Surah Al-Hajj

Al-Hajj ("The Pilgrimage") is the 22nd surah of the Quran. Classified as Medinan in the standard Mushaf, it has 78 verses and is 103rd in the traditional order of revelation, after An-Nur; it closes the seventeenth juz'. It is named after the pilgrimage that Abraham was commanded to proclaim to mankind (22:26–27), and it is the only surah named after one of the five pillars of Islam.

Context and classification

Scholars differ on its classification. Its opening passages on the Resurrection have the tone of Meccan revelation, while the permission to fight and the rulings on the pilgrimage reflect Medina, so many describe it as mixed. Two of its verses call for prostration: 22:18, by consensus, and 22:77, which the Shafi'i and Hanbali schools count but the Hanafi and Maliki schools do not. The hadith of 'Uqba ibn 'Amir in which the Prophet ﷺ confirms that this surah was favoured with two prostrations (al-Tirmidhi, Abu Dawud) has a disputed chain: al-Tirmidhi judged it not strong, while al-Albani graded it hasan.

Main themes

• The earthquake of the Hour, when every nursing mother will forget her infant (22:1–2), and two proofs of the Resurrection: the stages of the embryo in the womb and the dead earth brought back to life by rain (22:5–7).
• Those who worship God "on an edge", faithful only while all goes well (22:11); God will judge between the believers, the Jews, the Sabians, the Christians, the Magians and the polytheists (22:17); everything in the heavens and on earth bows down to Him (22:18).
• The Sacred House entrusted to Abraham, the call to pilgrimage and its rites, and the meaning of sacrifice: neither the flesh nor the blood of the animals reaches God, only the piety of those who offer them (22:26–37).
• The first permission to fight, given to those who were wronged and driven from their homes for saying "Our Lord is God"; had God not checked some people by means of others, monasteries, churches, synagogues and mosques would have been destroyed (22:39–40).
• It is not the eyes that go blind, but the hearts within the breasts (22:46); those invoked besides God could not create even a fly (22:73).
• A closing address to the believers: bow, prostrate and do good; God has placed no hardship on them in religion, the faith of their father Abraham: "He has named you Muslims" (22:77–78).

In the Sunnah

Abu Dharr swore that 22:19, on "these two adversaries", was revealed about the single combats at Badr, in which Hamza, 'Ali and 'Ubayda ibn al-Harith faced 'Utba, Shayba and al-Walid (al-Bukhari and Muslim). Ibn 'Abbas said that 22:39 was the first verse revealed about fighting (al-Tirmidhi and al-Nasa'i, graded sahih).