Surah Al-Masad, The Palm Fibre

Surah 111 · 5 verses · revealed at Mecca

Al-Masad is the only surah in the Qur'an directed against a named living opponent, an uncle of the Prophet known by the nickname Abu Lahab.

The occasion recorded is that the Prophet gathered the people of Mecca at the hill of Safa and asked whether they would believe him if he told them an army was coming from behind the hill. They said they had never known him to lie. He then warned them of what was ahead, and his uncle told him he had gathered them for nothing and cursed him.

The surah is five verses long. It says that his wealth and what he earned will not help him, and that he and his wife, who carried firewood, will come to a fire, with a rope of twisted palm fibre around her neck.

Muslim writers have often pointed to a detail in it. The surah was revealed years before the man died, and it states plainly that he would not believe. He had every opportunity to disprove it by saying otherwise, even insincerely, and never did.

It is among the shortest chapters in the book and one of the earliest learned by heart, and it is taught to children mainly as history: the record of how an ordinary family quarrel became part of the scripture.

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