Al-Balad, "The City," is the ninetieth surah — 20 verses revealed in Mecca.1 It swears by Mecca itself: "I swear by this city [i.e., Makkah] and you, [O Muhammad], are free of restriction in this city."
What it is about
The oaths lead to a plain statement about the human condition: "We have certainly created man into hardship." The surah then confronts the self-satisfied person who boasts, "I have spent wealth in abundance," asking: "Does he think that no one has seen him? Have We not made for him two eyes? And a tongue and two lips? And have shown him the two ways?"2
Yet "he has not broken through the difficult pass. And what can make you know what is [breaking through] the difficult pass? It is the freeing of a slave or feeding on a day of severe hunger an orphan of near relationship or a needy person in misery." To this it adds faith and mutual care: "And then being among those who believed and advised one another to patience and advised one another to compassion. Those are the companions of the right."3
Why it matters
Al-Balad defines virtue in concrete terms. The "difficult pass" is not an abstract ideal but the hard, costly act of freeing a human being or feeding the hungry — especially when food is scarce — joined to a community that encourages patience and compassion. Against those who boast of what they have spent, it points to what spending is actually for. To read Al-Balad in Arabic with translations and recitation, open it on Quran.com.