sent down”! And Sayyid Quṭb contradicted himself here: in one place preferring that the whole sūra is Meccan, in another relying on the exception-narrations.⁶⁷⁸

The fifth: “Shall I seek a judge other than Allāh, when it is He who has sent down to you the Book, well-elaborated?… those whom We have given the Book know that it is sent down from your Lord with the truth” (6:114)⁶⁷⁹ There is nothing in it inviting the supposition that it is Medinan save the mention of the People of the Book — which alone, as has passed, is no proof, its like occurring in many Meccan verses; the reason, again, being the polytheist Arabs’ trust in the neighbouring People of the Book, deemed people of knowledge and discernment, whence He said “So ask the People of the Reminder if you do not know — [We sent them] with clear proofs and scriptures” (16:43–44)⁶⁸⁰. This verse is Meccan by consensus, save for what is ascribed to Jābir ibn Zayd, whom al-Suyūṭī refuted on two counts.⁶⁸¹

The sixth: “It is He who produces gardens, trellised and untrellised… eat of its fruit when it fructifies, and give its due on the day of harvest” (6:141)⁶⁸² Perhaps the one who held it Medinan read “the due obligatory” as the zakāt, whose fixed quotas on crops and fruits were enacted only at Medina; but this meaning is not fixed in the verse, which was also interpreted as unrestricted alms [ṣadaqa], obligatory as such at Mecca — the reference to it coming in “And in their wealth was a share for the beggar and the deprived” (51:19), verse 19 of Sūrat al-Dhāriyāt, Meccan by consensus, and mention of spending and alms recurring in many Meccan verses. Transmitted reports — from Saʿīd ibn Jubayr and others — [hold that] “the due” here means spending and giving to orphans and the poor, then abrogated by the zakāt-verse;⁶⁸³ the like is related from the Imam al-Ṣādiq, from his forefathers (ʿa).⁶⁸⁴

The seventh: “Say, ‘Come, I will recite what your Lord has forbidden you…’” (6:151)⁶⁸⁵; the eighth: “And do not approach the orphan’s property except in the best manner…” (6:152)⁶⁸⁶; the ninth: “And [know] that this is My straight path, so follow it…” (6:153)⁶⁸⁷. Al-Suyūṭī said the transmission from Ibn ʿAbbās excepting these three is sound;⁶⁸⁸ the narration being what al-Naḥḥās reported, in al-Nāsikh wa-l-mansūkh, by the route of Abū ʿUbayda Maʿmar ibn al-Muthannā from Ibn ʿAbbās.⁶⁸⁹

But this Abū ʿUbayda was a man of deviance, holding the Khārijī view, foul-tongued and dissolute, of little care for the Qurʾān — reading it, when he read, haltingly by sight;⁶⁹⁰ his transmission is thus not relied upon in the Book and the Sunna, save perhaps in poetry and belles-lettres — and we do not know on what basis Jalāl al-Dīn declared this chain sound. Moreover, Abū Nuʿaym and al-Bayhaqī both related in the Dalāʾil, from ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (ʿa): when Allāh commanded His Prophet to present himself to the tribes, he went out to Minā — “I was with him, and Abū Bakr, a man learned in genealogies” — and halted at their tents, and when they asked, “to what do you call, O brother of Quraysh?” the Apostle (ṣ) recited “Say, Come, I will recite what your Lord has forbidden you… that you may be wary,” the whole three verses; and Allāh’s speech amazed them, and they said, “by Allāh, this is not the speech of the people of earth; had it been, we would have known it”;⁶⁹¹ so the verses were being sent down then at Mecca.⁶⁹² The very tenor and style of the verses also attest their Meccanness. In sum: the whole of Sūrat al-Anʿām is Meccan, with no Medinan verse in it at all; nothing said to be excepted is established in the least, neither by transmission nor by reason.

3. Sūrat al-Aʿrāf (Meccan). Ibn Ḍurays, al-Naḥḥās, and Ibn Mardawayh reported, by several routes from Ibn ʿAbbās, that it descended at Mecca.⁶⁹³ Qatāda said: except one verse, “And ask them about the town that was situated on the seaside…” (7:163)⁶⁹⁴, which he said descended at Medina;⁶⁹⁵ another extended the exception to verse 171⁶⁹⁶ — “And when We plucked up the mountain above them as if it were a canopy…” (7:171). But Qatāda’s only proof is the command to ask the Jews, which, he alleged, suits the days at Medina — no proof, since the pronoun need not revert to the Jews but perhaps to the polytheists themselves, given their acquaintance with the story of the People of the Sabbath; and the “town” (Ayla) was a small, then-flourishing Jewish town on the Red-Sea shore toward Syria, past which Quraysh passed on their summer trade, its reports reaching them.⁶⁹⁷ The other view has no ground and no known chain. The correct [view] is that these verses are of a piece with the other stories of the prophets’ nations, sent down upon Quraysh that the discerning among them might heed; so the preference is that all of it is Meccan, with no exception.

4. Sūrat Yūnus (Meccan). Some excepted four verses: “And of them are some who believe in it, and of them are some who do not believe in it; and your Lord best knows the agents of corruption” (10:40)⁶⁹⁸ — alleged to concern the Jews,⁶⁹⁹ though the context refuses it; “So if you are in doubt about what We have sent down to you, ask those who read the Book before you…” (10:94)⁷⁰⁰; “And do not be of those who deny the signs of Allāh…” (10:95)⁷⁰¹; and “Indeed those against whom your Lord’s word has become due…” (10:96)⁷⁰². These too they alleged of the Jews, without proof, the context being single and connected; and the mention of the People of the Book is what led them into it — though these are no more explicit than “So ask the People of the Reminder” (16:43)⁷⁰³, Meccan by consensus. It is also said that from verse 40 to the sūra’s end descended at Medina,⁷⁰⁴ but there is no evidence for this and the verses’ tenor refuses it. The upshot: whoever asserts an exception here has no reliable proof or chain, and the context proclaims its Meccanness; so we prefer it Meccan altogether.

5. Sūrat Hūd (Meccan). Three verses were excepted: “Maybe you will give up part of what is revealed to you, and your breast will be straitened by it, because they say, ‘Why has not a treasure been sent down to him…’” (11:12)⁷⁰⁵ — but the context, and what is related of the occasion, attest explicitly that it is decisively Meccan;⁷⁰⁶ “Is he who stands on a manifest proof from his Lord, and a witness from Him recites it, and before it the Book of Moses [came] as a guide and mercy…? …whoever of the factions defies it, the Fire is their tryst” (11:17)⁷⁰⁷ — where those holding it Medinan adduced “the Book of Moses” and “of the factions,” though neither is evidence, since Moses is named in many Meccan verses, and “the factions” [al-aḥzāb] are the Arab tribes banded against the Apostle ever since the polytheists sensed Islam’s spreading danger, not the Battle of the Aḥzāb;⁷⁰⁸ and “Maintain the prayer at the two ends of the day, and in the early hours of the night; indeed good deeds efface misdeeds” (11:114)⁷⁰⁹.

Concerning the last, al-Ṭabarī related from Abū Maysara: a woman came to buy dates, and he took her into the house and did with her, short of intercourse, what a man does with his wife; then, stricken, he told Abū Bakr and ʿUmar, who bade him conceal it, and then the Prophet (ṣ), who asked, “have you equipped a warrior? kept a warrior’s family?” — “No” — “then seek your Lord’s forgiveness and pray four rakʿas,” and recited the verse, saying, “it is general, for all people” — and in one narration Gabriel brought it down that very hour.⁷¹⁰ But this narration, so framed, is with us utterly void, being an emboldening to sin — as though one might do as he pleased and then wipe it out by a prayer — besides its internal incoherence and disharmony with the verse; and in most narrations it is merely “then he recited the verse to him,” without its descending then. The correct view is that Sūrat Hūd is Meccan in its entirety, given the unity of its context in a wondrous rebuking style suited to the daʿwa at Mecca.

6. Sūrat Yūsuf (Meccan). The Amīrī muṣḥaf excepts three verses from its beginning (1–3) and His words “Certainly there are signs in Joseph and his brothers for the seekers” (12:7)⁷¹¹; Jalāl al-Dīn said this is very feeble, not to be heeded.⁷¹² I say: we would hold one like the ʿAllāma al-Zanjānī above following the Egyptian muṣḥaf’s register without verification and recording it in his valuable book;⁷¹³ the exposure of the matter is too plain for any illusion to conceal.

7. Sūrat Ibrāhīm (Meccan). Al-Zarkashī said: except two verses that descended concerning the polytheist slain of Badr, “Have you not regarded those who exchanged Allāh’s blessing for ingratitude, and landed their people in the house of ruin? — hell, which they shall enter; and it is an evil abode” (14:28–29)⁷¹⁴ Its basis is what is related from ʿUmar: that “those who exchanged Allāh’s blessing” are the two most profligate clans of Quraysh, Banū l-Mughīra and Banū Umayya — the former you were rid of at Badr, the latter given enjoyment for a while;⁷¹⁵ the like is related from al-Ṣādiq (ʿa), who added, “nay, it is Quraysh in its entirety.”⁷¹⁶ But there is no indication in this that the two descended on the day of Badr or after; Badr was merely one instance of the “ruin” they were warned of, its fullest instance being hell. This exception, then, resulted from a failure to ponder the verse, wrongly taking the event to be the occasion of descent.

8. Sūrat al-Ḥijr (Meccan). Jalāl al-Dīn said one ought to except “And certainly We know the predecessors among you, and We certainly know the successors” (15:24)⁷¹⁷, on al-Tirmidhī’s report that it descended concerning the rows of the prayer;⁷¹⁸ and al-Ḥasan excepted “Certainly We have given you the seven oft-repeated verses…” (15:87)⁷¹⁹ and “As We sent down upon the dividers, those who have made the Qurʾān into fragments” (15:90–91)⁷²⁰. I say: the context of the first refuses application to the congregational prayer, as its neighbours attest — before it “Indeed it is We who give life and bring death, and We are the inheritors” (15:23)⁷²¹, and after it “And indeed it is your Lord who will resurrect them; indeed He is all-wise, all-knowing” (15:25)⁷²² — the meaning being only: We know the dead who have passed and the living who remain.⁷²³ Al-Tirmidhī’s narration is severed and weak in chain, besides its disharmony with the verse; and the excepting of the second rests on Mujāhid’s claim that al-Fātiḥa descended at Medina — a slip, as has passed, against consensus.⁷²⁴

As for the “dividers” verse, they alleged it descended concerning Jews and Christians who believed in part of the Qurʾān and disbelieved in part;⁷²⁵ but this is void, since the Jews did not believe in the Qurʾān at all, nor was it sent down to them. The correct [view] is that it descended concerning the polytheists, who called the Qurʾān now “sorcery,” now “legends of the ancients,” now “fabrication,” and who scattered at the gates of Mecca turning people from it and uttering lies against Allāh;⁷²⁶ and al-ʿAyyāshī related, from the two Imams al-Bāqir and al-Ṣādiq (ʿa), that it descended concerning Quraysh.⁷²⁷

9. Sūrat al-Naḥl (Meccan). Qatāda excepted “And those who migrated for Allāh’s sake after they were wronged…” (16:41)⁷²⁸, claiming that from there to the sūra’s end descended at Medina;⁷²⁹ ʿAṭāʾ ibn Yasār excepted “And if you retaliate, retaliate with the like of what you have been made to suffer; but if you are patient, that is surely better for the patient” (16:126)⁷³⁰ to the sūra’s end — three verses — [saying] they descended at Uḥud after Ḥamza’s killing;⁷³¹ and a report from Ibn ʿAbbās excepts “And do not sell Allāh’s covenant for a paltry gain… [rewarding them] with the best of what they used to do” (16:95–96)⁷³², as descending at Medina.⁷³³

I say: as for verses 41 and 42, there is nothing in them indicating the second migration, to Medina; rather the apparent [sense] is the first migration, to Abyssinia, as is related from Qatāda himself;⁷³⁴ and the view that all after verse forty descended at Medina has no ground, the context contradicting it. As for 95 and 96, it is said they descended concerning Imruʾ al-Qays al-Kindī, who had usurped land from ʿAbdān al-Ashraʿ al-Ḥaḍramawţī and, complained of to the Prophet (ṣ), denied it, then thought it too grave to swear falsely, so the verse descended⁷³⁵ — a story placed at Medina. But the story is unestablished; the verse’s idiom is general, and its context binds it firmly to what precedes, aiming a vehement rebuke at the obstinate polytheists — indeed a glance shows it fully connected with “And fulfil Allāh’s covenant when you make a pledge” (16:91), confirming the believers’ stance that they not sell what they covenanted with Allāh for the paltry goods of this world against the great reward prepared for them.⁷³⁶

As for “And if you retaliate, retaliate with the like of what you have been made to suffer…” (16:126)⁷³⁷ the exegetes held three views. The first: it descended at Uḥud, when the Prophet (ṣ) stood over the mutilated Ḥamza and vowed to mutilate seventy — or thirty — in return, and the Muslims echoed him, until Gabriel brought the verse and the Prophet (ṣ) expiated his oath and refrained. The second: it descended on the day of the Conquest, when the Muslims, minded to fall upon the polytheists in revenge for Uḥud’s sixty-four Anṣār and six Muhājirūn slain and mutilated, were restrained by the verse from transgressing. The third: it is general, [applying] to every wronged one who seeks redress after Allāh gives him power.

This verse came as a blend of just retribution and gracious pardon — suiting the Muslims’ condition at Mecca; hence some said it was abrogated by the fighting-verse, its counterpart being “And fight in the way of Allāh those who fight you, but do not transgress; indeed Allāh does not like transgressors” (2:190) and “then if they fight you, kill them” (2:191)⁷³⁸, which descended in the Muslims’ early Medinan days. This last view is the correct one, given the verse’s context and its firm fit with its neighbours — “Invite to the way of your Lord with wisdom and good advice, and dispute with them in a manner that is best…” (16:125), then the retaliation-verse, then “And be patient, and your patience is only by [the help of] Allāh, and do not grieve for them, nor be in distress at what they scheme” (16:127)⁷³⁹ — consoling the Prophet (ṣ) over the polytheists’ harm, a proof it descended while they were obstinate against his call, and while believing souls that refused injustice sought to avenge themselves whatever the cost.⁷⁴⁰

10. Sūrat al-Isrāʾ (Meccan). They said seventeen of its verses descended at Medina — verses 26, 32, 33, 57, 60, 73–81, 85, 88, and 107 — but this is an exaggeration, most without any chain. Some detail. The first: “And give the relative his due, and the needy and the traveller, and do not squander wastefully” (17:26)⁷⁴¹, said to have descended at Medina after Khaybar’s conquest, when [the Prophet] gave Fāṭima Fadak;⁷⁴² al-Ṭabarī reports al-Sajjād (ʿa) telling a Syrian, “have you not read, in Sūrat Banī Isrāʳīl, ‘And give the relative his due’? — and are you [Quraysh] the kin Allāh commanded to be given their due? — Yes”;⁷⁴³ and al-Ḥaskānī reports the Fadak-descent by many routes.⁷⁴⁴

I say: but the verse’s apparent [sense] is a general law, a duty for every Muslim, an unrestricted command to spend on kin and the needy — the character of Meccan legislation — its limits then detailed after the Hijra; and in its generality it includes the Prophet (ṣ) too, bound like any Muslim to maintain kinship and spend. So perhaps it descended a second time after Khaybar, Gabriel reminding him of the duty, whereupon he gave Fāṭima Fadak — with no proof that its first descent was then; or perhaps the verse that descended at Khaybar was another, namely “Whatever Allāh has bestowed on His Apostle from the people of the townships is for Allāh and the Apostle, and the near of kin, the orphans, the needy, and the traveller” (59:7)⁷⁴⁵, whose “townships” were Fadak, Khaybar, ʿUrayna, and Yanbuʿ, spoils then in Muslim hands;⁷⁴⁶ and if Gabriel truly brought the first verse too, it was a reminder of a prior ruling — unless the transmitter confused the two.

The second: “And do not approach fornication; it is indeed an indecency and an evil way” (17:32)⁷⁴⁷; the third: “And do not kill a soul Allāh has made inviolable, except with due cause” (17:33)⁷⁴⁸. Whoever excepted these gave no reason,⁷⁴⁹ perhaps looking to the [detailed] legislation of these prohibitions being at Medina — forgetting that while the fixing of the ḥudūd-penalties and the details came at Medina, the foundations and universals of the Law came often in Meccan sūras; and these two came at Mecca on that same pattern. Al-Suddī said the fornication-verse descended when there were yet no ḥudūd, the penalties coming later in Sūrat al-Nūr (Medinan);⁷⁵⁰ and al-Ḍaḥḥāk said the killing-verse was at Mecca — the first thing to descend concerning killing, when the polytheists were assassinating the Prophet’s (ṣ) companions and the companions were minded to retaliate, so it forbade that a victim’s kin be killed in the killer’s stead, as the Jāhilī custom ran, that none kill but the killer himself.⁷⁵¹

The fourth: “Those whom they invoke themselves seek the means of access to their Lord, [vying as to] which of them is nearest” (17:57)⁷⁵² — which, by the indication of the verse before it, suits a Meccan descent, and we do not know the ground of its exception in the Amīrī muṣḥaf and elsewhere. The fifth: “And We did not appoint the vision that We showed you except as a test for the people, and the tree cursed in the Qurʾān” (17:60)⁷⁵³, excepted by Jalāl al-Dīn on the ground that it concerned a vision that grieved the Prophet (ṣ) — seeing the Banū Umayya leaping upon his pulpit like apes, so that he was not seen laughing until his death;⁷⁵⁴ yet the Prophet (ṣ) had no pulpit at Mecca, and, as passed, he was shown rather the rise of his blessed daʿwa and the usurpers’ reaching for his divinely-appointed office, which distressed him.⁷⁵⁵

The sixth, seventh, and eighth: “And they were about to tempt you away from what We have revealed to you, that you may fabricate against Us something other than it… And had We not fortified you, certainly you might have inclined toward them a little…” (17:73–75)⁷⁵⁶. There is no doubt these are Meccan, descended concerning the Quraysh polytheists who proposed that the Prophet (ṣ) make peace with their gods — he rebuked them sharply, and the verses came confirming his honourable stance and finally dashing their hope that a caller to pure monotheism and the utter renunciation of shirk might compromise his call to Allāh alone, who has no partner.⁷⁵⁷ We know no sound ground for excepting these three, as the exception occurs in Jalāl al-Dīn’s words and the Amīrī muṣḥaf.⁷⁵⁸

The ninth and tenth: “And they were about to unsettle you from the land, to expel you from it; but then they would not have stayed after you except a little…” (17:76–77)⁷⁵⁹ The ground of exception is the claim that the Jews told the Prophet (ṣ), “if you are a prophet, go to Syria, the land of the prophets,” and that he set out on the Tabūk expedition wanting to reach Syria, whereupon these descended at Tabūk commanding his return to Medina, where his life, death, and resurrection would be;⁷⁶⁰ but this is opposed by the report that the two descended concerning the Meccan polytheists, minded to expel the Apostle in the same manner — “the prophets dwelt in Syria; what have you to do with this town?” — or to expel him by force, istifzāz being disturbance by force, which the verse’s apparent sense prefers; and when they did so, Allāh’s way took effect upon them, beginning with Badr’s slain and ending with the conquest of Mecca and their final expulsion.⁷⁶¹

The eleventh through fourteenth: “Maintain the prayer from the sun’s decline until the darkening of the night, and [observe] the dawn recital…” (17:78–81)⁷⁶² — the excepter alleging them a continuation of the two preceding, descending at Medina;⁷⁶³ a void claim, since the root is unestablished, so how the branch? Abū Nuʿaym and al-Bayhaqī report from Ibn ʿAbbās that “My Lord, admit me with a worthy entrance, and bring me out with a worthy departure…” (17:80) descended at Mecca shortly before the Hijra;⁷⁶⁴ and the verses, in their connected context before and after, themselves attest a Meccan descent, ill according with any Medinan claim.

The fifteenth: “And they ask you concerning the Spirit. Say, ‘The Spirit is of the command of my Lord, and you have not been given of knowledge except a little’” (17:85)⁷⁶⁵ Ḥadīth-folk reported this question came from the Jews of Medina after the Hijra;⁷⁶⁶ but it is opposed by reports that it came from the Quraysh polytheists asking about the Spirit mentioned in the Qurʾān,⁷⁶⁷ or that the Jews prompted them to ask it — “if he answers, he is no prophet; if not, he is a prophet”⁷⁶⁸ — and the verse’s tail attests it addresses the polytheists; from ʿAṭāʾ ibn Yasār, the clause “and you have not been given of knowledge except a little” descended at Mecca.⁷⁶⁹

The sixteenth: “Say, ‘Should all humans and jinn rally to bring the like of this Qurʾān, they will not bring the like of it, even if they assisted one another’” (17:88)⁷⁷⁰ Al-Ṭabarī reported it descended at Medina, concerning Jews who disputed the Qurʾān’s coherence, alleging the Torah more coherent;⁷⁷¹ but the verse’s arresting ring bespeaks a Meccan descent, a challenge to Quraysh who demanded strange marvels and trivial feats against the Qurʾān — a preface to the reproach in the verses after it.

The seventeenth and last: “Say, ‘Believe in it, or do not believe [in it].’ Indeed those who were given knowledge before it, when it is recited to them, fall down in prostration…” (17:107)⁷⁷³ — preceded by “until you make a spring gush forth for us from the ground” (17:90)⁷⁷² and the four verses following. Jalāl al-Dīn said it descended at Medina, per his “occasions of descent,”⁷⁷⁴ yet reported nothing to that effect in Lubāb al-nuqūl or al-Durr al-manthūr; and the verse’s context attests it is Meccan — a rebuke of the polytheists’ obstinacy and refusal to believe, a hint that their obduracy is blind ignorance and gross savagery, whereas people of culture, touching the Qurʾān’s plain truth, believe at once without doubt.

11. Sūrat al-Kahf (Meccan). Some excepted thirty-two of its verses as Medinan — an extravagance, for it would make a third of the sūra, including eight verses from its start, Medinan, and would have merited entering it among the Medinan sūras. Jalāl al-Dīn excepted verses 1–8 (down to His words jurizan);⁷⁷⁵ but there is no proof at all, besides its entailing that the sūra be Medinan — since the criterion in [classifying] Meccan and Medinan is the sūra’s opening and a portion of its first verses — and the consensus is settled that al-Kahf is wholly Meccan, with no disagreement.⁷⁷⁶

As for the al-Kahf exception, perhaps the excepter looked to “And to warn those who say, ‘Allāh has taken a son’” (18:4)⁷⁷⁷ — but that does not require a Medinan descent on account of the Jews, for it is general, embracing Christians and polytheists too, and a verse touching a Jewish matter need not fall in the years of open enmity, such verses abounding in Meccan sūras given the close pre-Hijra link between Jews and polytheists. He also excepted “And keep yourself patient with those who call upon their Lord morning and evening… [in] excess” (18:28)⁷⁷⁸, alleged to concern ʿUyayna ibn Ḥiṣn’s proposal at Medina that the poor believers be kept at a distance;⁷⁷⁹ but the correct [view] is that it concerns Umayya ibn Khalaf’s like proposal at Mecca, that the poor be expelled and Quraysh’s chieftains brought near — as the verse’s idiom and context betray.⁷⁸⁰

And the Amīrī muṣḥaf and al-Zanjānī except “And they ask you about Dhū l-Qarnayn… they were unable to hear” (18:83–101)⁷⁸¹ — nineteen verses — alleging the questioners were the Jews, so the answer descended at Medina;⁷⁸² but the correct [view] is that the polytheists asked it, at the Jews’ instruction: al-Ṭabarī relates that Quraysh sent al-Naḍr ibn al-Ḥārith and ʿUqba ibn Abī Muʿayṭ to the Medinan rabbis, who charged them to test the Prophet (ṣ) with three questions — the sleepers of old, the much-travelled man who reached earth’s easts and wests, and the Spirit — saying, “if he answers, he is a prophet.”⁷⁸³

Al-Itqān also excepts “Indeed those who have faith and do righteous deeds — they shall have the gardens of Firdaws for abode” (18:107–110)⁷⁸⁴ to the sūra’s end — four verses⁷⁸⁵ — though no chain is given, and nothing in the verses or their exegesis fits a Medinan descent. Mujāhid’s report that “So whoever expects to encounter his Lord…” (18:110)⁷⁸⁶ concerns Muslims who fought ostentatiously does not accord with its purport; and al-Ṭabrisī’s report that “Say, ‘Were the sea ink for the words of my Lord…’” (18:109) answered the Jews’ boast of the Torah’s knowledge, after “and you have not been given of knowledge except a little” (17:85)⁷⁸⁷, no more requires a Medinan descent than the like has before.⁷⁸⁸

12. Sūrat Maryam (Meccan). Jalāl al-Dīn excepted two verses.⁷⁸⁹ The prostration-verse “Those are the ones whom Allāh has blessed, from among the prophets, of the progeny of Adam… they would fall down weeping in prostration” (19:58)⁷⁹⁰ — belied by its being a sequel summing up the prophets and nations detailed before it from the sūra’s start, so that either all that precedes is Medinan or all is Meccan, with no room for this chainless exception; and “There is none of you but will come to it…” (19:71)⁷⁹¹, which, like its fellow, is bound to its surrounding verses in a way that leaves no room for excepting it alone.

13. Sūrat Ṭā Hā (Meccan). Two verses were excepted. “So be patient over what they say, and celebrate the praise of your Lord before the rising of the sun and before its setting” (20:130)⁷⁹² — but it branches off the verses before it, its idiom is that of Meccan verses, and its exegesis confirms a Meccan descent;⁷⁹³ and “And do not extend your glance toward what We have given [various] classes of them to enjoy…” (20:131)⁷⁹⁴, excepted on al-Bazzār’s report from Abū Rāfiʿ — the Prophet (ṣ) grieving when a Jew refused a loan of food save against a pledge⁷⁹⁵ — a story which, even if sound, bears no fitting relation to the verse’s purport.

14. Sūrat al-Anbiyāʾ (Meccan). Excepted: “Do they not see that We come to the land, diminishing it from its edges?” (21:44)⁷⁹⁶ with no chain — but the context is Meccan beyond dispute, its counterpart being al-Raʿd 13:41. 15. Sūrat al-Muʾminūn (Meccan). Excepted: “Until, when We seize their affluent ones… they will be despairing” (23:64–77)⁷⁹⁷ — thirteen verses — with no evidence; the excepter perhaps read the “punishment” as Badr or the Conquest, forgetting that these interpret a prior promise, not report an accomplished event.⁷⁹⁸ 16. Sūrat al-Furqān (Meccan). Three verses were excepted (68–70), yet they harmonise perfectly with their fellows, so that excepting them alone is impossible, and al-Ṭabarī’s exegesis confirms a Meccan descent.⁷⁹⁹

17. Sūrat al-Shuʿarāʾ (Meccan). Five verses were excepted. “Was it not a sign for them that the learned of the Children of Israel recognise it?” (26:197)⁸⁰⁰ — Ibn Ghars held it Medinan,⁸⁰¹ perhaps because “the learned of the Children of Israel” were glossed as Asad, Usayd, Ibn Yāmīn, Thaʿlaba, and ʿAbd Allāh ibn Salām;⁸⁰² but the verse’s aspect is, past doubt, a stinging rebuke of the Quraysh polytheists, and the gloss names only one realised instance, not the occasion — the People of the Book having known the Prophet’s (ṣ) marks and acknowledged them before the Hijra, then denied them out of worldly greed, so the verse means their knowing, not their believing.⁸⁰³

The second exception: “As for the poets — [only] the perverse follow them” (26:224)⁸⁰⁴ to the sūra’s end — four verses. Excepted, on Ibn ʿAbbās’s authority,⁸⁰⁵ as descending concerning two men — an Anṣārī and a Muhājir — who lampooned each other;⁸⁰⁶ but this is outweighed by stronger and more numerous reports that it concerns the Quraysh polytheists, whose poets lampooned the Apostle (ṣ) and whose rabble recited the lampoons in contempt of him — al-Ṭabrisī naming them in detail,⁸⁰⁷ and al-Ṭabarī likewise preferring this.⁸⁰⁸

18. Sūrat al-Qaṣaṣ (Meccan). Excepted: “Those to whom We gave the Book before it — they believe in it… [Peace be to you;] we do not court the ignorant” (28:52–55)⁸⁰⁹ — four verses. Said to concern People of the Book who had embraced Islam — ʿAbd Allāh ibn Salām, Tamīm al-Dārī, al-Jārūd al-ʿAbdī, Salmān al-Fārisī;⁸¹⁰ or the Negus’s companions who reached Medina and witnessed Uḥud.⁸¹¹ But even if sound, it would foretell what would be, not report what was — and it is opposed by the reading that it concerns forty of the People of the Book who believed before the mission;⁸¹² what confirms this is “And do not dispute with the People of the Book except in a manner that is best, save those of them who do wrong…” (29:46)⁸¹³ and “And thus We have sent down to you the Book; so those to whom We gave the Book believe in it…” (29:47)⁸¹⁴ — both Meccan, foretelling what would be.

And excepted too: “Indeed He who has ordained the Qurʾān for you will surely restore you to the place of return…” (28:85)⁸¹⁵ said to have descended during the Hijra at al-Juḥfa;⁸¹⁶ so, on the second convention,⁸¹⁷ it is neither Meccan nor Medinan — but the well-known choice is the first convention, on which it is Meccan.

19. Sūrat al-ʿAnkabūt (Meccan). Excepted: its first eleven verses, said to be Medinan⁸¹⁸ — descending, they claim, concerning Muslims who lagged from the Hijra, then set out and were turned back by Quraysh with violence;⁸¹⁹ but the verse is general, concerning the Meccan believers under hardship, a trial to sift the truthful from the liar — so al-Ṭabarī, and so the report from al-Ṣādiq (ʿa);⁸²⁰⁸²¹ and had its opening been Medinan, the sūra would be Medinan, which none holds.⁸²² Excepted too: “And how many an animal there is that does not carry its own provision — Allāh provides for it and for you…” (29:60)⁸²³ on Ibn Abī Ḥātim’s weak report from Ibn ʿUmar of the Prophet’s (ṣ) hunger in a Medinan garden;⁸²⁴ but its chain is impugned and its purport unreasonable — while Muqātil and al-Kalbī place it with “O My servants who have faith! Indeed My earth is vast, so worship [only] Me…” (29:56)⁸²⁵ concerning the oppressed Meccan believers bidden to migrate, a reading truer to the text and the accepted one.

20. Sūrat al-Rūm (Meccan). The Amīrī muṣḥaf, al-Zanjānī, and al-Majmaʿ except “So glorify Allāh when you enter evening and when you rise at dawn” (30:17)⁸²⁶ with no chain, though it is firmly bound to the verses around it. 21. Sūrat Luqmān (Meccan). Ibn ʿAbbās is said to except “If all the trees on the earth were pens, and the sea, with seven [more] seas to replenish it, [were ink]… [Allāh] is all-aware of what you do” (31:27–29)⁸²⁷ — three verses — on a report that the Medinan Jewish rabbis boasted of the Torah’s knowledge and the Prophet (ṣ) answered that it is little beside Allāh’s, whereupon the verses descended;⁸²⁸ but this ground, granting it suits verse 27, suits not the two after it, and the three harmonise as one display of the Lord’s majesty, whom none approaches — so there is no ground to except them; and even were the report sound, he (ṣ) merely recited them then, not that they descended then.

22. Sūrat al-Sajda (Meccan). Jalāl al-Dīn excepted “Their sides vacate their beds, [as] they call upon their Lord in fear and hope, and they spend out of what We have provided them” (32:16)⁸²⁹ on al-Bazzār’s and Ibn Mardawayh’s report from Bilāl of companions praying between sunset and night;⁸³⁰ but the verse is general, plainly harmonious with its fellows and not cohering with the narration’s purport. The Amīrī muṣḥaf and al-Zanjānī except “No soul knows what has been hidden for them of comfort for the eyes” (32:17)⁸³¹ perhaps as completing the verse before it — though the sounder [view] is that it, like its predecessor, is general.

And Ibn ʿAbbās excepts “Is he who is faithful like him who is a transgressor?… an abode, for what they used to do” (32:18–19)⁸³² on many considerable routes reporting that it descended concerning ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (ʿa) and al-Walīd ibn ʿUqba, in an altercation at Badr in which al-Walīd taunted ʿAlī as a boy and ʿAlī called him a transgressor — reported by Abū l-Faraj al-Iṣbahānī, al-Wāḥidī, and others by routes from Ibn ʿAbbās, so that the faithful one is ʿAlī and the transgressor al-Walīd,⁸³³ al-Ḥaskānī giving it by twelve routes, perhaps reaching tawātur.⁸³⁴ Yet the verse’s context is general and bound to its neighbours; it is [rather] possible that the altercation reached the Prophet (ṣ), who recited the verse in application — al-Walīd being branded a transgressor in other verses too, “If a vicious character brings you some news, verify it” (49:6)⁸³⁵ descending concerning him in particular.⁸³⁶

23. Sūrat Sabaʾ (Meccan). Excepted: “And those who have been given knowledge see that what has been sent down to you from your Lord is the truth, and that it guides to the path of the All-mighty, the All-laudable” (34:6)⁸³⁷ — an indication that the true people of knowledge believe in this Book from knowledge and certainty, as al-Ṭabrisī preferred, for its generality: they ponder and reflect, and know by inference that it is not of human making.⁸³⁸ But al-Ṭabarī glossed “those given knowledge” as the Muslims of the People of the Book, like ʿAbd Allāh ibn Salām,⁸³⁹ whence some alleged the verse Medinan, descending after their conversion;⁸⁴⁰ yet he rested this on no transmitted report,⁸⁴¹ and himself transmitted from Qatāda that they are the first, foremost companions — so his transmission belies his gloss.

And excepted too: “There was certainly a sign for Sabaʾ in their habitation… and your Lord is watchful over all things” (34:15–21)⁸⁴² — seven verses. Ibn al-Ḥiṣār held them Medinan on Farwa ibn Musayk’s report, his migration falling after Thaqīf’s conversion in year nine,⁸⁴³ the verses descending, it is said, on his asking about Sabaʾ;⁸⁴⁴ but he himself allowed that this may be mere ḥikāya of what had descended at Mecca before the Hijra. And it is very far-fetched that verses should descend for a man’s bare question, which the Prophet’s (ṣ) answer sufficed to settle; rather the correct [account] is that Farwa asked after reading the story in the Qurʾān,⁸⁴⁵ which shows the question came after the descent — and the story of Sabaʾ, like the Qurʾān’s stories generally, aims at a general lesson for mankind’s guidance, in Meccan fashion.

And finally, the Farwa narration on Sabaʾ is disturbed and self-contradictory in chain, text, and style, so that reliance on it to date the verses is impossible: Ibn Abī Ḥātim’s version has Farwa fearing his people’s apostasy and asking leave to fight them, whereupon “There was certainly a sign for Sabaʾ in their habitation…” (34:15)⁸⁴⁶ is said to have descended — and likewise the rest of the reports.⁸⁴⁷ Were such occasions what prompt Qurʾān, it would be truer to say it descended with no occasion at all.

24. Sūrat Fāṭir / al-Malāʾika (Meccan). Al-Ḥasan excepted two verses: “Indeed those who recite the Book of Allāh and maintain the prayer, and spend out of what We have provided them…” (35:29)⁸⁴⁸ perhaps for the mention of prayer in it; and “Then We made heirs to the Book those of Our servants whom We chose…” (35:32)⁸⁴⁹ for its sequel — “So some of them wrong themselves, some are moderate, and some are foremost in good deeds” (35:32) — ʿIkrima glossing “the wrongdoer” as the hypocrite.⁸⁵⁰ But prayer was ordained at Mecca, and applying “the wrongdoer” to the hypocrite, if the report is sound, is a mere instance, the wording being general and unbound to its occasions.

25. Sūrat Yā Sīn (Meccan). Two verses excepted. “Indeed it is We who revive the dead and write what they have sent ahead and their traces; and We have counted everything in a manifest Imam” (36:12)⁸⁵¹ on al-Ḥākim’s and al-Tirmidhī’s report from Abū Saʿīd that Banū Salima complained of their dwellings’ distance from the mosque, whereupon it descended and the Prophet (ṣ) said “your traces are written,” so they stayed;⁸⁵² but the story cannot be the cause of all the verse’s clauses, and he perhaps only cited a clause of it, the best works being the most laborious. And “And when they are told, ‘Spend out of what Allāh has provided you,’ the faithless say to the faithful, ‘Shall we feed one whom Allāh would have fed, had He wished?…’” (36:47)⁸⁵³ which Ibn ʿAbbās placed at Medina concerning the hypocrites,⁸⁵⁴ though it is explicit in addressing the faithless, and Abū Jaʿfar affirmed a polytheist descent, as its context attests;⁸⁵⁵ the Amīrī muṣḥaf’s exception of verse 45 is likely a slip of number.

26. Sūrat al-Zumar (Meccan). Excepted: “Say, ‘O My servants who have faith! Be wary of your Lord… and Allāh’s earth is vast; indeed the patient will be paid their reward in full without any reckoning’” (39:10)⁸⁵⁶ which al-Sakhāwī placed at Medina⁸⁵⁷ but which betrays a Meccan descent urging the oppressed to migrate, as from Ibn ʿAbbās;⁸⁵⁸ and “Allāh has sent down the best of discourses, a Book, uniform and paired, whereat shiver the skins of those who fear their Lord…” (39:23)⁸⁵⁹ which Ibn al-Jazarī placed at Medina⁸⁶⁰ but whose ringing idiom and context proclaim it Meccan. And “Say, ‘O My servants who have committed excesses against their own souls…’” (39:53–55)⁸⁶¹ said, on a weak chain from Ibn ʿAbbās, to concern Waḥshī, Ḥamza’s killer;⁸⁶² but Ibn Abī Ḥātim reports soundly from Ibn ʿAbbās that it concerns the Meccan polytheists,⁸⁶³ as Abū Jaʿfar held.⁸⁶⁴ Waḥshī — a beast in human form — does not merit a verse of such tender resonance descending for him alone; al-Ṭabrisī too notes it is Meccan and Waḥshī converted years later, though it may have been recited to him at his conversion.⁸⁶⁵

27. Sūrat al-Muʾmin / Ghāfir (Meccan). Three verses excepted. “And celebrate the praise of your Lord at evening and dawn” (40:55)⁸⁶⁶ which al-Ḥasan placed at Medina, taking it for the sunset and dawn prayers whose obligation he held Medinan;⁸⁶⁷ but the prayer was first ordained at Mecca — Gabriel bringing it and teaching the Prophet (ṣ) the ablution and prayer at the mission’s start⁸⁶⁸ — and the verse’s opening, “So be patient; Allāh’s promise is true, and ask forgiveness for your sin” (40:55), proves it Meccan. And “Indeed those who dispute the signs of Allāh without any authority that has come to them…” (40:56)⁸⁶⁹ which Jalāl al-Dīn placed at Medina on Abū l-ʿĀliya’s report that the Jews magnified the Dajjāl, so it descended with “surely the creation of the heavens and the earth is greater than the creation of mankind” (40:57);⁸⁷⁰ but we seek refuge from such vile talk — how should a verse descend to rebut a Jew’s trivial boast, comparing a Dajjāl’s deceit with the creation of the heavens? Abū Jaʿfar did well to omit these empty ḥadīths,⁸⁷¹ and it is strange that one like al-Ṭabrisī joined al-Suyūṭī in this triviality.⁸⁷²

28. Sūrat al-Shūrā (Meccan). Excepted: “Do they say, ‘He has fabricated a lie against Allāh’?…” (42:24–26)⁸⁷³ said, on a weak chain, to concern the Anṣār,⁸⁷⁴ and “Were Allāh to expand the provision for His servants…” (42:27)⁸⁷⁵ said to concern the People of the Bench.⁸⁷⁶ But ascribing “He has fabricated a lie against Allāh” to the Anṣār is far-fetched; and the last verse is general — even a sound report from ʿAlī (ʿa) would mean their inclusion under its generality, not a particular descent, which would be a stinging reproach of the poor believers, from which the Qurʾān is far.

Al-Ṭabrisī added “Say, ‘I do not ask of you any reward for it except the affection for [my] kinsfolk’” (42:23)⁸⁷⁷ with a report that a man denied the verse and then repented, so that “Do they say, ‘He has fabricated a lie against Allāh’?” (42:24)⁸⁷⁸ descended, then, on his repentance, “And He it is who accepts repentance from His servants… for them is a severe punishment” (42:25–26)⁸⁷⁹ — four verses at Medina, from Ibn ʿAbbās and Qatāda;⁸⁸⁰ but this may reflect that the love-of-kin verse concerns the Prophet’s pure kin, as established elsewhere,⁸⁸¹ registered on the believers at the daʿwa’s start for their good.⁸⁸² Likewise “and their affairs are by counsel among themselves” (42:38)⁸⁸³ and “And those who, when aggression visits them, defend themselves…” (42:39–41)⁸⁸⁴ were placed by Ibn al-Ghars at Medina⁸⁸⁵ — yet the context is purely Meccan, all descending concerning the oppressed Meccan believers, one hand wherever they settled or journeyed.

29. Sūrat al-Zukhruf (Meccan). Excepted: “And ask those We sent before you of Our apostles: Did We set up, besides the All-beneficent, any gods to be worshipped?” (43:45)⁸⁸⁶ which Muqātil placed at Jerusalem on the night of the Ascension,⁸⁸⁷ and some at Medina;⁸⁸⁸ but it is firmly bound to its fellows and framed as “I mean you, O daughter-in-law, but hear, O neighbour” — Meccan beyond doubt, concerning the polytheists; its descent in heaven⁸⁸⁹ or at Jerusalem does not make it Medinan, being Meccan by its pre-Hijra descent.⁸⁹⁰ The Amīrī muṣḥaf’s exception of verse 54 is likely a number-slip.

30. Sūrat al-Jāthiya (Meccan). Excepted: “Say to the faithful to forgive those who do not expect the days of Allāh” (45:14)⁸⁹¹ placed by Qatāda at Medina;⁸⁹² but it is among the pardon-verses of Mecca’s oppressed days, later abrogated when Islam’s might grew.⁸⁹³ 31. Sūrat al-Aḥqāf (Meccan). Excepted: “Say, ‘Tell me: if it is from Allāh and you disbelieve in it, and a witness from the Children of Israel testifies to its like and believes, while you are disdainful…’” (46:10)⁸⁹⁴ placed by al-Ṭabarānī at Medina in the ʿAbd Allāh ibn Salām story;⁸⁹⁵ but how quick the exegetes are to read every hint of the People of the Book’s belief as ibn Salām! — rather it reproaches Quraysh, who hung back from a religion brought by one of themselves, the Children of Israel named only for the Arabs’ regard for them; Ibn Abī Ḥātim reports from Masrūq that it descended at Mecca concerning the polytheists, as did Abū Jaʿfar.⁸⁹⁶ Excepted too: “And We have enjoined man to be kind to his parents…” (46:15–19)⁸⁹⁷ said to concern Abū Bakr and his son ʿAbd al-Raḥmān,⁸⁹⁸ but general by the plural sequel;⁸⁹⁹ and “So be patient, as the apostles of firm resolve were patient” (46:35)⁹⁰⁰ Meccan in idiom, directed at Quraysh, later abrogated by the fighting-verse.

32. Sūrat Qāf (Meccan). Al-Ḥākim and others reported that “And certainly We created the heavens and the earth and whatever is between them in six days, and We were not touched by any weariness” (50:38)⁹⁰¹ descended at Medina in refutation of a Jewish claim that Allāh rested on the Sabbath after creating [the world] from Sunday to Friday;⁹⁰² but its refuting that claim does not make it Medinan, for the Arabs were in constant contact with the People of the Book and took such notions from them — so the report, if it means anything, means it addressed teachings the Jews had spread among the Arabs. That it is Meccan is shown by its sequel, “So be patient over what they say…” (50:39)⁹⁰³ a Meccan pardon-verse, later abrogated.

33. Sūrat al-Najm (Meccan). Excepted: “He knows you best, [from] when He produced you from the earth and when you were embryos in the bellies of your mothers; so do not flaunt your piety: He knows best those who are Godwary” (53:32)⁹⁰⁴ on al-Wāḥidī’s report that the Jews would call a dead child “a ṣiddīq,” the Prophet (ṣ) rebutting them, whereupon it descended;⁹⁰⁵ but even if sound this shows no Medinan descent, the Jews’ saying perhaps reaching him at Mecca — and in truth the report bears not at all on the verse, whose “He knows you best” justifies its “vast in forgiveness”: man is disposed to base cravings by his very constitution, and God, knowing this, pledged forgiveness in mercy. And “Did you see him who turned away…” (53:33–41)⁹⁰⁶ said to concern a man who bought another’s sins for a camel;⁹⁰⁷ but the verses fit no such story, descending rather concerning a chieftain of Quraysh, as Abū Jaʿfar detailed.⁹⁰⁸

34. Sūrat al-Qamar (Meccan). Three verses excepted. “The host will be routed, and they will turn their backs [to flee]” (54:45)⁹⁰⁹ alleged to have descended on the day of Badr;⁹¹⁰ but it is a promise of the Muslims’ coming victory, realised at Badr — not descended then.⁹¹¹ And “Indeed the Godwary will be amid gardens and streams, in the abode of truthfulness with an omnipotent King” (54:54–55)⁹¹² for which the excepter gave no reason, and which the unity and firm coherence of the context refuse; the Amīrī muṣḥaf’s exception of verses 44–46 is a number-slip set down without verification.

35. Sūrat al-Wāqiʿa (Meccan). Excepted: “A multitude from the former [generations], and a multitude from the latter” (56:39–40)⁹¹³ perhaps because Ibn Masʿūd related a vision the Prophet (ṣ) recounted and then recited the two verses to his companions⁹¹⁴ — but his reciting them shows no descent then. And “So I swear by the places where the stars set!… Indeed it is a noble Qurʾān, in a guarded Book — none touch it except the pure ones…” (56:75–82)⁹¹⁵ on Muslim’s and al-Ḥākim’s report that, when rain fell after the Prophet’s (ṣ) prayer on a journey, some hypocrites said “we were rained on by such-and-such a star’s setting,” so the verses descended;⁹¹⁶ but the verses refuse the story — they are a refutation of those who deny the Qurʾān as revelation, with no bearing on the star-settings, and their exquisite coherence makes the narration impossible.

36. Sūrat al-Mulk (Meccan). Ibn ʿAbbās is reported to say that “Tabāraka [al-Mulk]” descended concerning the people of Mecca except three verses;⁹¹⁷ but the meaning is not that it descended at Mecca save three that descended elsewhere — for he said “concerning the people of Mecca,” not “at Mecca.” Rather the sūra is a rebuke of the Meccan polytheists, all its verses a threat to them, save three pertaining to the believers: “Indeed those who fear their Lord in secret…” (67:12)⁹¹⁸ “It is He who made the earth tractable for you…” (67:15) and “Say, ‘He is the All-beneficent; we have faith in Him…’” (67:29); and the correct [view], as in Ibn Khadīj’s ḥadīth, is that it descended all at once at Mecca.⁹¹⁹

37. Sūrat al-Qalam (Meccan). Al-Sakhāwī excepted “Indeed We have tested them just as We tested the People of the Garden… had they known” (68:17–33)⁹²⁰ — seventeen verses — and “So submit patiently to the judgement of your Lord… among the righteous” (68:48–50)⁹²¹ — three verses — twenty in all, alleged Medinan, al-Majmaʿ adding verses 51–52.⁹²² Ibn Abī Ḥātim reported that Abū Jahl’s words at Badr, “seize them and bind them,” prompted “Indeed We have tested them”;⁹²³ but there is no apparent fit between that and the verses, which descended concerning the polytheists generally, as al-Ṭabrisī and al-Ṭabarī held;⁹²⁴ and “So submit patiently…” is among the Meccan pardon-verses beyond doubt.

38. Sūrat al-Muzzammil (Meccan). Excepted: “And be patient over what they say… and give them respite for a little” (73:10–11)⁹²⁵ related by al-Iṣbahānī;⁹²⁶ but the two are a call to the Prophet’s (ṣ) steadfastness against the polytheists’ harm, Meccan pardon-verses. And “Indeed your Lord knows that you stand [in prayer]… indeed Allāh is all-forgiving, all-merciful” (73:20)⁹²⁷ which al-Ḥākim placed a year after the sūra’s opening, when the night-vigil was ordained before the five prayers;⁹²⁸ ʿIkrima [relating] that the Muslims kept the vigil a year, their feet swelling, until the sūra’s end abrogated it — “so recite as much of it as is feasible.”⁹²⁹

The one holding it Medinan clung to [the claim] that prayer and alms were not ordained at Mecca;⁹³⁰ but this is strange, for prayer is the first obligation imposed at Mecca,⁹³¹ and the “alms” here is not the zakāt of fixed limits and quotas but the absolute almsgiving then obligatory — as in “and who carry out [the payment of] the alms” (23:4)⁹³² and “who do not pay the alms and who deny the Hereafter” (41:7)⁹³³ its details came at Medina, but its root was obligatory at Mecca. And better [he should have] clung to “and others fighting in the way of Allāh,” since fighting was legislated only at Medina — yet even this is a mention of causes for lifting the vigil-obligation, not a proof of fighting’s actuality then.

39. Sūrat al-Mursalāt (Meccan). Excepted: “And when they are told, ‘Bow down,’ they do not bow down” (77:48)⁹³⁴ which Muqātil placed at Medina, concerning Thaqīf’s refusal to bow when commanded to pray;⁹³⁵ but the verse addresses the deniers, the polytheist Arabs, and to leave this place of the sūra empty until the Hijra’s late years would mar its eloquence and harmony. Moreover, “bowing” here means submission to Allāh, not the technical bowing of prayer — as al-Ṭabarī chose,⁹³⁶ and as in “and maintain the prayer, and give the alms, and bow with those who bow” (2:43)⁹³⁷ Shubbar too glossing it as submission and obedience.⁹³⁸ So it has no bearing on Thaqīf, being a general report of the polytheists’ standing against the truth.

40. Sūrat al-Muṭaffifīn (Meccan). They said its opening — “Woe to the defrauders” (83:1)⁹³⁹ to the sixth verse — descended at Medina, whose people were the worst in measuring, so they measured well thereafter; but it has passed [as] far-fetched that the Prophet (ṣ) should meet the Anṣār with such harsh verses at his first coming among those who gave him refuge and pledged him their selves and wealth — the correct [view] is that it is wholly Meccan.⁹⁴⁰ And there were further Meccan-sūra exceptions we set aside for length and want of proof, such as those from al-Layl and al-Māʿūn.

Exceptions from Medinan Sūras

It has passed [as] far-fetched that a verse stay unregistered in a Meccan sūra until a Medinan one descends and registers it, as Ibn Ḥajar held;⁹⁴¹ yet they called many verses in Medinan sūras Meccan, which we list by muṣḥaf order with our view. 1. Sūrat al-Baqara (Medinan). Three verses excepted. “So pardon and forbear until Allāh brings His command” (2:109)⁹⁴² alleged to concern the polytheists in Mecca’s weak days; but its opening, “Many of the People of the Book wish…,” shows it descended concerning the People of the Book early at Medina, later abrogated by “Fight those who do not believe in Allāh… until they pay the jizya with [their] hand, in abasement” (9:29)⁹⁴³.⁹⁴⁴

And “It is not up to you to guide them…” (2:272)⁹⁴⁵ alleged to concern the polytheists’ obstinacy — the counterpart of “Indeed you cannot guide whomever you wish, but Allāh guides whomever He wishes” (28:56)⁹⁴⁶ — but it descended concerning the Muslims’ spending on disbelievers, when they held it forbidden;⁹⁴⁷ and “And be wary of a day in which you will be brought back to Allāh…” (2:281)⁹⁴⁸ said to be the last verse revealed, at Minā during the Farewell Pilgrimage⁹⁴⁹ — and on that assumption Medinan.

2. Sūrat al-Nisāʾ (Medinan). Excepted: “Indeed Allāh commands you to deliver the trusts to their owners…” (4:58)⁹⁵⁰ and “They ask you for a ruling; say, ‘Allāh gives you a ruling concerning the kalāla…’” (4:176)⁹⁵¹ — said to have descended at Mecca, though al-Ṭabrisī gave neither proof nor proponent.⁹⁵² The first perhaps concerns the return of the Kaʿba’s key to ʿUthmān ibn Ṭalḥa after the Conquest;⁹⁵³ but a verse’s Meccanness is [by] pre-Hijra descent, and the story does not fit, for handing over the key was no breach of trust — al-Ṭabrisī rejected it too. The second’s occasion is unknown,⁹⁵⁴ and its idiom of rulings proclaims it Medinan on the well-known convention.⁹⁵⁵

3. Sūrat al-Māʾida (Medinan). Excepted: “Today the faithless have despaired of your religion… I have approved Islam as your religion” (5:3)⁹⁵⁶ said to have descended at ʿArafāt during the Farewell Pilgrimage,⁹⁵⁷ as al-Zanjānī alleged;⁹⁵⁸ but al-Ṣādiq (ʿa) said it descended after the Prophet (ṣ) set up ʿAlī (ʿa) as guide-mark for the Umma at Ghadīr Khumm on his return — al-Yaʿqūbī registering it as the sound, explicit narration of ʿAlī’s designation,⁹⁵⁹⁹⁶⁰ al-Ḥaskānī giving it by several routes;⁹⁶¹ and its descent at ʿArafāt or Ghadīr does not except it from the Medinan [verses] on the well-known convention.

4. Sūrat al-Anfāl (Medinan). Excepted: “And when the faithless plotted against you to confine you, or kill you, or expel you — they plotted, and Allāh [also] devised, and Allāh is the best of devisers” (8:30)⁹⁶² said to concern the Dār al-Nadwa, where Quraysh conspired and their plot failed by the Hijra and ʿAlī’s (ʿa) sleeping on the Prophet’s bed;⁹⁶³ but its descent about that story does not require its descent then — the past adverb “when [idh]” reports a prior matter. The Amīrī muṣḥaf excepts verses 31–36 likewise; and “But Allāh would not punish them while you were in their midst, nor would Allāh punish them while they plead for forgiveness” (8:33)⁹⁶⁴ is [likewise] a report of past and present — Allāh lifting the punishment from Mecca’s polytheists out of regard for the believers still among them who could not emigrate.⁹⁶⁵ Jalāl al-Dīn cited Qatāda for a Meccan descent, then refuted it by Ibn ʿAbbās’s sound report that it descended at Medina, after the Prophet’s (ṣ) coming there.⁹⁶⁶⁹⁶⁷

And “O Prophet! Allāh suffices you, and those of the faithful who follow you” (8:64)⁹⁶⁸ whose exception Ibn al-ʿArabī and others allowed,⁹⁶⁹ citing ʿUmar’s report that it descended when he embraced Islam as the fortieth convert;⁹⁷⁰ but al-Kalbī placed it at al-Baydāʾ at Badr,⁹⁷¹ and al-Wāqidī at Medina, concerning Banū Qurayẓa and Banū l-Naḍīr.⁹⁷² Its context proclaims it Medinan, descending as fighting was legislated: it is preceded by verses of treaty-breaking, war, preparation, and inclining to peace, and followed by “O Prophet! Urge on the faithful to fight…” (8:65)⁹⁷³ — an unbroken, harmonious unit; and there is no sense in the “sufficiency” of forty weak converts at Mecca, whereas at Medina the believers’ fellowship grew strong. Thus al-Ṭabarī read it — “rise against your enemy, for Allāh suffices you” — touching none of the ʿUmar-conversion reports.⁹⁷⁴

5. Sūrat Barāʾa [al-Tawba] (Medinan). Four verses excepted. The first two: “It is not for the Prophet and the faithful to plead forgiveness for the polytheists, even if they should be [their] relatives… indeed Abraham was most tender-hearted, forbearing” (9:113–114)⁹⁷⁵ They said it descended concerning Abū Ṭālib at his death, when the Prophet (ṣ) urged him to say “there is no god but Allāh,” while Abū Jahl and ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Umayya pressed him toward “the creed of ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib,” and he died [upon it], the Prophet vowing to plead forgiveness for him until forbidden — and that “Indeed you cannot guide whomever you love, but Allāh guides whomever He wishes” (28:56) descended [too];⁹⁷⁶ and they said it concerned the Prophet’s (ṣ) own parents, when he wept to be forbidden forgiveness for them.⁹⁷⁷

I say: may Allāh confound the pagan bigotry — a detested Umayyad bent that sought to lower Banū Hāshim’s dignity and paint the Prophet’s (ṣ) kin as polytheists, making Abū Ṭālib, his first protector and sole defender in his time, die a disbeliever! For He said, “and those who gave shelter and helped — it is they who are truly the faithful” (8:74)⁹⁷⁸ and Abū Ṭālib was without doubt the first to shelter and help him with himself and his precious wealth — a general testimony including him decisively.⁹⁷⁹ Proof enough of his sincere faith is his ode, by which he shields the Apostle of Allāh (ṣ) and defies all Quraysh:

They have known that our son is one none can belie
with us, nor is he swayed by the speech of the false;
and there has risen among us Aḥmad, of a stock
beyond whose reach the mounting of the climber falls short;
I bent myself in shelter over him and shielded him,
and warded [them] from him with [my] heights and [my] breast;
so the Lord of servants aided him with His succour,
and made manifest a faith whose truth is no falsehood.⁹⁸⁰

As for us, the Imāmiyya, the principles of our beliefs require the purity of the Prophet’s (ṣ) forefathers, the Imams (ʿa), and their mothers — never defiled by the filth of polytheism, descending ever from a lofty loin to a pure womb, as in the ziyāra of al-Ḥusayn (ʿa): “you were a light in the lofty loins and the purified wombs,” and in Ibn ʿAbbās’s report that Allāh kept transferring [the Prophet] from pure loins to clean wombs, refined and purified.⁹⁸¹ To this points “and your going about among those who prostrate” (26:219)⁹⁸² — that is, moving from one monotheist loin to another; Mujāhid: from prophet to prophet;⁹⁸³ and al-Bāqir and al-Ṣādiq (ʿa): “among the loins of the prophets, prophet after prophet, from a lawful marriage, not fornication, since Adam (ʿa).”⁹⁸⁴

The correct occasion, per al-Ṭabrisī, is that the Muslims asked the Prophet (ṣ) to plead forgiveness for their dead who had died in disbelief or hypocrisy — “will you not ask forgiveness for our fathers who died in the Jāhiliyya?” — so it descended.⁹⁸⁵ The wording, “It is not for the Prophet and those who have faith,” confirms this and refutes the Abū Ṭālib account, for had that been the occasion there would be no cause to join the believers with him in so stern a prohibition. This verse, and verses 80 and 84, all descended in one pattern: the believers hoped for mercy upon kin who died in disbelief, so it cut off that hope — “Indeed Allāh does not forgive that any partner be ascribed to Him, but forgives anything besides that to whomever He wishes” (4:48)⁹⁸⁶.⁹⁸⁷

The third and fourth: “There has certainly come to you an apostle from among yourselves; grievous to him is your distress… in Him I have put my trust, and He is the Lord of the Great Throne” (9:128–129)⁹⁸⁸ the last two of Barāʾa. Ibn al-Ghars called them Meccan, which Jalāl al-Dīn found strange, since it is reported they are the last to descend.⁹⁸⁹ Their descent at Mecca is unproven; their placement in a Medinan sūra — indeed the last of them — itself argues Medinan descent, the natural principle being to fix verses successively by descent; and it is reported that Juhayna sought a covenant from the Prophet (ṣ) at his first coming to Medina, whereupon they descended,⁹⁹⁰ and that they are the last Qurʾānic verses to descend at Medina.⁹⁹¹

6. Sūrat al-Raʿd (Medinan). Abū l-Shaykh reported from Qatāda its exception of “And the faithless will continue to be visited by catastrophe because of what they have done, or it will alight near their home, until Allāh’s promise comes…” (13:31)⁹⁹² and al-Ṭabrisī added “And [even] if there were a Qurʾān whereby the mountains could be set in motion…” (13:31)⁹⁹³ and the verse after it.⁹⁹⁴ But the verse reproaches the polytheists’ vacillation and heralds a near victory, so it better fits the verses of al-Ḥudaybiyya;⁹⁹⁵ and ʿIkrima placed it at Medina, concerning the Prophet’s (ṣ) expeditions — the “catastrophe” being the raiding party, the “promise” the Conquest.⁹⁹⁶

7. Sūrat al-Ḥajj (Medinan). Jalāl al-Dīn excepted “These two adversaries contend concerning their Lord…” (22:19)⁹⁹⁷ to the third verse, as Medinan⁹⁹⁸ — indeed [it should run] to verse 24, six verses, by their coherence. But there is no chain for it, and it is far-fetched, against the mass-transmitted report that it descended concerning three believers — Ḥamza, ʿUbayda ibn al-Ḥārith, and ʿAlī (ʿa) — who dueled ʿUtba, Shayba, and al-Walīd; ʿAlī (ʿa) saying, “I am the first to kneel in this dispute before Allāh on the Day of Resurrection.”⁹⁹⁹ So it descended after Badr, or at Badr.¹⁰⁰⁰

And “We did not send before you any apostle or prophet but that, when he recited, Satan interjected [something] in his recitation… the punishment of a barren day” (22:52–55)¹⁰⁰¹ which Qatāda called Meccan,¹⁰⁰² descending [they said] concerning the story of the gharānīq.¹⁰⁰³ But we have discredited the gharānīq ḥadīth as a fabrication of the heretics to disparage the Qurʾān and Muḥammad’s (ṣ) message.¹⁰⁰⁴ The verse alludes to the innovations that befall the prophets’ laws at the corrupters’ hands, while God preserves His religion through godly scholars in every age who repel them¹⁰⁰⁵ — those innovations a trial for the sick of heart. The Amīrī muṣḥaf’s “between Mecca and Medina” rests on no reasonable or transmitted cause.

8. Sūrat Muḥammad (ṣ) (Medinan). Excepted: “And how many a town, mightier in power than your town which expelled you, We destroyed, and they had no helper” (47:13)¹⁰⁰⁶ which al-Sakhāwī said descended when the Prophet (ṣ), migrating, looked back at Mecca and wept, as a consolation.¹⁰⁰⁷ But the verse is firmly coherent with its neighbours, leaving no room for disjunction — so either all is Meccan or all Medinan; and since the sūra is a violent rebuke of the polytheists in preparation for fighting, it is Medinan, and this verse of the same pattern.

9. Sūrat al-Ḥujurāt (Medinan). Ibn ʿAbbās is credited with excepting “O mankind! Indeed We created you from a male and a female…” (49:13)¹⁰⁰⁸ perhaps because the address to “mankind” was thought a mark of Meccan descent; but we have shown this is no proof — witness “O mankind! Worship your Lord” (2:21)¹⁰⁰⁹ in al-Baqara.

10. Sūrat al-Raḥmān (Medinan). Excepted: “Everyone in the heavens and the earth asks Him…” (55:29)¹⁰¹⁰ with no known cause for so strange an exception.

11. Sūrat al-Mujādala (Medinan). Excepted: “There is no secret talk among three but He is their fourth…” (58:7)¹⁰¹¹ the cause likewise unknown.

12. Sūrat al-Taḥrīm (Medinan). Qatāda held it Medinan to the tenth verse, the rest Meccan;¹⁰¹² but the last two verses complete the parable struck as counsel to the wives who had presumed against the Prophet (ṣ), and detached would keep no fitting place.

13. Sūrat al-Insān (Medinan). Excepted: “So submit patiently to the judgement of your Lord…” (76:24)¹⁰¹³ said to concern Abū Jahl;¹⁰¹⁴ but it branches off from what precedes and cannot be detached, and the command to patience against the obstinate is a mark of all the prophets’ struggle — hence said to be general, for every rebel, transgressor, and disbeliever.¹⁰¹⁵ Other Medinan sūras carry stranger exceptions we have set aside; in what has passed is proof enough that these exceptions, Meccan or Medinan, have no weight, resting all on conjecture or weak transmission. And with that we fold up the record of this discussion — praise be to Allāh, first and last.

The Occasions of Descent (Asbāb al-Nuzūl)

Knowledge of the Occasions of Descent

Since the Qurʾān descends piecemeal, in intervals separated one from another, and for various occasions that called for a verse or verses to treat their matter, the scholars agreed to name those occasions the “occasions of descent” (asbāb al-nuzūl) or the “circumstance of descent” (shaʾn al-nuzūl) — with a difference between the two — a noble science, yet at the same time a weighty one, touching the revelation in the core of its meaning and guiding the exegete who seeks direction and the jurist who seeks to derive rulings to the right path. Exhausting the discussion requires looking into several questions: the value of this knowledge in jurisprudence and exegesis; how one is guided to it; the difference between “occasion” and “circumstance,” between revelation (tanzīl) and interpretation (taʾwīl), and between a verse’s outward and inner sense; the meaning of “the verse descended concerning such-and-such”; whether the first transmitter of the occasion must have witnessed the event; that the lesson lies in the generality of the wording, not the specificity of the occasion; that the Qurʾān descended by the manner of “I mean you, but hear, O neighbour,” and runs as the sun and moon run; and how one is guided to the landmarks of the Qurʾān — and the like of these general and comprehensive inquiries.

The Value of This Knowledge

The circumstance of descent has a weighty role in understanding the meanings of the noble Qurʾān and resolving the knots of exegesis in both the fundamentals and the derivatives; it lifts the veil from many verses that descended to treat a problem in their time yet bear a general aspect that treats the problems of the Umma throughout life, and knowing the first event that called for a verse’s descent is among the best means of uncovering its ambiguity. Al-Wāḥidī [said]: the interpretation of a verse cannot be known without ascertaining its story and its occasion; al-Suyūṭī counted among the benefits of this knowledge the ascertaining of the meaning and the removal of difficulty from the verse’s face,¹⁰¹⁶ and al-Qushayrī [said] it is a strong path to understanding the meanings of the mighty Book.¹⁰¹⁷ An instance is His words: “Indeed Ṣafā and Marwa are among the sacraments of Allāh; so whoever makes ḥajj to the House, or performs ʿumra, there is no sin upon him to circumambulate them…” (2:158)¹⁰¹⁸ whose “no sin” troubled some exegetes, since it lifts blame rather than imposes obligation — seeming to make the saʿy between Ṣafā and Marwa merely permitted, not obligatory, though it is [obligatory] by consensus.

But once the occasion is known, no room remains for the difficulty. The rites of ḥajj and ʿumra were known from the Jāhiliyya, but the Arabs had defiled them with innovations: they set upon Ṣafā an idol in the form of a man called “Asāf,” and upon Marwa another in the form of a woman called “Nāʾila” — alleged to have fornicated in the Kaʿba and been turned to stone — [which] they later worshipped in ignorance and stroked for blessing when they passed between the two. When Islam came and the idols were broken, the Muslims scrupled at the saʿy between them, supposing it a Jāhilī innovation done to draw near the idols; so the verse descended to lift this doubt from their minds.¹⁰¹⁹ Al-Ṣādiq (ʿa) [confirmed] that the Muslims thought Ṣafā and Marwa a Jāhilī innovation, so it descended;¹⁰²⁰ and it is also related that this was during the ʿUmrat al-Qaḍāʾ, when a companion, delayed until the idols had been restored, refrained from the saʿy out of scruple.¹⁰²¹

Another instance is His words: “There is no sin upon those who have faith and do righteous deeds concerning what they have eaten [in the past], so long as they are Godwary and faithful… and Allāh loves the virtuous” (5:93)¹⁰²² A claimant might read it as licensing wine for one whose faith is strong and whose works are sound, holding that a little intoxicant will not harm him — as ʿAmr ibn Maʿdīkarib is said to have claimed,¹⁰²³ or, as [also] said, Qudāma ibn Maẓʿūn.¹⁰²⁴

[The verse of wine] descended concerning one from whom this abomination had passed, who then repented, believed, and did righteous deeds — so Allāh pardoned what was past. Another instance: “And it is not piety to come to houses from their backs, but piety is [that of] one who is Godwary; so come to houses from their doors…” (2:189)¹⁰²⁵ whose link to its opening — “They ask you concerning the new moons; say, ‘They are timekeeping [signs] for the people and for the ḥajj’” — and whose disapproval of a seemingly strange practice were obscure, until the occasion clarifies them: the Ḥums — six Arab tribes — when in iḥrām, would not enter a house by its door but bored a hole in the rear to enter and exit.¹⁰²⁶

Another: “Indeed the nasīʾ is [but] an increase in unbelief, whereby the faithless are led astray; they allow it one year and forbid it another…” (9:37)¹⁰²⁷ The Arabs held the four sacred months sacred, in continuation of Abraham’s (ʿa) creed; but finding three months without raiding hard — or war underway as a sacred month began — they would postpone (yansaʾūn) the month, that they might continue plunder and bloodshed, and would shift the ḥajj to keep it in spring. So when the Prophet (ṣ) made the [Farewell] ḥajj in its proper time, he declared in his sermon that “time has come full circle to its form on the day Allāh created the heavens and the earth” — the sacred months returned to their places, the ḥajj to Dhū l-Ḥijja, and the nasīʾ was annulled.¹⁰²⁸

The Path to Knowing the Occasions of Descent

For knowing the sound among the occasions there are well-known methods — authenticating the chain, or the wide spread or mass-transmission of a report — yielding certainty of the event. But there is a subtler means, more fitting for consideration and more consistent with the canons of history: that the transmitted occasion so completely lift the verse’s ambiguity and resolve its interpretation that — provided it contradicts no necessity of religion nor the intuition of sound reason — it stands as its own truthful witness to soundness, whatever the chain. Yet the predominant character of these reports is weakness, [transmitter-]anonymity, and broken chains, over and above fabrication and forgery. Al-Zarkashī warned that one must beware the weak and the fabricated in it, for it is much; and al-Maymūnī heard Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal say that three things have no [reliable] foundation — the maghāzī, the malāḥim, and the tafsīr — meaning that the predominant case is their lacking sound, connected chains.¹⁰²⁹

Al-Suyūṭī [held] that what is sound of it is very little, the connected-chain marfūʿ being of the utmost scarcity — he listed fewer than three hundred marfūʿ ḥadīths, between weak, infirm, and gravely defective, the rest mursal with no authority.¹⁰³⁰ The blame returns upon the salaf’s laxity in recording events, so our reliable stock today is exceedingly slight. Al-Wāḥidī set out to gather the stray reports and could not guard against the weak and anonymous: he often relates from Ibn ʿAbbās by the route of al-Kalbī from Abū Ṣāliḥ — which al-Suyūṭī called the flimsiest route of tafsīr, and, joined to Muḥammad ibn Marwān al-Suddī al-Ṣaghīr, the “chain of lying,” from which al-Thaʿlabī and al-Wāḥidī often draw.¹⁰³¹

Thus on “When they meet the faithful, they say, ‘We believe’…” (2:14)¹⁰³² al-Wāḥidī and al-Thaʿlabī reported, by al-Suddī from al-Kalbī from Abū Ṣāliḥ from Ibn ʿAbbās, that it concerned ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ubayy — a chain al-Suyūṭī judged exceedingly feeble, al-Suddī al-Ṣaghīr a liar, al-Kalbī likewise, Abū Ṣāliḥ weak.¹⁰³³ And on “Indeed Allāh is not ashamed to draw a parable [of] whatever…” (2:26)¹⁰³⁴ al-Wāḥidī’s route through ʿAbd al-Ghanī ibn Saʿīd is exceedingly feeble;¹⁰³⁵ the printed edition even carries a corruption, giving “ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Saʿīd,” a man unknown to the biographies.¹⁰³⁶

This same al-Suyūṭī, resentful of al-Wāḥidī’s mursal and anonymous reports, himself fell into objectionable ones in his Lubāb al-nuqūl. On “To Allāh belong the east and the west; so whichever way you turn, there is the face of Allāh…” (2:115)¹⁰³⁷ — which refuted the Jews over the changing of the qibla — he judged the strong-chained reports reliable,¹⁰³⁸ yet also relayed weak ones, such as [that] from Ashʿath al-Sammān,¹⁰³⁹ whom he himself deems weak,¹⁰⁴⁰ and whom al-Dhahabī counts among the weak, abandoned by al-Dāraquṭnī.¹⁰⁴¹ And on “And if you retaliate, retaliate with the like of what you were made to suffer… Indeed Allāh is with those who are Godwary and those who are virtuous” (16:126–128)¹⁰⁴² he relayed, via al-Bayhaqī from Abū Hurayra, that the Prophet (ṣ) vowed over Ḥamza’s mutilated body at Uḥud to mutilate seventy in return, whereupon Gabriel descended with the verses¹⁰⁴³ — though al-Naḥl is Meccan, all before the Hijra.

Sensing the feebleness, al-Suyūṭī resorted to positing the verses’ descent three times — before the Hijra, at Uḥud, then at the Conquest.¹⁰⁴⁴ What muddies the clay further is that such oddities fill even al-Bukhārī and Muslim, called the soundest of books, yet full of myths ill-fitting the sanctity of Islam — as we saw with the gharānīq and the Ibn Nawfal story. Another specimen: al-Suyūṭī relays, via an unidentified chain from Ḥafṣ ibn Maysara’s mother from her mother Khawla, that a puppy crept under the Prophet’s (ṣ) bed and died, so revelation ceased four days until Khawla swept it out, whereupon “By the morning brightness… and you will be well-pleased” (93:1–5)¹⁰⁴⁵ descended. Ibn Ḥajar [conceded] the puppy story is well-known, but its being the verse’s occasion far-fetched — indeed anomalous and rejected.¹⁰⁴⁶ I say: the alleged story is Medinan, the sūra Meccan without dispute — but the liar is betrayed by his memory!

The two Shaykhs report from Ibn al-Musayyab that at Abū Ṭālib’s death the Prophet (ṣ) urged him to the testimony while Abū Jahl and Ibn Abī Umayya pressed the creed of ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, whereupon “It is not for the Prophet and the faithful to plead forgiveness for the polytheists, even if they be relatives, after it has become clear to them that they are the inhabitants of hell” (9:113)¹⁰⁴⁷ descended. This is refuted — indeed a fabrication — for Abū Ṭālib died three years before the Hijra, a strong support of the Prophet (ṣ), whereas Barāʾa descended in the ninth year, twelve years after his death; the proofs of his faith we have set out elsewhere, and none holds his disbelief but those bearing the rancour of Badr and Ḥunayn. Al-Suyūṭī again posited a double descent.¹⁰⁴⁸ Al-Bukhārī [also] reports from ʿUmar that when ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ubayy died, his son sought the Prophet’s (ṣ) shirt as a shroud and his prayer over him; ʿUmar seized his garment — “will you pray over him when your Lord forbade it?” — and the Prophet answered that he was [merely] given a choice: “Whether you plead forgiveness for them or do not plead forgiveness for them; [even] if you plead forgiveness for them seventy times, Allāh will never forgive them…” (9:80)¹⁰⁴⁹ “and I will add beyond the seventy.”

“He is a hypocrite,” [said ʿUmar]; yet the Prophet (ṣ) prayed, and then “And never pray over any of them who dies, nor stand at his grave…” (9:84)¹⁰⁵⁰ descended, ʿUmar marvelling afterward at his own boldness.¹⁰⁵¹ I say: “Certainly Iblīs proved his conjecture true about them, so they followed him” (34:20)¹⁰⁵² How do they impute to the Prophet of Islam ignorance of Islam’s rulings — God forbid — to fabricate a virtue for Ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, though it lower the Apostle’s (ṣ) sanctity? The Prophet (ṣ) is infallible, his every act, word, and tacit approval a sunna to follow; none may oppose, command, or forbid him in the Law, against “There is certainly a good exemplar for you in the Apostle of Allāh…” (33:21)¹⁰⁵³ Hence the masters of criticism denied this report as a transmitter’s error, since it has ʿUmar exercising ijtihād against an explicit text;¹⁰⁵⁴ Ibn Ḥajar tried to authenticate it, but only muddied the clay further — “others said ʿUmar knew of a specific prohibition,” or, per al-Qurṭubī, it was an inspiration, or understood from the ban on seeking forgiveness — and “al-Qurṭubī’s view,” says Ibn Ḥajar, “is closer, since no ban on praying over the hypocrites had yet preceded.”

But al-Qurṭubī’s view collapses, for the report itself has ʿUmar cite the ban only at its end — “so Allāh sent down, ‘Never pray over any of them who dies’” — placing it after, not before; and how could ʿUmar know that praying over a hypocrite was forbidden when no verse forbidding it had yet come, as Ibn Ḥajar himself grants? Would ʿUmar be inspired with what the very conveyer of the Law did not know?

Ibn Ḥajar’s second attempt only deepens the feebleness: he relays from Ibn Mardawayh that ʿUmar objected, “will you pray over him when Allāh forbade it?” and the Prophet (ṣ) asked, “where?” — [ʿUmar citing] “Ask forgiveness for them, or do not.” So, Ibn Ḥajar says, ʿUmar grasped that the Arabic “or” here conveys not a choice but an equivalence in the withholding of forgiveness; that “seventy times” is mere hyperbole, its number without literal import, meaning forgiveness is denied however much one asks — whence the ban on seeking forgiveness, and, since the prayer’s chief aim is to seek forgiveness and intercede, the ban on the prayer itself; and for all this ʿUmar disapproved of the Prophet’s (ṣ) intent — “this,” says Ibn Ḥajar, “is the justification of what issued from ʿUmar, with his known firmness in religion.”¹⁰⁵⁵

O the wonder at Ibn Ḥajar’s mind — conceiving ʿUmar a giant in the matters of religion and the subtleties of the language, in what one like the Apostle of Allāh (ṣ), the conveyer of the Law and the most eloquent of those who spoke the [tongue of the] ḍād, was [supposedly] heedless of! — [ʿUmar,] who did not distinguish the abb from the qatt,¹⁰⁵⁶ and was ignorant of much of the [prophetic] manners and practices;¹⁰⁵⁷ this is but a delusion born of a blind bigotry, from which may God protect us. And after this: once you know the [poor] worth of what is firmly attributed of the occasion-reports even in the most important ḥadīth books, then how much less the discontinuous, the mursal, and the anonymous — so that the word of Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal proves true, that three things have no reliable foundation: the maghāzī, the malāḥim, and the tafsīr.

Take al-Suyūṭī’s own handling of “so whichever way you turn, there is the face of Allāh” (2:115)¹⁰⁵⁸ for which he adduces five different occasions: the change of the qibla and the Jews’ doubt over it (from Ibn ʿAbbās); praying wherever one’s mount turns on a journey (from Ibn ʿUmar); praying, on a dark night, each man as he faced, not knowing where the qibla lay (from ʿĀmir ibn Rabīʿa and Jābir); the questioners’ “toward where?” when “Call Me, and I will answer you” (40:60)¹⁰⁵⁹ came (from Mujāhid); and the Prophet’s (ṣ) summons to pray over a departed “brother” [the Negus] who had not prayed toward the qibla (from Qatāda). Al-Suyūṭī then ranks them: the last is weakest, for its grave defect [iʿḍāl]; then the one before it, being mursal; then the third, for the weakness of its transmitters; the second is sound, yet says only “it was sent down concerning such-and-such” without naming the occasion; and the first is sound in chain and explicit as to the occasion — so it alone is the [report] relied upon.¹⁰⁶⁰

Sabab al-Nuzūl or Shaʼn al-Nuzūl

What is the difference between saying “the occasion of descent [sabab al-nuzūl]” and “the circumstance of descent [shaʼn al-nuzūl]”? If there is a present problem — an event whose matter was made ambiguous, a question whose right aspect was hidden, or an incident whose way out was lost — and a verse descends to treat it and set a solution to it, that is the “occasions of descent”: the calling cause and the necessitating reason (ʿilla) for a portion of Qurʾān descending concerning it.

This is more specific than “the circumstance of descent,” for the “circumstance” is broader in application, by their convention: it means the matter concerning which the Qurʾān descended — a verse or a sūra — to treat by exposition and explanation, or by way of admonition where heed is warranted, as in most of the stories of the ancients and the reports of bygone nations, or the situations of prophets and saints that had been distorted and had nearly touched their dignity — so the Qurʾān descended to set forth the sound account of their state and purify the holy precinct of God’s noble friends. Accordingly, the “occasion” is a present problem arising from an incidental event, while the “circumstance” is the problem of an actual matter, present or bygone — a matter of convention, not worth quarrelling over.

And their saying “it descended concerning such-and-such” is broader still: sometimes the incidental occasion is meant, sometimes the circumstance of a past matter, sometimes the statement of a permanent Sharʿī ruling. Al-Zarkashī observed that it is known from the practice of the Companions and Successors that when one of them said “this verse descended concerning such-and-such,” he meant that the verse comprises that ruling, not that this was the actual occasion of its descent.¹⁰⁶¹

Al-Suyūṭī, however, restricted the “occasions” to the first type and refused that the exposition of a bygone story be an occasion for a sūra’s or verse’s descent; hence he faulted al-Wāḥidī for saying “Sūrat al-Fīl descended concerning the story of the Men of the Elephant who came to demolish the Kaʿba.”¹⁰⁶² What is [rightly] settled, said al-Suyūṭī, is that the occasion is what the verse descended amid the days of its occurrence — excluding al-Wāḥidī’s al-Fīl case, which is no occasion of descent at all but a reporting of past events, like the story of Noah’s people, ʿĀd, Thamūd, and the building of the House.¹⁰⁶³ (Though al-Wāḥidī did not even say “occasion”; he merely said it descended concerning that story.)

There is no ground for al-Suyūṭī’s constraining the term upon himself and others, once the convention held that the “occasioners of descent [dawāʿī al-nuzūl]” are the circumstances necessitating a portion of Qurʾān — whether a present event, a disagreement in a subsidiary legal or doctrinal question, or a bygone story bearing a lesson or a locus of dispute, which God willed to set right, refine, and purify in respect of the sanctity of His noble friends.

al-Tanzīl and al-Taʼwīl

Al-Fuḍayl ibn Yasār asked Imam al-Bāqir (ʿa) about the well-known ḥadīth, “there is no verse in the Qurʾān but that it has a back [ẓahr] and a belly [baṭn].” He (ʿa) answered: its back is its revelation (tanzīl) and its belly its interpretation (taʼwīl); of it is what has passed and of it is what has not yet come to be — it runs as the sun and the moon run.¹⁰⁶⁴ And: the back of the Qurʾān is those concerning whom it descended, and its belly those who do the like of their deeds.¹⁰⁶⁵

That is: a verse has an aspect bound to the particular event that called forth its descent, and another, general aspect by which it becomes a universal constitution the Muslims apply perpetually; as it treated a present problem by its particular aspect, so it will treat the Umma’s problems, across the ages, by its general aspect. Imam al-Bāqir (ʿa) said: were a verse, having descended concerning a people, to die with the death of that people, nothing of the Qurʾān would remain; but the Qurʾān runs, its first upon its last, as long as the heavens and the earth endure — and for every people who recite it there is in it something of good or ill.¹⁰⁶⁶

Indeed the wisdom in a verse’s or a sūra’s descent is not confined to treating present problems, nor a passing remedy for a passing ailment whose benefit lapses when conditions change; rather the Qurʾān, in all its verses and sūras, descended as a remedy for an entire Umma’s problems, across the length and breadth of time. To this the Imams (ʿa) pointed with the saying, the Qurʾān descended by the principle, “I mean you, O daughter, but hear, O neighbour.”¹⁰⁶⁷ This general aspect is the verse’s greater law, lying hidden behind the particular; it casts its light upon the horizons from behind the outward veil, its rays sent forth from the belly hidden behind the back.

So the Qurʾān has a revelation (tanzīl) — those concerning whom it descended — and an interpretation (taʼwīl) — those who do the like of their deeds — its back and its belly; and to stand upon the interpretation and grasp the bellies of the verses belongs only to those firmly rooted in knowledge (al-rāsikhūn fī l-ʿilm), who held fast to the path, so their Lord gave them abundant water to drink.¹⁰⁶⁸

Hence Imam al-Bāqir (ʿa), having recited the verse, said, “we know it” — meaning the interpretation;¹⁰⁶⁹ and in another narration, “the Imams know it.”¹⁰⁷⁰ Take “To Allāh belong the east and the west; so whichever way you turn, there is the face of Allāh. Indeed Allāh is all-bounteous, all-knowing” (2:115)¹⁰⁷¹ a specimen of the two-aspect verses — a revelation and an interpretation, a back and a belly — whose hidden general secret is known only to the possessors of insight in religion, the infallible Imams (ʿa).

Outwardly this verse seems to conflict with those obliging one to face the direction of the Sacred Mosque in prayer;¹⁰⁷² but noting the occasion — that it rebutted the Jews’ cavil and lifted their doubt over the qibla’s change — shows there is no conflict, and the ambiguity is lifted: facing the qibla in prayer is a purely conventional matter, contingent on the Lawgiver’s regard for the interests He sees fit as conditions vary, and the face of God is not confined to the corner of the holy precinct or the honoured Kaʿba. Thereby the verse’s problem dissolves — and it is no license to face just any direction.

The Imams (ʿa) drew a further matter from the verse’s belly — its continuing interpretation — namely, the permissibility of praying the supererogatory (nawāfil) toward wherever one’s mount has turned, or when the qibla is uncertain, so one may pray toward whichever direction one wishes; thus run the explicit narrations from the Imams of the House (ʿa).¹⁰⁷³

Our master al-Ṭabāṭbāʾī observed that, perusing the Imams’ words on the Qurʾān’s general and particular, absolute and restricted, one often finds a ruling drawn from a verse’s general import and another from its particular — “recommendedness” from the general aspect, “obligation” from the particular, and likewise “prohibition” and “reprehensibility” — and that by this measure one finds keys to many locked passages, found only in the Imams’ words. From the core of those words he drew two fundamental rules. The first: every expression of a single verse, by itself, yields a meaning and casts light on a ruling; then, joined to the expression after it, a further ruling; and with a third, a third — and so on. For instance, “Say, “Allāh,” then leave them to play in their impious gossip” (6:91)¹⁰⁷⁴ “Say, Allāh” is a complete utterance; and so, in turn, are “then leave them,” “in their wading,” and “playing” — each complete in its benefit. The second rule: two stories or two meanings sharing a common phrase both revert to a single referent. “These,” he said, “are two secrets, beneath which lie further secrets; and God is the Guide.”¹⁰⁷⁵

So too “The places of worship belong to Allāh, so do not invoke anyone along with Allāh” (72:18)¹⁰⁷⁶ — said to have descended when the jinn sought the Prophet’s (ṣ) leave to attend his mosque, a hardship for them scattered across the tracts of the earth, so it came [to teach] that every spot of earth is a mosque for God in which worship is permitted, sincerity of worship being obligatory in whatever place one is.¹⁰⁷⁷

“The mosques” was also read as the verbal noun — that acts of worship in their entirety belong to God alone, prostration to any other being forbidden (from al-Ḥasan); and a number of exegetes — Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, al-Zajjāj, al-Farrāʾ — took “the mosques” as the seven [bodily] places of prostration, which belong to God as their Creator, so one ought not prostrate with them to any but Him.¹⁰⁷⁸ By this last sense Imam al-Jawād (ʿa) answered al-Muʿtaṣim’s question on the verse — they are the seven limbs upon which one prostrates.¹⁰⁷⁹ The occasion was a thief brought to al-Muʿtaṣim’s assembly, the jurists present disputing where the hand should be cut; the Imam (ʿa) held it should be cut at the knuckles of the fingers, and when asked why, answered that the palm is one of the seven places of prostration, and “the mosques belong to God,” so it is not to be cut¹⁰⁸⁰ — deducing, by this marvellous method, from the Qurʾān’s very wording a decisive, everlasting solution to the jurists’ problem.

This belongs to the belly of the Qurʾān and its interpretation, running with every age, known to the Imams — the Imam of each age according to that age’s need. Imam al-Ṣādiq (ʿa) said: the Qurʾān has an interpretation; of it is what has come and of it what has not yet come, and when the interpretation falls in the time of an Imam, the Imam of that time knows it.¹⁰⁸¹ Al-Bāqir (ʿa) said: none can claim to possess the whole of the Qurʾān, its outward and its inward, save the legatees (awṣiyāʾ).¹⁰⁸² And al-Ṣādiq (ʿa): by God, I know the Book of God from its first to its last as though it were in my palm; in it is the tiding of the heaven and the tiding of the earth, the tiding of what was and of what is to be — for in it is “a clarification of all things.”¹⁰⁸³

Must the Transmitter of the Occasion Have Been Present?

Al-Wāḥidī held that one may not speak of the occasions of descent except by sound narration and hearing (samāʿ), from those who witnessed the revelation, apprehended the occasions, and inquired into the knowledge of them.¹⁰⁸⁴

This condition is only to secure confidence that what is transmitted is an account of a witnessed perception, not personal ijtihād or conjecture about the unseen. Hence whomever we know to be truthful in speech, trustworthy in report, wary and alert, shunning surmise and guesswork, reporting only from knowledge and narrating only from certainty — the like of him is believed even if absent from the scene; and so we rely on the statements of the best of the Companions even without an explicit claim of presence, and likewise the reports of the Successors who followed them well, and of the truthful leading scholars after them.

For the very same reason we rely on the statements of our infallible Imams concerning the Qurʾān’s exegesis, its revelation and its interpretation, for they are the most knowledgeable of creatures in the Qurʾān’s sciences, its outward and its inward — save that what matters is establishing the soundness of the chain to them, or the mass-transmission (tawātur) of the report; and how little of that there is.

The Lesson Is in the Generality of the Wording, Not the Particularity of the Occasion

This is an uṣūlī rule applied throughout the rulings of the sacred Law: what issues from the sources of revelation and the Message concerning God’s rulings and the servants’ obligations does not bear upon one occasion to the exclusion of another, for the Law came not for a single case but as a legislation for all. Hence the jurists are summoned to discard the particularities of the occasions and take the generality of the ruling — whether verbal (lafẓī) or contextual (maqāmī), by the convention. This holds for all the Law’s rulings, sunna and Book, though in the Book the more emphatic; and you have already seen the narrations’ explicit word on this generality in the verses of the Qurʾān. So for every ruling and obligation that comes in the noble verses, the jurists look only to its general aspect and heed not the particularity of the occasion at all.

Yes — some addresses directed to known groups are issued in the manner of the “external particular case” (al-qaḍiyya al-khārijiyya),¹⁰⁸⁵ which does not generalize by its wording even if its referent be general, once that is established. Thus “Those to whom the people said, “the people have gathered against you, so fear them” — but it [only] increased them in faith, and they said, “Allāh is sufficient for us, and He is an excellent trustee”” (3:173)¹⁰⁸⁶ the “people” who gathered are the companions of Abū Sufyān, and “those to whom the people said” are known persons — the sincere believers who, after the grievous wound of Uḥud, held firm and resolved to confront the foe when the Prophet (ṣ) called them forth to strike terror into the polytheists, at their forefront Amīr al-Muʾminīn (ʿa).¹⁰⁸⁷ Yet the sum of the event teaches steadfastness in faith, and that we fear neither enemy nor the massing of people against the truth so long as God is our helper and guarantor.

Likewise “As for the faithless, it is the same to them whether you warn them or do not warn them, they will not have faith. Allāh has set a seal on their hearts and their hearing, and there is a blindfold on their sight…” (2:6–7)¹⁰⁸⁸ this means only those who disbelieved in his (ṣ) time and persisted in wrangling after the truth had shone forth — not the disbelievers of all time — a consolation, lest the Prophet’s (ṣ) soul waste away in regret over them. Al-Ṭabāṭbāʾī held it likely that the intended are the obstinate chiefs of Quraysh and notables of Mecca; for the expression cannot be run out to every disbeliever, else the door of guidance would be shut. The likelier view, then, is that “those who disbelieved” — here and elsewhere in God’s speech — are the disbelievers of Mecca at the mission’s dawn, unless a contextual indicator shows otherwise; just as “those who believed,” used absolutely without such an indicator, are the first foremost of the believers, singled out for that address as an honour.¹⁰⁸⁹

And so he (ʿa) said, interpreting Sūrat al-Kāfirūn, that these are a known people, not every disbeliever — as shown by the Prophet’s (ṣ) being commanded to address them with his disavowal of their religion and theirs of his.¹⁰⁹⁰ Thereby the problem of many verses cast in this idiom dissolves; yet the ruling extends to whoever resembles those people in obstinacy and wrangling against the truth after its clarity.

The Qurʾān Descended by [the Principle], “I Mean You but Hear, O Neighbour”

Al-ʿAyyāshī related by his chain, from Imam al-Ṣādiq (ʿa) through ʿAbd Allāh ibn Bukayr, that the Qurʾān descended by [the principle], “I mean you, O daughter, but hear, O neighbour.”¹⁰⁹¹ This is a proverb for one who addresses one person, or speaks of one matter, while intending another, by way of allusion (kināya) or oblique reference (taʿrīḍ).

He also related, from Ibn Abī ʿUmayr, from one who told him, from al-Ṣādiq (ʿa): God never reproached His Prophet in the Qurʾān but that He meant thereby another who had passed — as in “Had We not fortified you, you might have inclined toward them slightly” (17:74)¹⁰⁹² He meant thereby someone other than him (ṣ).¹⁰⁹³

“Someone who has passed, in the Qurʾān” means one the mention of whom has gone before — by allusion or hint, and sometimes explicitly; and most often the reproach is meant for his (ṣ) Umma, especially the believers of Islam’s dawn, anxious and unsettled in their dealings with the disbelievers. In this sense came the saying, related by Muḥammad ibn Muslim from al-Bāqir (ʿa): O Muḥammad, when you hear God mention any of this Umma with good, it is we; and when you hear Him mention with evil a people who have passed, they are our enemies.¹⁰⁹⁴

For the Qurʾān runs, its first upon its last, as long as the heavens and the earth endure; every people has a verse they recite, with good or ill in it for them.¹⁰⁹⁵ He (ʿa) said: the back of the Qurʾān is those concerning whom it descended, and its belly those who do the like of their deeds.¹⁰⁹⁶

The History of the Qurʾān

The Composition of the Qurʾān

The composition of the Qurʾān in its present form — the arrangement of its verses, the ordering of its sūras, its vowelling, dotting, and division into parts and sections — was not the offspring of a single factor, nor was it completed in the first period of the revelation. Epochs and phases passed over it, beginning with the era of the Message and ending with the unification of the muṣḥafs under ʿUthmān, then the era of al-Khalīl ibn Aḥmad the grammarian, who completed its vowelling in the form now extant.

This is a study akin to an appended historical question about the states that passed over this eternal heavenly Book. Our task now is to study the Qurʾān from the angle of its collection and composition as a muṣḥaf between two covers — the period in which this occurred and the factors at play; so we detail its first era, which did not exceed half a century, then summarize its later epochs. The present inquiry completes in three fundamental stages.

Firstly: the arrangement of the words in their present formulation is the work of the revelation, nothing else — as we have shown¹⁰⁹⁷ — its formulation unaltered by any addition, diminution, or transposition, as our proofs of the Qurʾān’s preservation from distortion set out:¹⁰⁹⁸ “Falsehood cannot approach it, from before it nor from behind it — a [gradual] sending-down from One all-wise, all-laudable” (41:42)¹⁰⁹⁹ Secondly: the arrangement of the verses and their ordering within the sūras, and their particular numbering, occurred in the era of the Message by [divine] authorization (tawqīf) and the Lawgiver’s explicit word, untouched by any hand: “Indeed We have sent down the Reminder, and indeed We will preserve it” (15:9)¹¹⁰⁰ Thirdly: the ordering of the sūras between two covers as a muṣḥaf, as it now is — this remained deferred until after his (ṣ) death, revelation and the descent of new verses and sūras being still awaited while he lived. Here is the detail.

The Arrangement of Its Words

There is no doubt that the factor in arranging the Qurʾān’s words and shaping them into sentences and marvellous structures is the miraculous heavenly revelation; no human hand intervened, nor did any change or distortion befall this verbal arrangement across the ages: “Indeed We have sent down the Reminder, and indeed We will preserve it” (15:9)¹¹⁰¹ for therein lies the secret of that eternal inimitability by which the Qurʾān still challenges all. For further clarity we present the following.

Firstly: to ascribe speech to a particular speaker requires that he be the one who organized its words and composed its expressive style; but if he only selected individual words, and another arranged them into a particular style, the speech is ascribed to the second, not the first. And since the Glorious Qurʾān is the speech of God, the Almighty, the All-laudable, the revelation must be the sole factor organizing its words into sentences and marvellous structures. The individual words themselves, apart from their composition, the Arabs exchanged night and day; the inimitability lies only in their arrangement, which came from the heavenly revelation.

Secondly: the greater part of the Qurʾān’s inimitability lay behind this marvellous arrangement and splendid expressive style — a resonant melodic proportion and a wondrous harmony — and the Qurʾān challenged the eloquent of the Arabs generally, that they could not bring its like, nor bring the like of it “…even were some of them helpers to others” (17:88)¹¹⁰² To allow — impossibly — a human hand in the arrangement would mean nullifying that glaring challenge. Hence what is ascribed to Ibn Masʿūd — that one may substitute “wool” for “carded wool” in the noble verse,¹¹⁰³ or the reading of Abū Bakr, “and the agony of the truth came with death”¹¹⁰⁴ — is either a fabrication or a personal opinion possessing nothing Qurʾānic about it.

Thirdly: the whole Umma has agreed, in every epoch, that the existing arrangement and style in the verses’ sentences and structures is of the revelation’s making, nothing else — a point to which all the Islamic sects held, however they differed in every other subject. So no scholar of belles-lettres or eloquence, faced with a verse contravening a rule he had laid down, hesitated to take the verse as decisive proof against that rule and to reinterpret the rule to accord with the verse — knowing that the arrangement in the verse is revelation into which no error creeps at all; the error lies only in their own understanding and in the rules they deduced. Thus “And We did not send you except as a bearer of good news and a warner to all mankind” (34:28)¹¹⁰⁵ they had alleged that a circumstantial qualifier (ḥāl) cannot precede a preposition-governed noun, yet the verse came against the rule; a wide dispute arose over the rule’s soundness,¹¹⁰⁶ until Ibn Mālik finally discarded it, conceding in verse that though [the grammarians] refused to allow a ḥāl to precede such a noun, he would not forbid it, for it had indeed occurred in usage.

The Arrangement of Its Verses

The composition of the verses within each sūra, in the existing order, was realized in the overwhelming majority of cases according to the order of their descent: a sūra would open with the basmala, and the verses descending thereafter would be recorded one after another, gradually, until another basmala descended, signalling that the [first] sūra had ended and a new one begun. Imam al-Ṣādiq (ʿa) said the ending of a sūra was known by the descent of the basmala beginning another;¹¹⁰⁷ and Ibn ʿAbbās said the Prophet (ṣ) would know the division of a sūra by the descent of the basmala, so he knew the [first] had ended and another begun.¹¹⁰⁸

The revelation’s scribes knew to record the verses within the sūra whose basmala had descended, in the order of descent, without a special declaration for each verse. Thus the sūras’ verses were ordered by their descent in the era of the Great Messenger (ṣ) — what we call “the natural order,” the primary foundational factor for the existing verse-order in the overwhelming majority of cases, save what is anomalous. It is well known that the muṣḥaf of ʿAlī (ʿa) was arranged with complete precision on this natural order of descent, a precision the muṣḥafs of the other Companions fell short of, as we shall note. Jābir related from al-Bāqir (ʿa): when the Qāʾim of the House of Muḥammad (ʿa) rises, he will pitch pavilions for those who teach the people the Qurʾān as God sent it down; and the hardest thing will be for whoever has memorized it as it now stands, for his ordering differs therein in the composition¹¹⁰⁹ — that is, the present composition in the ordering of its sūras and some of its verses.

Another factor operated in arranging a portion of the verses contrary to their descent-order, by the Apostle’s (ṣ) explicit word and designation: he would sometimes command that a verse be fixed in a particular place in an earlier, already-completed sūra, seeing a close correspondence between the descending verse and the earlier ones. This exceptional departure needed a special declaration: Aḥmad related from ʿUthmān ibn Abī l-ʿĀṣ that the Prophet (ṣ), sitting with him, fixed his gaze upward, then lowered it, and said that Gabriel had commanded him to place “Indeed God enjoins justice and kindness and generosity to relatives…” (16:90)¹¹¹⁰ in Sūrat al-Naḥl, among the verses of witnessing and covenant. The last verse to descend, he related, was “And beware of a day in which you will be brought back to God” (2:281)¹¹¹¹ which Gabriel bade him place between the verses of usury and debt in al-Baqara¹¹¹² — Ibn ʿAbbās and al-Suddī holding it the very last of the Qurʾān to descend, Gabriel saying, “place it at the head of the two-hundred-and-eightieth [verse],”¹¹¹³ its correspondence with the usury and debt verses plain, as with the earlier al-Naḥl verse. Ibn ʿAbbās also said that when something descended, the Prophet (ṣ) would call a scribe and say, “place these verses in the sūra where such-and-such is mentioned.”¹¹¹⁴ Abū Jaʿfar ibn al-Zubayr declared this undisputed: the ordering of the verses within their sūras occurred by the Prophet’s (ṣ) authorization and command, without disagreement among the Muslims.¹¹¹⁵

Sometimes a sūra would begin descending and, before it was complete, another would open and be completed first — again by the Prophet’s (ṣ) command and indication. Sūrat al-Baqara, for instance — the first sūra to begin descending at Medina after the Hijra — continued descending for years, past the sixth, so that many of its verses belong to those later periods; among them “Indeed Ṣafā and Marwa are among the sacraments of God; so whoever makes the ḥajj to the House, or performs the ʿumra, there is no sin upon him to circuit between them” (2:158)¹¹¹⁶ which descended when the Muslims felt scruple over the running between Ṣafā and Marwa on account of the idols Asāf and Nāʾila the polytheists had set upon the two hills — so the verse repelled the notion of prohibition, its descent falling after al-Ḥudaybiya, in the ʿUmrat al-Qaḍāʾ¹¹¹⁷ of the sixth year (or perhaps the Prophet (ṣ) commanded its placement here; God knows best). Thus the ḥajj verses descended that same year and were fixed in this very sūra.

We likewise find verses fixed in places that do not accord with their date of descent — whether by the Prophet’s (ṣ) particular command or for some reason unknown to us. In Sūrat al-Mumtaḥana, for example, the opening verses (1–9) descended in the eighth year concerning Ḥāṭib ibn Abī Baltaʿa, who had written to Quraysh warning them of the Prophet’s (ṣ) planned march on Mecca, which he sought to conceal; then follow two verses that descended earlier, in the sixth year, concerning Subayʿa al-Aslamiyya — a Muslim emigrant who had left her disbelieving husband and taken refuge with the Prophet (ṣ) just as al-Ḥudaybiya was concluded, whereby he had covenanted to return to Quraysh whoever came from Mecca; when the husband pressed his claim — “return my wife, as you stipulated for us — the ink of the document is not yet dry!” — the Prophet (ṣ) felt scruple, and the two verses descended. And after these come verses on the women’s oath of allegiance, from the year of the Conquest, the ninth of the Hijra.

As for the sūra’s last verse, it connects completely with the verses of its opening; so, they said, the study of Sūrat al-Mumtaḥana yields a departure from the natural order of the verses, for no known cause.¹¹¹⁸

Of this too is what we find in Sūrat al-Baqara concerning the verses of maintenance and the waiting-period. The first legislation for a widow was that she keep a full year’s waiting, not leaving her husband’s house, her inheritance being only her maintenance for that year — “And those of you who die and leave wives behind [shall make] a bequest for their wives: maintenance for a year, without turning [them] out” (2:240)¹¹¹⁹ then this was abrogated by the waiting-period verse, “…four months and ten [days]” (2:234)¹¹²⁰ of the same sūra, and by the verse of inheritance.¹¹²¹ Imam al-Ṣādiq (ʿa) said the maintenance verse was abrogated by that same waiting-period verse¹¹²² and by the inheritance verse.¹¹²³ Yet the nature of abrogation requires the abrogating verse to be later than the abrogated, whereas here it precedes it by six verses.

Likewise “And beware of a day in which you will be brought back to God…” (2:281)¹¹²⁴ said to be the last verse to descend upon the Apostle of God (ṣ), who lived only days or weeks after it; yet it is fixed in Sūrat al-Baqara — the first sūra to descend at Medina after the Hijra, though some twenty-odd sūras descended after it — Gabriel (ʿa), it is related, having indicated to the Prophet (ṣ) its placement there, as already noted.

The verse of perfection is another: “Today the faithless have despaired of your religion, so do not fear them, but fear Me. Today I have perfected your religion for you, and I have completed My blessing upon you, and I have approved Islam as your religion” (5:3)¹¹²⁵ Ibn ʿAbbās said no obligation descended after it; so too al-Suddī, al-Jubbāʾī, and al-Balkhī,¹¹²⁶ and it is related likewise from the two Imams al-Bāqir and al-Ṣādiq (ʿa).¹¹²⁷ Ibn ʿAsākir and al-Khaṭīb said it descended at Ghadīr Khumm, on the Prophet’s (ṣ) return from the Farewell Pilgrimage, after he had installed ʿAlī (ʿa) in the walāya, Gabriel (ʿa) descending with it; and in al-Suddī’s wording, nothing lawful or unlawful descended after it.¹¹²⁸

Yet it is fixed in Sūrat al-Māʾida as verse 3, though many legal-ruling verses follow it — the permitting of good things and hunting (v. 4), the food of the People of the Book (v. 5), ablution (v. 6), the thief (v. 38), oaths (v. 89), wine (v. 90), the prohibition of hunting (v. 95), the prohibition of what the polytheists deemed lawful (v. 103), and the calling of witnesses over a bequest (v. 107) — all legislative rulings recorded after the verse of perfection though they certainly descended before it. There must, then, be some correspondence warranting the insertion of such a verse among the verses forbidding carrion, blood, and swine’s flesh, even if it escapes us on the surface.

One ought not to neglect the principle of “the authenticity of the context” (aṣālat al-siyāq) in the verses, preserved according to its primary nature: the primary rule is to assume that the existing order is the order of descent, unless the contrary is established by proof — which has been shown only rarely; and because the little that departs from its original place was so placed only by the Prophet’s (ṣ) command and particular guidance, a noted correspondence must underlie it — enough for the wisdom of the context and for judging the existing verse-arrangement to be [divinely] authorized (tawqīfī), no disagreement being permitted. We shall treat this in detail when discussing the context of the verses — their connective thread within each sūra — in the chapter on rhetorical inimitability (al-iʿjāz al-bayānī).¹¹²⁹

The Ordering of the Sūras

As for the collection of the sūras and their ordering into a muṣḥaf composed between two covers, this occurred after the Prophet’s (ṣ) death. The Prophetic era ended while the Qurʾān lay scattered upon palm-stalks and thin white stones,¹¹³⁰ parchment patches and pieces of tanned hide, the bones of shoulder-blades and ribs, some silk and sheets, and in the breasts of men. The sūras were complete in his (ṣ) era, their verses and names ordered, but their gathering between two covers had not yet occurred; for so long as revelation was still awaited, the composition of the sūras into a muṣḥaf could not properly be done until the revelation had ceased — something realized only with the end of the age of prophethood.

Abū al-Ḥusayn ibn Fāris said in “al-Masāʾil al-khams” that the collection of the Qurʾān is of two kinds: one, the composition of the sūras — placing the seven long ones first, followed by those of a hundred-odd verses — which the Companions undertook; the other, the collection of the verses within the sūras, which is [divinely] authorized and which the Prophet (ṣ) undertook.¹¹³¹ Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī said the Qurʾān was written in its entirety in the Apostle’s (ṣ) era, but not gathered in one place, nor were the sūras ordered.¹¹³² And al-ʿAllāma al-Ṭabāṭbāʾī held that it was not composed as a single volume in the Apostle’s (ṣ) era, saying its composition into one muṣḥaf came, without doubt, only after the Prophet (ṣ) was taken; the sūra-order as it now stands was the Companions’ work, by their ijtihād, and he refuted those who alleged authorization in it.¹¹³³

The first to undertake the collection immediately after the Prophet’s (ṣ) death — by a bequest from him (ṣ) — was Imam ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (may God’s blessings be upon him): al-Ṣādiq (ʿa) related that the Apostle (ṣ) had said to ʿAlī (ʿa), O ʿAlī, the Qurʾān is behind my bed, in the sheets, the silk, and the pages; take it and collect it, and do not let it be lost.¹¹³⁴ ʿAlī’s (ʿa) collection followed the order of descent — the Meccan before the Medinan, the abrogated before the abrogating — with indication of the sites and occasions of descent. al-Kalbī said that when the Apostle (ṣ) died, ʿAlī (ʿa) sat in his house and collected it in the order of its descent, and were his muṣḥaf found there would be great knowledge in it;¹¹³⁵ and ʿIkrima said that were mankind and jinn to gather to compose it as ʿAlī (ʿa) composed it, they could not.¹¹³⁶

The other Companions’ collection followed a different order, placing the long sūras before the short: they set the seven long sūras (al-Baqara, Āl ʿImrān, al-Nisāʾ, al-Māʾida, al-Anʿām, al-Aʿrāf, Yūnus) before those of a hundred-odd verses (al-miʾīn: al-Anfāl,¹¹³⁷ Barāʾa, al-Naḥl, Hūd, Yūsuf, al-Kahf, al-Isrāʾ, al-Anbiyāʾ, Ṭāhā, al-Muʾminūn, al-Shuʿarāʾ, al-Ṣāffāt), then the mathānī (those under a hundred verses, some twenty sūras), then the ḥawāmīm (those opening with “ḥā mīm”), then the mufaṣṣalāt (those of short verses, their pauses many) — the last sūras in the Qurʾān; and this comes somewhat close to the order now existing.

Zayd’s collection, however, was not ordered or organized as a final muṣḥaf; the concern at that time was to save the Qurʾān from loss and secure its verses and sūras against the death of those who had memorized them. So it was recorded in sheets, made into a file, and deposited with Abū Bakr for his lifetime, then with ʿUmar until his death, then with his daughter Ḥafṣa — the very copy ʿUthmān later took to collate the muṣḥafs against, then returned to her, and which remained with her until she died, whereupon Marwān, as governor of Medina under Muʿāwiya, seized it from her heirs and had it torn up. All of this we shall detail.

Sifting the Opposing View

What we have presented is the well-known account among the transmitters of historical report and the researchers into the Qurʾān’s affairs, from the first age to our own day — and the historians and biographers nearly all concur in it. Yet some deny that detailed account of the collection and hold that the Qurʾān, in its existing arrangement and order, had already been achieved in the Messenger’s (ṣ) lifetime. A number of the earlier scholars held this — al-Qāḍī Abū Bakr ibn al-Ṭayyib, Abū Bakr ibn al-Anbārī, al-Kirmānī, al-Ṭībī¹¹³⁸ — and ʿAlam al-Hudā al-Sayyid al-Murtaḍā agreed, arguing that the whole Qurʾān was studied and memorized in that time (a group of Companions being designated to memorize it) and was regularly presented to and recited before the Prophet (ṣ).

He further argued that a group of the Companions — ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd, Ubayy ibn Kaʿb, and others — completed the whole Qurʾān before the Prophet (ṣ) in recitation several times over, all of which indicates, on the least reflection, that it was already collected and ordered, neither truncated nor scattered.¹¹³⁹

But the memorization of the Qurʾān means the memorization of all its sūras whose verses were complete, whether or not an order obtained among the sūras; and “sealing” it means reciting all its sūras without regard to any particular order among them. Or memorization meant preserving all the Qurʾān that had so far descended and guarding it against loss — none of which implies the existence of a particular sūra-order such as now obtains.

Our master the teacher Imam al-Khūʾī (may God be pleased with him) likewise inclined to this view, on the following grounds. Firstly, the ḥadīths of the Qurʾān’s collection after the Prophet’s (ṣ) death are themselves contradictory: some fix the collection in Abū Bakr’s era, others in ʿUmar’s, a third in ʿUthmān’s; and some name Zayd ibn Thābit as the first collector, others Abū Bakr, a third ʿUmar. Secondly, they are opposed by ḥadīths indicating the Qurʾān was already collected in his (ṣ) era — al-Shaʿbī’s, naming six collectors (Ubayy, Zayd, Muʿādh ibn Jabal, Abū al-Dardāʾ, Saʿd ibn ʿUbayd, Abū Zayd), and Anas’s, naming four (Ubayy, Muʿādh, Zayd, Abū Zayd). Thirdly, they conflict with the verses of challenge, which imply the completeness and distinctness of the sūras, and with the Prophet’s (ṣ) calling the Qurʾān “the Book,” suggesting a volume gathered between two covers.

Fourthly, the denial contradicts reason’s judgment that the Prophet (ṣ) must have been concerned to collect and secure it against loss and neglect. Fifthly, it contradicts the Muslims’ consensus that the Qurʾānic text is mass-transmitted (mutawātir) from the Prophet (ṣ) himself, whereas some of these narrations have the collectors content with the testimony of two men, or even one. Sixthly, it entails a distortion in the texts of the Mighty Book, since a later collection would invite diminution or addition — contrary to a necessity of the religion.¹¹⁴⁰ Some added that the correspondence between each sūra and those before and after it proves its arrangement to be by the Messenger’s (ṣ) command, since none but he (ṣ) could know a correspondence so creative as to reach inimitability.

But it must be recognized that the collection of the Qurʾān is an event of history,¹¹⁴¹ not a rational question open to abstract dispute; one must consult the documented historical texts, leaving no scope for free speculation. The historians, biographers, and reporters of the nations — and the ḥadīth scholars with them — have already been shown to agree that the ordering of the sūras occurred after the Messenger’s (ṣ) death, not in the order of descent. And, all considered, we see no contradiction among the collection-narrations: ʿUmar advised Abū Bakr to undertake the collection, and Abū Bakr charged Zayd to see to it on his behalf, so ascribing the first collection to any of the three is valid in its own respect. The ascription to ʿUthmān concerns his unification and unified copying of the muṣḥafs; while ascribing that unification to ʿUmar is certainly a transmitter’s confusion, for it was ʿUthmān who did it, by the historians’ consensus.

As for the ḥadīth that six or four Companions “collected” the Qurʾān in his (ṣ) era, its sense is memorization by heart: they had committed to memory all the verses so far descended; it says nothing of an order among the sūras. And the challenge (taḥaddī) was issued with the verses and sūras themselves — each verse or sūra being Qurʾān — never with the existing sūra-order, so no inference can be drawn from it; indeed the challenge occurred in Meccan sūras too,¹¹⁴² and the Qurʾān was certainly not collected before the Hijra.

The Prophet’s (ṣ) concern for the Qurʾān is undeniable; hence he was keen to fix each verse within its sūra as soon as it descended, and the ordering of the verses within each sūra was accomplished in his lifetime. But gathering the sūras between two covers as a unified muṣḥaf was not done then, since Qurʾān was still expected to descend; so long as revelation continued, collecting it as a book was not proper. Only when its cessation became certain with his (ṣ) approaching death did he bequeath its collection to ʿAlī (ʿa).

And the “mass-transmission” (tawātur) of the Qurʾānic text means certainty that it is Qurʾān — attained by the report of a group and the testimony of others, especially the first Companions, to which Zayd held fast in the first collection, as will come; tawātur here is not used in the technical sense of the later scholars.

As for the claim that a late collection entails distortion in the Book of God, that is a bare possibility with no support, given the collectors’ precision, the nearness of their age to the verses’ descent, and the intensity of their caution over the revelation, which leaves no room for any addition or diminution to slip in. And the last argument — the correspondence claim — is no more than empty fancy: there is no essential correspondence between each sūra and the one before or after it beyond what some over-labouring exegetes alleged, a baseless contrivance in the face of the Umma’s consensus that the sūra-order ran, without doubt, contrary to the order of descent; and there has already preceded the ḥadīth of the pavilions pitched to teach the Qurʾān in an order other than the familiar one.¹¹⁴³

It may further appear to some modern researchers that the word “al-muṣḥaf,” occurring in the Prophet’s (ṣ) ḥadīths and upon his tongue, serves as proof that the collection and the mutual arranging of the sūras had occurred in that era — for had there been no recording and collection in the sense that springs to mind, the term could not properly have been used, nor would there be warrant for applying “muṣḥaf” or “maṣāḥif” to the Qurʾān.¹¹⁴⁴

But this citation has no force, for “al-muṣḥaf” was simply a name for a collection of written sheets (ṣaḥāʾif) joined one to another — perhaps bound with a thread, or placed in a file or a case, to guard them from scattering and loss — whether or not any arranging and ordering obtained among them such that “recording” might apply. Ibn Durayd said: al-ṣuḥuf, singular ṣaḥīfa, is the piece of white hide or parchment written upon, its plural ṣaḥāʾif; and al-miṣḥaf, with kasra, is a Tamīmī form, since it is gathered sheets, on the pattern of mifʿal, of what is handled by hand; while the people of Najd say al-muṣḥaf, with ḍamma, in an ʿAlawī form — as though from uṣḥifa, so it is a muṣḥaf when part of it is gathered to another.¹¹⁴⁵

And al-Khalīl said the muṣḥaf was so named because it was uṣḥifa — that is, made a gatherer of the written sheets between the two covers.¹¹⁴⁶

The Qurʾānic sūra would be completed and its verses written, organized and ordered by descent, until another sūra descended with its basmala; each was written on a sheet of papyrus, hide, or parchment and kept by itself — and so with every sūra. Naturally these completed sūras were kept and gathered together in some place, in a chest or a bag or the like, but without being given any order or organization placing the long before the short as they now stand; for the Qurʾān had not yet finished descending, and sūras and verses kept coming down so long as the revelation had not ceased and the Messenger (ṣ) was alive. So the set of sūras descended in each year, and up to any given time, written on sheets, would be kept in a receptacle — and perhaps the Companions had several such sets, each keeping his own at home — and “al-muṣḥaf” could soundly be applied to any of them, in this respect and no other.

By this you see that “al-Qurʾān” and “al-muṣḥaf” are synonymous — the first in respect of the recited wording, the second in respect of the wording written on a sheet; and just as “al-Qurʾān” is applied to little of it or much, without implying any arrangement of its sūras at that time, so too “al-muṣḥaf,” without difference. Hence we find “al-muṣḥaf” substituted for “al-Qurʾān” in the very narrations by which the opponent argued — as he himself acknowledged.¹¹⁴⁷ And this is granting the soundness of ascribing those “muṣḥaf”-narrations to the Prophet (ṣ), rather than their being the transmitter’s own wording, paraphrased by sense according to his later era’s usage — the likelier being that they were transmitted by sense, not by literal text. Our opponents, then, hold no proof to turn us from what we have resolved upon: the detailed account of the collection.

The Collection of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (ʿa)

The first to undertake the collection of the Qurʾān immediately after the Prophet’s (ṣ) death, and by a bequest from him (ṣ), was ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (ʿa);¹¹⁴⁸ he sat in his house, occupied with collecting the Qurʾān and ordering it according to what had descended, adding explanations and interpretations of the ambiguous places of the verses and a detailed exposition of the occasions and sites of descent, until he completed it on this marvellous pattern.

Ibn al-Nadīm reported, with a chain he gives, that ʿAlī (ʿa), perceiving some ill will from the people at the Prophet’s (ṣ) death, swore not to don his cloak until he had collected the Qurʾān; so he sat in his house three days until he had collected it¹¹⁴⁹ — the first muṣḥaf in which the Qurʾān was gathered, drawn from his heart¹¹⁵⁰ — and this muṣḥaf was with the family of Jaʿfar. Ibn al-Nadīm added that in his own time he had seen, with Abū Yaʿlā Ḥamza al-Ḥasanī, a muṣḥaf in ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib’s hand, from which some leaves had fallen, inherited among the Banū Ḥasan.¹¹⁵¹

Aḥmad ibn Fāris related the like, from al-Suddī, from ʿAbd Khayr, from ʿAlī (ʿa).¹¹⁵² And Muḥammad ibn Sīrīn related from ʿIkrima that at the outset of Abū Bakr’s caliphate ʿAlī sat in his house collecting the Qurʾān; Ibn Sīrīn asked ʿIkrima whether it had been composed in the strict order of descent, and ʿIkrima replied that were mankind and jinn to gather to compose it so, they could not. Ibn Sīrīn said he then sought that book and wrote to Medina about it, but could not obtain it.¹¹⁵³

Ibn Juzayy al-Kalbī said that in the Apostle’s (ṣ) era the Qurʾān lay scattered in sheets and in men’s breasts, and when he died ʿAlī collected it in the order of its descent — were his muṣḥaf found, there would be great knowledge in it, but it was not found.¹¹⁵⁴ Imam al-Bāqir (ʿa) said none may claim to have collected the whole Qurʾān as God sent it down but a liar, and none collected and memorized it as God sent it down save ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib.¹¹⁵⁵ al-Shaykh al-Mufīd, in al-Masāʾil al-Sarawiyya, said the Commander of the Faithful (ʿa) collected the Qurʾān as sent down, from beginning to end, composing it as its composition required — the Meccan before the Medinan, the abrogated before the abrogating — putting everything in its place.¹¹⁵⁶

al-ʿAllāma al-Balāghī noted it is well known among the Shīʿa that ʿAlī, after the Apostle’s (ṣ) death, did not don a cloak save for prayer until he had collected the Qurʾān in the order of descent, advancing the abrogated before the abrogating. Ibn Saʿd and Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, in al-Istīʿāb, brought out from Muḥammad ibn Sīrīn that when ʿAlī was slow to pledge allegiance to Abū Bakr and was asked whether he had disliked his authority, ʿAlī answered that he had sworn not to don his cloak save for prayer until he collected the Qurʾān; and it is said he wrote it in the order of its descent — “were I to attain that book,” said Ibn Sīrīn, “there would be knowledge in it.”¹¹⁵⁷ Ibn Ḥajar said it is reported that ʿAlī collected the Qurʾān in the order of descent right after the Prophet’s (ṣ) death, as Ibn Abī Dāwūd brought out.¹¹⁵⁸

Ibn Shahrāshūb observed that a marvel of ʿAlī’s standing in this field is that every science takes him as its exemplar, his word a point of orientation in the Sharīʿa. al-Shīrāzī, in his Nuzūl al-Qurʾān, cited Ibn ʿAbbās that God charged Muḥammad (ṣ) that ʿAlī (ʿa) should collect the Qurʾān after him — so God gathered it in ʿAlī’s heart, and ʿAlī collected it six months after the Apostle’s death. In the reports of Abū Rāfiʿ, the Prophet (ṣ), in his final illness, told ʿAlī, O ʿAlī, this is the Book of God; take it to yourself — so ʿAlī gathered it in a garment, and when the Prophet (ṣ) died he sat and composed it as God had sent it down, being fully versed in it. And Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-ʿAṭṭār and al-Muwaffaq, the preacher of Khwārazm, related in their books, by a chain from ʿAlī ibn Rabāḥ, that the Prophet (ṣ) commanded ʿAlī to compose the Qurʾān, so he composed and wrote it.

Abū Nuʿaym in al-Ḥilya and al-Khaṭīb in al-Arbaʿīn related, from al-Suddī, from ʿAbd Khayr, from ʿAlī (ʿa): when the Apostle (ṣ) died, I swore not to lay my cloak on my back until I had gathered what lay between the two boards; and I did not don my cloak until I had collected the Qurʾān. In the ahl al-bayt reports, he withdrew until he had composed it, then carried it out in a wrapper to the people gathered in the mosque; when they wondered at his coming, he set the book before them and said the Apostle (ṣ) had declared, I leave among you that which, if you hold fast to it, you will never go astray: the Book of God and my ʿitra, the people of my house — “and this is the Book, and I am the ʿitra.” But the Second [ʿUmar] rose and told him, “if you have a Qurʾān with you, we have its like; we have no need of the two of you.” So ʿAlī (ʿa) carried the book away, having made the proof binding upon them; and in a long report from al-Ṣādiq (ʿa) he turned back toward his chamber reciting “So they cast it behind their backs and sold it for a paltry gain; then evil is what they buy” (3:187)¹¹⁵⁹

A Description of ʿAlī’s Muṣḥaf

ʿAlī’s (ʿa) muṣḥaf was distinguished, firstly, by an arrangement laid out in the order of descent — the first, then the next — with surpassing precision; secondly, by the fixing of the Book’s texts as they are, with no alteration or change, no word or verse displaced or dropped; and thirdly, by the fixing of its recitation exactly as the Apostle (ṣ) recited it, letter by letter.

Fourthly, it contained clarifications — in the margin, of course — setting out the occasion that had called for a verse’s descent, the place and hour of its descent, and the persons concerned. And fifthly, it took in the general bearings of the verses, such that they are bound to no single time, place, or person, but run as the sun and moon run — this being the sense of the taʼwīl in his (ʿa) saying, “I have indeed brought them the Book, comprising the tanzīl and the taʼwīl.”¹¹⁶⁰ For the tanzīl is the temporal occasion that prompted a verse’s descent, while the taʼwīl is the statement of its general application.

ʿAlī’s muṣḥaf comprised all these fine points, taken from the Apostle (ṣ) with nothing forgotten or confused. He (ʿa) said: no verse descended upon the Apostle (ṣ) but that he had me recite it and dictated it, and I wrote it in my hand; and he taught me its taʼwīl and tafsīr, its abrogating and abrogated, its clear and its ambiguous, and prayed God to teach me its understanding and retention — so I have never forgotten a verse of God’s Book, nor any knowledge he dictated to me.¹¹⁶¹

al-Aṣbagh ibn Nubāta related that when the Commander of the Faithful (ʿa) came to Kūfa he led the people for forty mornings reciting the sūra “Glorify the Name of your Lord the Most High”; the hypocrites said Ibn Abī Ṭālib did not know how to recite the Qurʾān well, or he would have recited some other sūra. Word reached ʿAlī (ʿa), who said: woe to them! I know its abrogating from its abrogated, its clear from its ambiguous, its letters from its meanings; by God, not a letter came down upon Muḥammad (ṣ) but I know concerning whom it was sent down, on what day, and in what place. Woe to them! do they not recite “This is indeed in the former scriptures, the scriptures of Abraham and Moses” (87:18–19)¹¹⁶² — by God, I hold them both, as their heir, from the Apostle (ṣ). Woe to them! by God, I am the one of whom God sent down “and that receptive ears might remember it” (69:12)¹¹⁶³ for we would be with the Apostle (ṣ) and he would tell us the revelation, and I would retain it, as would any who retains — yet when we left, they would ask, “what did he say just now?”¹¹⁶⁴

al-Yaʿqūbī, however, gives a strange description: he divides the muṣḥaf into seven parts, each of sixteen or fifteen sūras — one hundred and eleven sūras in all — each part reckoned at eight hundred and eighty-six verses, for a total of six thousand two hundred and twelve; the first part he begins with al-Baqara, then Yūsuf, then al-ʿAnkabūt, ending at al-Aʿlā and al-Bayyina, and so on, distributing the long sūras across the seven openings and naming each part for its opening sūra.¹¹⁶⁵ This flatly contradicts the others’ account of a descent-order arrangement: Jalāl al-Dīn [al-Suyūṭī] reported that ʿAlī’s (ʿa) muṣḥaf opened with “Iqraʾ” [al-ʿAlaq], then al-Muddaththir, then “Nūn” [al-Qalam], al-Muzzammil, “Tabbat” [al-Masad], al-Takwīr, and so on to the end, following the order of descent¹¹⁶⁶ — so al-Yaʿqūbī’s description runs against the consensus of the biographers and historians. Stranger still, he split several single sūras into two — “Alif Lām Mīm Tanzīl” and al-Sajda, “Ḥā Mīm” and al-Muʾmin, and others — and called al-Anbiyāʾ “Sūrat Iqtarabat,” though it opens “Mankind’s reckoning has drawn near to them” (21:1); such heedlessness from a reporter like Aḥmad ibn al-Wāḍiḥ is very odd.

The Fate of ʿAlī’s Muṣḥaf

Sulaym ibn Qays al-Hilālī related, from Salmān al-Fārisī (God’s pleasure be upon him), that when the Commander of the Faithful (ʿa) saw the people’s treachery toward him, he kept to his house and gave himself to composing and collecting the Qurʾān, not going out until he had gathered it — on sheets, wooden staves, thin polished tablets, and parchment patches.¹¹⁶⁷

When the people sent asking him to pledge allegiance, he excused himself by his occupation with the collection; they let him be for some days until he had gathered it in a single garment and sealed it, then went out — in al-Yaʿqūbī’s telling, bearing it on a camel¹¹⁶⁸ — to the people gathered around Abū Bakr in the mosque, and said: since the Apostle (ṣ) was taken I have been occupied with his washing and burial, then with the Qurʾān, until I have gathered all of it in this one garment; God sent down no verse upon His Prophet but I have collected it, and there is none but the Apostle (ṣ) had me recite it and taught me its taʼwīl — lest you say tomorrow, “we were heedless of this.”

But a leading man rose — in Abū Dharr’s telling, So-and-so looked into it and saw in it certain things¹¹⁶⁹ — and said: “O ʿAlī, take it back; we have no need of it; what we have of the Qurʾān suffices us.” So ʿAlī (ʿa) went into his house;¹¹⁷⁰ and in another report he said: “by God, you will not see it after this day of yours, ever; it was only my duty to inform you, when I had collected it, that you might read it.”¹¹⁷¹ Ibn al-Nadīm’s statement that ʿAlī’s muṣḥaf was inherited among the Banū al-Ḥasan has already been noted;¹¹⁷² but the correct view, with us, is that his (ʿa) muṣḥaf is inherited by his legatees, the Imams, one after another, who do not show it to anyone.¹¹⁷³

Ṭalḥa later recalled that ʿAlī had brought his muṣḥaf to the people and they had refused it, and pressed him: “what prevents you — may God have mercy on you — from bringing out the Book of God to the people?” ʿAlī (ʿa) at first held back his answer, and when Ṭalḥa repeated the question he said: “O Ṭalḥa, I refrained deliberately. Tell me about what the people wrote [in the ʿUthmānic copy]: is it all Qurʾān, or is there in it what is not Qurʾān?” Ṭalḥa said: “rather, it is all Qurʾān.” ʿAlī (ʿa) said: “if you take what is in it, you will be saved from the Fire and enter the Garden.” Ṭalḥa said: “that suffices me; so long as it is Qurʾān, it suffices me.”¹¹⁷⁴ Thus the Imam and his legatees (ʿa) were keen to preserve the unity of the Umma, that it should not fall into discord once it had come together upon what is, in its entirety, Qurʾān.

The Collection of Zayd ibn Thābit

That harsh rejection of ʿAlī’s (ʿa) muṣḥaf made it necessary to think of undertaking the collection of the Qurʾān whatever the cost, once the people had come to feel the need to gather it in one place — the more so as their Prophet (ṣ) had charged them to collect it lest it be lost, as the Jews had lost their Torah.¹¹⁷⁵

For the Qurʾān is the first reference of Islamic legislation and the firm foundation of the whole edifice of social life in its every domain; it could not properly remain scattered on palm-stalks and thin stones and in men’s breasts — all the more since slaughter had raged among many of its bearers, so that the Qurʾān was in danger of departing with the departure of those who carried it: seventy of them fell at the battle of al-Yamāma, and in another report four hundred.¹¹⁷⁶

The choice fell upon Zayd ibn Thābit — a young man with the pliancy of youth and a prior record of writing down the revelation — as one in whom the conditions for so grave a task were met: he had the requisite competence, and, unlike some of the senior Companions in whom there was a measure of resistance and self-will and less than full deference to the leanings of authority at that time, nothing was feared from him for the young caliphate.

Zayd himself recounted: Abū Bakr sent for me after the slaying at al-Yamāma, with ʿUmar sitting by him, and said: “this man” — pointing to ʿUmar — “came to me and said that the slaughter had raged among the Qurʾān-reciters at al-Yamāma, and he feared it would rage among them in other places too, so that much of the Qurʾān would be lost; and he counselled me to have the Qurʾān collected.” I said to ʿUmar: “how can we do something the Apostle (ṣ) did not do?” He said: “by God, it is good.” And ʿUmar kept returning to me until God opened my breast to it, and I saw what ʿUmar had seen.

Abū Bakr then said to me: “you are an intelligent young man; we hold nothing against you; and you used to write the revelation for the Apostle (ṣ) — so track down the Qurʾān and collect it.” By God, said Zayd, had they charged me with shifting a mountain from its place it would not have weighed on me more heavily than what they charged me with; I said, “how will you two do a thing the Apostle (ṣ) did not do?” — yet Abū Bakr and ʿUmar pressed me until God opened my breast to what He had opened the breasts of Abū Bakr and ʿUmar. So I set about tracking down the Qurʾān, gathering it from palm-stalks, thin stones, and the breasts of men.¹¹⁷⁷

Zayd’s Method

Zayd set about carrying out the plan, collecting the Qurʾān from the palm-stalks, thin stones, pieces of hide, and sheets scattered in the Companions’ hands or held in their breasts, a group assisting him in the work. His first act was to issue a general summons to the people: whoever had received anything of the Qurʾān from the Apostle (ṣ), let him bring it. He formed a committee of twenty-five members — as al-Yaʿqūbī’s report has it¹¹⁷⁸ — over whom ʿUmar personally kept watch.

They gathered daily at the door of the mosque, and the people brought them the verses and sūras of the Qurʾān, each according to what he held. They would accept nothing from anyone until he brought two witnesses to testify to the soundness of what he had — save from Khuzayma ibn Thābit, who brought the two verses at the end of Sūrat Barāʾa, which they accepted from him without a corroborating witness, because the Apostle (ṣ) had reckoned his single testimony as two.¹¹⁷⁹ Zayd said: I found the end of Sūrat Barāʾa with Khuzayma al-Anṣārī alone, and with no one else¹¹⁸⁰ — and we shall return to the name given in the brackets.

A strange thing occurred: ʿUmar brought the so-called verse of stoning and claimed it was of the Qurʾān — the old man and the old woman, when they commit adultery, stone them both outright, as a punishment from God — but it was met with refusal and not accepted from him, since he could not produce two witnesses to it;¹¹⁸¹ the memory of this stayed with him, so that in the days of his caliphate he would say: were it not that people would say ʿUmar has added to the Book of God, I would have written it with my own hand — meaning the verse of stoning.¹¹⁸²

Zayd did not arrange or order the sūras as a muṣḥaf; he collected the Qurʾān into sheets — depositing the verses and sūras in sheets and placing them in a file — as a gathering against dispersal and loss, and hence his collection was not called a muṣḥaf. al-Muḥāsibī said: the Qurʾān lay scattered on parchment patches, shoulder-blades, and palm-stalks, and the Ṣiddīq merely ordered it copied and brought together from place to place; it was as leaves on which the Qurʾān lay dispersed, which a collector gathered and bound with a thread so that nothing of it should be lost.¹¹⁸³

Ibn Ḥajar explained the difference between the “sheets” (ṣuḥuf) of Zayd’s collection and a “muṣḥaf”: the ṣuḥuf were the bare leaves in which the Qurʾān was gathered in Abū Bakr’s era, separate sūras each ordered within itself but not set one after another; only when they were copied out and ordered one after another did the whole become a muṣḥaf.¹¹⁸⁴ Aḥmad Amīn said that in Abū Bakr’s era he ordered the Qurʾān collected, but not into a single muṣḥaf; rather the various sheets bearing its verses and sūras were gathered and the many sheets containing the Qurʾān deposited with Abū Bakr.¹¹⁸⁵ al-Zarqānī noted that in Abū Bakr’s sheets the verses were ordered but not the sūras.¹¹⁸⁶

These sheets were deposited with Abū Bakr and remained with him throughout his life, then passed to ʿUmar, and after him to his daughter Ḥafṣa; in the days of the unification of the muṣḥafs ʿUthmān borrowed them from her to collate the copies, then returned them; and when she died Marwān — then governor of Medina under Muʿāwiya — took them from her heirs and had them torn up.¹¹⁸⁷

al-Bukhārī’s text reads “the end of Sūrat Barāʾa with Abū Khuzayma,” which raises the question who Abū Khuzayma was. al-Qasṭallānī said he is Ibn Aws ibn Yazīd ibn Ḥizām, known by his kunya though his given name is not;¹¹⁸⁸ Ibn Ḥajar thought him possibly al-Ḥārith ibn Khuzayma, as in Abū Dāwūd’s narration.¹¹⁸⁹ The correct view is that “Abū” is an erroneous addition by a transmitter or copyist — it is simply Khuzayma, the proof being that his single testimony was accepted for two, a mark borne by no other Companion;¹¹⁹⁰ thus Badr al-Dīn al-Zarkashī affirmed decisively that it is that same Khuzayma whose one testimony the Apostle (ṣ) had made equal to two,¹¹⁹¹ entering it in the text without the added “Abū.”¹¹⁹²

It is also said that Abū Khuzayma is Khuzayma ibn Thābit himself, who was likewise called Abū Khuzayma, as in Ibn Ashta’s text, “Abū Khuzayma ibn Thābit”;¹¹⁹³ but in every narration save al-Bukhārī’s it is “Khuzayma ibn Thābit” without “Abū,”¹¹⁹⁴ which is why we judge the copy to be in error.

A further question: what did Zayd mean by the “two witnesses” he required for accepting the Qurʾānic text — as reported with a sound chain by Ibn Dāwūd and received with acceptance by the masters of the field?¹¹⁹⁵ Ibn Ḥajar took it to mean memorization and writing together;¹¹⁹⁶ al-Sakhāwī, two witnesses attesting that the text had been written in the Apostle’s (ṣ) presence, or attesting the soundness of its recitation as one of the modes in which the Qurʾān came down; Abū Shāma, that the aim was to admit only what had actually been set down before the Apostle (ṣ), not what rested on memory alone; and Jalāl al-Dīn [al-Suyūṭī], that the two attested the text to be of what was presented to the Prophet (ṣ) in the year of his death — the last recension the Companions agreed upon and which people recite today.¹¹⁹⁷

For my part I hold that the two witnesses were two upright men — the one who brought the verse and another Companion (one or more) testifying for him — attesting that they had heard it as Qurʾān from the Prophet (ṣ); the proof is the acceptance of Khuzayma ibn Thābit’s testimony, when he brought the end of Sūrat Barāʾa, in place of two. So Ibn Ashta reported in al-Maṣāḥif, from al-Layth ibn Saʿd: the people would come to Zayd ibn Thābit, and he would write no verse but with two upright witnesses; the end of Sūrat Barāʾa he found only with Khuzayma ibn Thābit, Dhū al-Shahādatayn, so he said, “write it, for the Apostle (ṣ) made his testimony equal to two men’s,” and it was written; but when ʿUmar brought the verse of stoning, Zayd did not write it, for ʿUmar was alone.¹¹⁹⁸

Doubts and Objections

Blachère asks: why did Abū Bakr choose for so grave a task a young man not yet past twenty, when men of competence remained among the senior Companions? Grant that the troubled situation barred recourse to a great figure like ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib — why then pass over all the other eminent Companions, men of long precedence and old acquaintance with the Qurʾān’s descent and the Messenger’s company? Did al-Yamāma truly carry off every seasoned reciter among the Companions, leaving only Zayd, so recent in his acquaintance with recitation? Such questions, he says, cast doubt on the whole account, so that one can scarcely credit that it was Zayd who collected the Qurʾān.

He adds that history fixes neither the start nor the end of the work: if it followed al-Yamāma, only some fifteen months of Abū Bakr’s rule remained — too narrow a span for so weighty an undertaking, which would demand wide effort to gather the sources and to reach the men, by then scattered across the lands, who held verses or sūras. And if the aim was the common good, why — the narration having the sheets pass not to Abū Bakr’s heirs but to ʿUmar — did ʿUmar then consign them privately to his daughter Ḥafṣa rather than place them within the Muslims’ general reach, and why were they an exclusive trust at all? The orientalist Schwally raised like objections; and Blachère concludes that it was the senior Companions who collected and ordered the Qurʾān after the Prophet’s (ṣ) death — a duty of the caliphate that it neglected, the neglect perhaps prompting the charge against those responsible — so that the caliphate entrusted a young man beyond suspicion to copy an official codex from the Companions’ muṣḥafs, though not to originate the collection itself.¹¹⁹⁹

For my part I say: when the conditions for accomplishing a work — however vast — are at hand and within easy reach, it can be carried through in the shortest possible time, the more so when the work is urgent and those charged with it press to finish at the first opportunity; and so it was with the collection of the Qurʾān in the first age.

The primary sources lay in Medina itself, kept by the trustworthy Companions; the bearers and memorizers of the Qurʾān were on hand, never far from the mosque of their departed master, night or day, and easily reached — the more so as the sūras were already complete, only their gathering in one place remaining. The causes, then, were favourable and the circumstances helpful; and an authority with power in hand, attempting such a work with its means thus prepared, needs no great length of time once these conditions are met.

Zayd, moreover, did nothing but gather the Qurʾān in one place and guard it against loss and dispersal — no arranging, no ordering, no other work of the mind; and so simple a task calls for neither long labour nor wide leisure. Its aim was the common good, the preservation of the Qurʾān from loss, achieved by depositing the sheets that held the whole of it in a trustworthy place; and there was then no need to consult those sheets, for the memorizers and bearers of the Qurʾān were spread abundantly among the people, who in those days held by heart most of the verses bearing on the practical and political life and the like.