Surah Al-Hashr, The Gathering

Surah 59 · 24 verses · revealed at Medina

Al-Hashr deals with the expulsion of a tribe from Medina after an agreement was broken, and with what was done with the property they left behind.

The surah's answer on the property is one of its most quoted lines: that it should not circulate only among the rich among you. The share set aside was directed to relatives, orphans, the needy and the traveller, and the principle has been argued from by Muslim writers on economics ever since.

It also records the behaviour of the emigrants from Mecca who arrived in Medina with nothing, and of the people of Medina who took them in — described as loving those who came to them, finding no want in their hearts for what the newcomers were given, and preferring them over themselves even when they were in need. It is the surah's warmest passage.

Its closing three verses are among the most recited in the Qur'an. They name God with a long series of titles — the Sovereign, the Holy, the Source of Peace, the Guardian, the Mighty, the Compeller, the Supreme, the Creator, the Maker, the Fashioner — and say that whatever is in the heavens and the earth declares His praise.

Before them comes the image that gives the surah its weight: that if this Qur'an had been sent down on a mountain, the mountain would have been seen humbled and split apart out of fear of God.

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