✦ AT A GLANCE ✦
الحشر
Al-Hashr
✦ Why this name
The Gathering — al-Hashr, the exile of a tribe from Madinah. Ibn 'Abbas رضي الله عنهما called it "Surat an-Nadir".
✦ When it came
Madinan, after the Banu an-Nadir broke their treaty and were exiled. The surah deals with the property left behind and how it was distributed.
✦ The story
The surah's greatness is not in the campaign it records but in two passages near its end.
The first is about the Ansar of Madinah, who had taken in refugees with nothing: *"They give preference over themselves, even though they are in privation. And whoever is protected from the stinginess of his own soul — it is those who will be successful."* People with little, preferring others to themselves.
The second is the closing three verses, recited by Muslims every morning and evening: *"Had We sent down this Quran upon a mountain, you would have seen it humbled, splitting apart from fear of Allah."* And then the names — He is Allah, other than whom there is no deity, the Sovereign, the Pure, the Source of Peace, the Granter of Security, the Creator, the Fashioner — everything in the heavens and earth exalting Him.
✦ How it unfolds
- AYAH 1-10
The exile
A treaty broken, the campaign, and how the property was divided — so wealth does not circulate only among the rich.
- AYAH 11-17
Hypocrites and their promises
Support pledged and withdrawn, likened to a devil who says "I am free of you."
- AYAH 18-24
The mountain and the names
The Quran on a mountain, the call to look at what you sent ahead for tomorrow, and the closing names.