Surah An-Nahl

An-Nahl ("The Bee") is the 16th surah of the Quran. A Meccan surah of 128 verses, it is 70th in the traditional order of revelation, after Al-Kahf, and closes the fourteenth juz'. It is named after the bee, which God "inspired" to build its homes and produce honey (16:68–69), one of the many blessings the surah sets out.

Name and context

Because it enumerates so many of God's favours, the early exegete Qatada called it the Surah of Blessings (Surat al-Ni'am). It is Meccan, although some scholars hold that its last three verses were revealed in Medina after the battle of Uhud. It contains a verse of prostration (16:50).

Main themes

• An opening warning, "God's command is coming, so do not seek to hasten it" (16:1), then a long catalogue of blessings: livestock, rain and crops, the sun, moon and stars, the sea and its ships, mountains, rivers and paths (16:5–16). "If you tried to count God's blessings, you could never number them" (16:18).
• A refutation of associating partners with God: idols create nothing, while everything in the heavens and the earth bows down to Him (16:17–22, 16:48–50).
• A condemnation of pre-Islamic customs such as grief at the birth of a daughter and the burial of girls alive (16:58–59).
• Further signs: milk drawn from between digested food and blood, the fruits of palm and vine, and the bee whose honey holds "healing for people" (16:66–69).
• Ethics summed up in 16:90: God commands justice, excellence and generosity to relatives, and forbids indecency, wrongdoing and oppression. The verse is often recited at the close of the Friday sermon. It is followed by the duty to keep one's oaths (16:91–92) and the promise of "a good life" to every believer, man or woman, who does good (16:97).
• Answers to accusations against the Quran (16:101–103), an allowance for anyone forced to renounce his faith while his heart remains firm in it (16:106), and Abraham held up as a model (16:120–123).
• The closing instruction: "Call to the way of your Lord with wisdom and good counsel" (16:125), followed by a call to patience (16:126–128).

In the Sunnah

In al-Bukhari and Muslim, a man told the Prophet ﷺ that his brother was suffering from his stomach and was told to give him honey. When the illness persisted, the Prophet ﷺ said: "God has spoken the truth and your brother's stomach has lied"; the man gave him honey again and he recovered. Ibn 'Abbas reported that the Prophet ﷺ forbade killing four creatures, the ant, the bee, the hoopoe and the shrike (Abu Dawud, graded sahih by al-Albani): the bee of this surah, and the ant and hoopoe of An-Naml.