Al-Hashr

Al-Hashr, "The Exile" (or "The Gathering"), is the fifty-ninth surah — 24 verses revealed in Medina.¹ It concerns the departure of the Banu Nadir, a Jewish tribe of Medina, and speaks of it as God's work: "It is He who expelled the ones who disbelieved among the People of the Scripture from their homes at the first gathering. You did not think they would leave, and they thought that their fortresses would protect them."²

What it is about

According to the classical sources, the Banu Nadir had broken their treaty with the Muslims and plotted against the Prophet's ﷺ life; besieged in their strongholds, they agreed to leave Medina. The surah uses the episode to teach how wealth gained without battle should be shared, to honor the emigrants and the Medinan Helpers, and to expose the hypocrites who had promised the Banu Nadir support and then abandoned them.

Key themes

Wealth that circulates. Such property is "for Allah and for the Messenger and for [his] near relatives and orphans and the needy and the [stranded] traveler — so that it will not be a perpetual distribution among the rich from among you. And whatever the Messenger has given you — take; and what he has forbidden you — refrain from."³

Preferring others. The Helpers of Medina "love those who emigrated to them... but give [them] preference over themselves, even though they are in privation. And whoever is protected from the stinginess of his soul — it is those who will be the successful." Later generations pray: "Our Lord, forgive us and our brothers who preceded us in faith and put not in our hearts [any] resentment toward those who have believed."⁴

Look to tomorrow. "Let every soul look to what it has put forth for tomorrow... And be not like those who forgot Allah, so He made them forget themselves." And: "If We had sent down this Quran upon a mountain, you would have seen it humbled and splitting from fear of Allah."⁵

The names of God. The surah closes with a cascade of divine names: "He is Allah, other than whom there is no deity, the Sovereign, the Pure, the Perfection, the Grantor of Security, the Overseer, the Exalted in Might, the Compeller, the Superior... the Creator, the Producer, the Fashioner; to Him belong the best names."⁶

Why it matters

Al-Hashr gives the Quran's principle that wealth must not circulate only among the rich, a foundation of Islamic economic ethics, and its portrait of the Helpers who gave to others while in need themselves remains the classic example of selflessness. Its final three verses, naming God one attribute after another, are among the most recited passages of the Quran. To read Al-Hashr in Arabic with translations and recitation, open it on Quran.com.