Circumstances of Revelation
Place: Mecca, as its verses, their contents and the clear connection between them attest, and it was revealed all at once. Some reported that verse 12 (lest you should disregard aught of what has been revealed to you) is Medinan, and others made exceptions of verse 17 or verse 114. Al-Mizan: there is no textual evidence for these claims, and the continuity of the sūrah shows it is Meccan from start to finish. → Introduction
Order: Verse 8 supports the view that Sūrah Hūd was revealed after Sūrah Yūnus. → Commentary on verse 8
Verse 5: Jābir b. ʿAbd Allāh reports, through Imam al-Bāqir, that when the idolaters passed the Prophet near the Kaʿbah, one of them would bend his head and back and cover his head with his robe so that the Prophet would not see him, and God revealed Look! They fold up their breasts…. → Narrations
Verse 17, the witness: Many narrations, in Sunni sources more than in Shia ones, report from ʿAlī and others that the Prophet is the one who stands on a manifest proof from his Lord, and ʿAlī is a witness of his own who follows him; in one, ʿAlī cites it as the verse revealed about him. Al-Mizan's view: the verse describes anyone who stands on such divine insight and the one who testifies to it from the same insight; describing ʿAlī as the witness applies its general meaning to a specific case. He rejects al-Manār's claim that this is no different from saying it refers to Abū Bakr. → Commentary on verse 17 · Narrations · Key Debate
Verse 35: Muqātil reports that the disbelievers of Mecca said, "Muḥammad has invented the Qur'an!" (Do they say, "He has fabricated it?"); similar reports come from Imams al-Bāqir and al-Ṣādiq. → Narrations
Verse 112, "Hūd has turned me gray": Ibn ʿAbbās reports that no verse was harder on the Prophet than So go aright, just as you have been commanded, and that when his Companions remarked on how quickly his hair had turned gray, he said that Hūd and al-Wāqiʿah had done it. Many exegetes say he was referring to this verse. Al-Mizan: the well-known wording is "Hūd and its sisters"; since al-Wāqiʿah has nothing like this verse, the narration may not refer to it specifically; what the two sūrahs share is their discourse on the Day of Resurrection. → Commentary on verse 112 · Narrations
A summary prepared from Tafsīr al-Mīzān: where and when the sūrah was revealed, and the occasions reported for its verses, with the ʿAllāmah's view of them. Each point links to the full discussion.