✦ AT A GLANCE ✦
المرسلات
Al-Mursalat
✦ Why this name
Those Sent Forth — al-Mursalat, sworn by in the opening verse.
✦ When it came
Meccan. The Prophet ﷺ received it in a cave at Mina, and 'Abdullah ibn Mas'ud رضي الله عنه was reciting it to companions when a snake appeared and it was chased away — he said it was protected from them, and they from it.
✦ The story
A surah built on a single repeated line, returning ten times: *"Woe, that Day, to the deniers."*
Between the repetitions, the case is made from ordinary things. Were you not created from a fluid held in a firm place? Did We not make the earth a container for the living and the dead? Did We not place firm mountains and give you sweet water? Did We not make the night a covering, and sleep for rest?
And then the Day: when the stars are obliterated, the sky is opened, the mountains are blown away, and the messengers are given their appointed time. On that Day, permission to speak is not granted, and no excuse is accepted.
Its last verse is a question left hanging deliberately: *"So in what statement after this will they believe?"*