Circumstances of Revelation
Place: Mecca, the whole sūrah, as the flow of its verses suggests. Some exegetes say the last five verses were revealed in Medina, and some say verse 197 was; Al-Mizan rejects both views (see below). → Introduction
Time: One of the early sūrahs (al-ʿatāʾiq) revealed in Mecca, since it contains And warn your nearest relations (). Comparing this verse with Therefore declare openly what you are bidden (), Al-Mizan deduces that this sūrah was revealed before Sūrah al-Ḥijr. → Introduction
The occasion: The sūrah comforts the Prophet in the face of his people's denial of him and of the Book, when they called him now insane and now a poet, by recounting the stories of earlier prophets and the fate of those who denied them. → Introduction
Verse 197 (the learned men of the Israelites know it): Al-Mizan: the sūrah is among the first revealed in Mecca before the Hijrah, when the enmity of the Jews toward the Prophet had not yet reached what it became after the Hijrah, so they could be expected to disclose some of the truth that was with them, at least in general terms. → Commentary on verse 197
Verses 205–207: Imam al-Ṣādiq reports that the Prophet dreamt that the Umayyads were climbing his pulpit after him and leading the people astray, and Gabriel brought these verses to comfort him; Abū Jahḍam reports a similar account, in which the Prophet dreamt that his enemy would take control of his nation after him. → Narrations
Verse 214, the warning to the nearest kin: Narrations say that when it was revealed the Prophet called Quraysh clan by clan, or climbed Mount al-Ṣafā and warned Quraysh, where Abū Lahab cursed him and Sūrah 111 was revealed; one report, from Abū Umāmah, has him address ʿĀʾishah, Ḥafṣah and Umm Salamah among his household. Barāʾ b. ʿĀzib, Abū Rāfiʿ and ʿAlī report that he gathered the descendants of ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, about forty men, at a meal and asked who would be his brother, heir, successor and deputy; only ʿAlī answered, and in ʿAlī's own report the Prophet then declared him his heir, vizier and deputy.
Al-Mizan's view: the reports of a general call to Quraysh do not match the verse, which names his nearest relations, the children of ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib or of Hāshim. The report naming ʿĀʾishah, Ḥafṣah and Umm Salamah cannot be right, since the verse is Meccan and the Prophet married them only in Medina. What is reliable is that he called Banū Hāshim, or Banū ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, in particular when this verse was revealed. → Commentary on verse 214 · Narrations · Key Debate
Verses 224–227, the poets: Abū al-Ḥasan Sālim al-Barrād reports that when And as for the poets… was revealed, ʿAbd-Allāh b. Rawāḥah, Kaʿb b. Mālik and Ḥassān b. Thābit came weeping to the Prophet, and Except those who believe and do good was then revealed. Such reports led some exegetes to hold that the last five verses are Medinan. Al-Mizan's view: this is implausible. The charges these verses answer, that jinn came to him and that he was a poet, were made in Mecca before the Hijrah; it makes no sense that one of the earliest Meccan sūrahs was left incomplete for years and finished in Medina; and nothing in verse 227 points to believing poets after the Hijrah. → Commentary on verses 224–226 · 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.