Surah 47 of 114 · Madinah
سُورَةُ مُحَمَّدٍ
Muhammad Muhammad
38 verses · revealed in Madinah
The context
Surah Muhammad is Medinan, and most commentators place it in the first years after the Hijrah, around the time of Badr, though no authentic report fixes the date. It carries a second and older name, Al-Qital, the surah of fighting, and that name describes its subject more exactly. Verse 13 speaks of the town that drove the Prophet ﷺ out, which commentators connect to the departure from Makkah itself.
The setting explains the split screen. Nearly every passage runs two columns at once: those who disbelieve and block the road, and those who believe and act rightly; deeds sent astray, and deeds set right. It also explains the second subject, which is not the enemy outside the city but the men inside it who found a revelation about fighting hard to hear, and who are described watching the Prophet ﷺ with the stare of a man fainting at death.
The name
The name comes from verse 2, one of four places in the Qur'an where the Prophet ﷺ is called Muhammad. The verse sets his name inside a condition: those who believe in what was sent down upon Muhammad, and it is the truth from their Lord, have their misdeeds removed and their state repaired. The naming is not decorative. It marks the point at which belief is tied to a particular man and a particular revelation rather than to general piety.
How it moves
- 1-6Two ledgersThe deeds of those who block the way of Allah are sent astray, while the misdeeds of the believers are removed from them. The rule of engagement follows, along with the two dispositions named for captives once the war lays down its burdens: release as a favour, or ransom.
- 7-15If you help Him, He helps youSupport given to Allah is answered with support and with feet made firm. Towns stronger than Makkah are recalled and their remains offered as evidence. The stretch ends with rivers of water, milk, wine and honey set against water that scalds the bowels.
- 16-19What did he just saySome sit and listen to the Prophet ﷺ, then step outside and ask those given knowledge what he had said just now. Guidance is described as increasing for the guided, and the Prophet ﷺ is told to know that there is no god but Allah and to seek forgiveness.
- 20-28A surah they did not wantThe believers ask why no surah has come down, and when one comes down with fighting in it the sick of heart look on like men at the point of death. The passage warns about spreading corruption and cutting kinship, asks whether they ponder the Qur'an at all, and describes those who turned back after guidance was clear.
- 29-38Known by the way they talkConcealed hatred is said to surface in the bend of a man's speech, and testing is promised until the strivers and the patient are distinguished. Obedience is commanded and invalidating one's own deeds forbidden, and the surah closes on money: whoever withholds withholds from himself, and a people who turn away will be replaced.
The themes
Deeds that go to waste
The language of works being made to fail runs the length of the surah, applied first to those who block the road, then to those who hate what Allah revealed, and finally in verse 33 to the believers, who are told not to invalidate their own deeds. The warning turns inward before the end.
Captives and the limits of war
Verse 4 names two dispositions after the fighting stops, favour and ransom. The schools of law differ over whether other options remain open to a ruler and over how this verse stands in relation to later ones, and that disagreement is a matter for jurists, not for a study note.
The tone of speech
Hypocrisy is detected here by sound rather than by inquiry. The Prophet ﷺ is told he will know them by the bending of their words, which puts the evidence in something a person cannot fully manage or hide.
Spending as the real test
A surah about fighting ends on wealth. Asked for a portion, people hold back, and the surah observes that Allah has no need of it while they do, so that a stingy man is being stingy against himself.
The heart of it
The surah is blunt and its sentences are short. Recited slowly, what stands out is how often it turns from the enemy to the listener. The men it describes are not in Makkah. They are sitting in the mosque, hearing the Qur'an, then walking out and asking someone else what was just said.
Verse 24 asks whether they ponder the Qur'an or whether there are locks upon hearts, and it sits in the middle of a surah about people who heard everything and kept none of it. That placement makes it difficult to recite quickly. Verse 19, which tells the Prophet ﷺ to know that there is no god but Allah and then to seek forgiveness for himself and for the believing men and women, sets the order the whole surah works in: knowledge first, then repentance, then everything else.
Verses worth knowing
- 47:7Support of Allah is answered with support and with feet made firm. The condition is stated first and the promise second, which is the whole force of the verse.
- 47:19Knowledge of tawhid is commanded, then forgiveness sought for oneself and for the believing men and women. Al-Bukhari headed a chapter of his Book of Knowledge with this verse to argue that knowledge comes before speech and action.
- 47:24Do they not ponder the Qur'an, or are there locks upon hearts. It asks for something beyond recitation and names in the same breath what prevents it.
- 47:38Those who withhold withhold only from themselves, since Allah is the one free of need. The last line warns that a people who turn away will be replaced by others who will not be like them.
On reciting it
No authentic report establishes a specific merit for reciting Surah Muhammad. Its standing rests on its subject, which is a community at war and the condition of the hearts inside it, and on the fact that it is the Qur'an's most sustained treatment of hypocrisy in a fighting context. Where it legislates, on captives in verse 4 and on truce in verse 35, the schools of law differ, and those differences belong to jurists rather than to a study note.
No virtue report
Read beside it
On the shelf
Surahs it travels with
- 48Al-FathThe two sit side by side and both name the Prophet ﷺ. This one commands fighting and warns against calling for peace from a position of strength; the next records the truce he concluded at Hudaybiyah. Commentators differ over how the two fit together, and reading them in order is where the question begins.الفتح
- 8Al-AnfalAl-Anfal handles the same material at greater length, including what was done with the captives of Badr. Between them they carry most of the Medinan instruction on the conduct of war.الأنفال