Cheatsheet

Sūrah Al-MāʿūnSmall Kindnesses / Assistance · Makkah · 7 āyāt · 4 movements

A short, early Makkan surah revealed during the phase of going public, when belief in the Day of Judgement was still contested. It defines the one who denies the Dīn not by a creedal statement but by two everyday failures — mistreating the orphan and not urging the feeding of the poor — then turns to those who do pray, exposing three faults that hollow prayer out: heedlessness, showing off, and withholding maʿūn, the small, ordinary help neighbours give one another.

Full study unit Practice papers Print sheet

At a glance

Āyāt	Movement	In one line
1–3	Denial of the Dīn is shown in deeds, not just words	Belief in the Day of Judgement is tested by conduct toward those who cannot repay you.
4–5	Prayer without presence is a warning, not a virtue	The threat in āyah 4–5 falls on 'those who pray', which shows outward performance alone does not satisfy what prayer is for.
6	Showing off turns worship into performance	Riyāʾ can inhabit an outwardly correct act — the fault is in the intention, not the form.
7	Withholding al-māʿūn: the smallest kindness refused	The surah's final indictment is over something small, not something large — showing how total the withholding is.

Occasion & setting

No sound, specific occasion of revelation (sabab al-nuzūl) is established for this surah with a reliable chain. Several reports name individuals — a hypocrite of Madīnah, or a wealthy Makkan chief who turned away an orphan and refused to feed the poor — but the commentators who transmit them (including al-Wāḥidī and al-Qurṭubī) either grade them weak or note they lack a continuous, authenticated isnād back to the Prophet ﷺ. The safest and most honest position, followed here, is that the surah addresses a type — the denier of the Dīn and the heedless worshipper — rather than one identified man, and that any single name attached to it should be treated as unconfirmed.

— Al-Wāḥidī, Asbāb al-Nuzūl (reports graded weak); al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān on 107:1; Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm, introduction to Sūrat al-Māʿūn

Key messages

· Belief in the Day of Judgement is proven or disproven by how the powerless are treated.
· Not urging others to feed the poor is itself counted as a form of denial — silence and passivity are not neutral.
· Ritual prayer offered without presence of heart draws a specific warning, not praise for outward form.
· Riyāʾ — acting to be seen — can hollow out an outwardly correct deed from within.
· The surah escalates from the cosmic (denying the Day) to the domestic (refusing a neighbour a bucket) to show they share one root.
· No reliably authenticated occasion of revelation names a specific individual for this surah; its warning is general and applies to a type of person, in every age.
· Mercy to the orphan and the poor is treated as inseparable from true faith, not as an optional add-on to it.
· Even the smallest, costless kindness withheld is enough to be named in the same breath as denying the Judgement.

Root vocabulary

ك ذ ب

to lie, to deny, to call false

كَذَبَ (he lied) · يُكَذِّبُ (he denies, calls false) · كَذِب (falsehood) · مُكَذِّب (one who denies)

د ي ن

recompense, judgement, indebtedness, religion

دِين (recompense / religion) · يَوْمُ ٱلدِّينِ (the Day of Recompense) · دَيْن (a debt)

ي ت م

to be alone, left without a father

يَتِيم (orphan) · يُتْم (orphanhood)

ح ض ض

to urge, incite, spur someone toward an act

يَحُضُّ (he urges) · حَضّ (urging, incitement) · حَثّ (a near-synonym: exhortation)

ص ل و

to pray, to connect (with Allah in worship)

4, 5

صَلَاة (prayer) · مُصَلٍّ (one who prays) · يُصَلِّي (he prays)

س ه و

to be heedless, inattentive, forgetful

سَهَا (he was heedless) · سَاهٍ (heedless (one)) · سَهْو (inattentiveness, forgetfulness)

ر أ ي

to see; (form III) to make oneself seen by another

1, 6

رَأَىٰ (he saw) · يُرَآءُونَ (they show off, act to be seen) · رِيَاء (showing off, ostentation)

م ن ع

to prevent, withhold, refuse to give

مَنَعَ (he withheld) · يَمْنَعُونَ (they withhold) · مَانِع (one who withholds)

Flip cards

19 cards over the roots, movements, takeaways and seerah events of this surah. Anything you mark “still learning” comes back before the deck ends.

Sūrah Al-Māʿūn deck

1 / 19 · 0 known

Concept map

The surah at the centre, its movements in sequence around it, and the roots, seerah moments and messages that hang off each one. Tap a node to focus its connections — the same way a linked notebook shows you what a single idea touches.

Tap any node to focus it and dim everything it is not connected to — the movement it sits in, the roots that carry it, and the moment of the seerah it answers.