(Revealed before Hijrah)
The Surah admittedly belongs to the very early Meccan period. Some scholars regard it as having been revealed in the first year of the Call; others assign it to the second or the third year. The five Surahs (89-93) possess a striking similarity in the subject-matter. In all of them great stress has been laid on the development of good morals, especially those that intimately concern and affect the collective progress and prosperity of a community. Muslims have been exhorted to create an atmosphere and environment which should help to raise the standard and stature of the poor, depressed and suppressed section of their community and should enable them to take their proper share in its activities. The immediately preceding Chapter contained a hint about the supreme object for which Abraham and his son Ishmael had built the Ka‘bah. That supreme object is explained in 2:130. It is on the Prophet referred to in that verse (the Holy Prophet) and on his great moral qualities that some light is shed in the present Surah. Towards its close the Surah points out that moral greatness can be achieved by anyone who eschews evil and walks in the path of righteousness. It ends on the note that those, who choose to defy Divine laws and adopt evil ways, bring about their ruin with their own hands.