(Revealed before Hijrah)
The Surah was revealed very early in the Holy Prophet’s ministry at Mecca. Besides most Commentators of the Qur’an, Muir and Noldeke hold this view; the latter (Noldeke) places its revelation after Chapter 78, while some Muslim scholars assign it the eighth place in the chronological order of revelation of the Qur’an. The preceding Surah had ended on the note that the Qur’an is a complete and perfect code of Divine laws, fully capable of meeting the needs and requirements of all mankind; and that at no time will it be subject to change, abrogation or interpolation. This Qur’anic claim gives rise to the natural and inevitable question, viz. where was the need of a new Reformer to whom reference has been made in the preceding several Chapters in the presence of such a complete and perfect revelation? The present Surah answers this important question. It was further stated in Surah At-Tariq that the development of man is subject to alternate periods of rise and fall. This fact again gives rise to another equally important question, viz. that after the revelation of a Law, complete in all respects, man’s progress should naturally become uniform and uninterrupted and immune against all possibility of retrogression. This being so, why was a complete Shari‘ah not revealed in the beginning of the world; why was it deferred till the time of the Holy Prophet? The Surah supplies an answer to this question also. It possesses another intimate connection with the preceding Chapter. In that Surah it was stated that man is born of a fluid which issues forth from the loins of his father and gets his sustenance from the breast of his mother. This constituted a subtle hint about the gradual process of man’s physical development. We are told that like his physical development man’s spiritual development is also gradual. The Holy Prophet generally recited this and the next Surah in the Friday and ‘Id Prayers.