Surah Al-Hadid – Mohamed Tablawi

Al-Hadid (The Iron) is the 57th surah of the Quran. It is a Medinan surah of 29 verses and the 94th in the traditional order of revelation, after Al-Zalzala. It takes its name from verse 25, "and We sent down iron, in which is great strength and benefits for people", and is the first of five surahs that open by declaring that all in the heavens and the earth glorifies God.

Themes

• God's names and majesty: "He is the First and the Last, the Manifest and the Hidden, and He knows all things" (57:3), and "He is with you wherever you are" (57:4). The Prophet ﷺ echoed this verse in his bedtime supplication: "You are the First, there is nothing before You; You are the Last, there is nothing after You…" (Muslim).
• A call to believe and to spend: those who spent and fought before the victory rank higher than those who did so afterwards (57:10); "Who will lend God a goodly loan?" (57:11).
• The Day when the believers' light runs before them, while the hypocrites beg to share it (57:12–15).
• "Has the time not come for the believers' hearts to be humbled at the remembrance of God?" (57:16). Abdullah ibn Mas'ud said that only four years separated their embrace of Islam from this reproach (Muslim).
• The worldly life as play, adornment and rivalry, like rain whose plants delight the farmers, then wither (57:20); the race towards forgiveness and a Garden as wide as the heavens and the earth (57:21).
• Every misfortune is written before it happens, so that people neither despair over what they miss nor exult over what they receive (57:22–23).
• The messengers sent with clear proofs, the Book and the Balance so that people uphold justice, together with iron (57:25); then Noah, Abraham and Jesus, whose followers invented monasticism (57:26–27).

Related surahs

Most scholars count it Medinan, although some held it Meccan. The other four are Al-Hashr, As-Saff, Al-Jumua and At-Taghabun. It follows Al-Waqia.