Circumstances of Revelation
Place: Mecca, as the tone and content of its verses show. Some exegetes made an exception of verses 68–70 as Medinan, apparently because they imply the prohibition of adultery. Al-Mizan's view: adultery and wine were known to be prohibited in Islam from the beginning of its call, so this is no reason to make them Medinan; stranger still is the claim of some that the whole sūrah is Medinan except its first three verses. → Introduction · Commentary on verse 68
Verses 7–20: Ibn ʿAbbās reports that the chiefs of the polytheists in Mecca summoned the Prophet and offered him money, leadership or kingship; when he refused, they asked him to request an angel to confirm him, and gardens and palaces of gold and silver so that he need not go to the markets. He replied that he had not been sent with these things, and God revealed about their requests the verses from What is the matter with this Messenger that he eats food () to (). → Narrations
Verses 27–29: Ibn ʿAbbās reports, concerning Would that I had not taken so-and-so for a friend! (), the story of ʿUqbah b. Abī Muʿayṭ, who bore witness to the Prophet's message so that he would eat at his table, then, urged on by his friend Ubayy b. Khalaf, spat in the Prophet's face; he was captured at Badr and killed. Al-Mizan notes that narrations which say the way in () is ʿAlī refer to a hidden layer of the Qur'an, or are an application of the verse, not its interpretation. → Narrations
Verses 54–55: Ibn Sīrīn says verse 54 was revealed about the Prophet and ʿAlī, related to him by blood and by marriage; Ibn ʿAbbās says the disbeliever in verse 55 is Abū Jahl. Al-Mizan: these are more probably cases of application (jary wa taṭbīq) of the verses' general sense. → Narrations
Verse 68: Ibn Masʿūd reports that the Prophet named the greatest sins as setting up a counterpart to God, killing one's child for fear of want, and adultery with a neighbor's wife, and that God confirmed this by revealing verse 68. Al-Mizan: perhaps this means the account matches the verse, not that it was the cause of its revelation. → 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.