✦ AT A GLANCE ✦
الأحزاب
Al-Ahzab
✦ Why this name
The Combined Forces — al-Ahzab, the confederate armies that besieged Madinah in the battle of the Trench.
✦ When it came
Madinah, year five. Ten thousand men encircled the city while a trench was dug across the open side. The Quran narrates the siege from inside it.
✦ The story
The surah records fear honestly: *"when eyes shifted in fear, and hearts reached the throats, and you assumed about Allah various assumptions."* It does not pretend the believers were calm.
And it records what held: *"You have in the Messenger of Allah an excellent example"* — a verse revealed about a man digging a trench alongside everyone else, hungry, with a stone tied to his stomach.
Then the surah turns to the household of the Prophet ﷺ, to adoption, to the reform of pre-Islamic marriage customs, and to a list that answers a question a woman had asked out loud: are women mentioned in revelation? Ten pairs, each named twice — *the Muslim men and the Muslim women, the believing men and the believing women…* — ending with forgiveness and a great reward for both.
✦ How it unfolds
- AYAH 9-27
The siege
The wind and the unseen forces sent, the fear described plainly, and the confederates turning back with nothing.
- AYAH 21
The excellent example
The Prophet ﷺ named as the pattern — revealed while he dug the trench with everyone else.
- AYAH 28-40
The household
A choice offered to his wives, adoption reformed, and the Seal of the Prophets.
- AYAH 70-73
The trust
Say what is right; and the trust the heavens and mountains declined, which humanity took on.