Period of Revelation
The period of the revelation of the first section (vv. 1-8) is A. H. 7
and probably it was sent down
on the occasion of the conquest of Khaiber or soon after it. Bukhari
Muslim
Tirmidhi
Nasa'i and Ibn Jarir have related on the authority of Hadrat Abu H The second section (vv. 9-11) was sent down shortly after the emigration
for the Holy Prophet (upon whom be Allah's peace) had established the Friday congregational Prayer on the 5th day after his arrival at Madinah. The incident that has been referred t
Theme and Subject Matter
As we have explained above
the two sections of this Sura were sent down in two different periods. That is why their themes as well as their audiences are different. Although there is a kind of harmony between them on account of which they have been put The first section was sent down at a time when all Jewish efforts to obstrut the message of Islam during the past six years had failed. First. in Madinah as many as three of their powerful tribes had done whatever they could to frustrate the mission of th (1) "You refused to believe in this Messenger only because he was born among a people whom you contemptuously call the "gentiles". You were under the false delusion that the Messengermustnecessarily belong to your own community. You seemed to have b (2) "You had been made bearers of the Torah
but you did not understand your responsibility for it nor discharged it as you should have. You are like the donkey which is loaded with books
and which does not know what burden it is bearing. Rather you ar (3) "If you really were Allah's favourites and you were sure of having a p!ace of honour and high rank reserved with Him
you would not have feared death so much as to prefer a life of disgrace to death. It is only because of this fear of death that you The second section that was sent down many years later
was appended to this Sura because in it Allah has bestowed Friday on the Muslims as against the Sabbath of the Jews
and Allah wanted to warn the Muslims not to treat their Friday as the Jews had tr