Surah Al-Masad

About Surah Al-Masad

Masad is the twisted palm fibre that a rope is made from. It is the last word of the surah and its name. This is the one surah that condemns a named contemporary: Abu Lahab, the Prophet's own uncle, whose given name was Abd al-Uzza and whose nickname happens to mean father of flame. Sahih al-Bukhari reports the occasion. The Prophet, peace be upon him, climbed the hill of Safa and called the clans of Quraysh together to warn them, and Abu Lahab's answer was that he should perish, and was this what he had gathered them for.

The surah replies in his own vocabulary, opening with the ruin of his two hands (111:1). His wealth and everything he earned will not help him (111:2), he will burn in a fire of flame (111:3), and his wife stands condemned beside him, described but not named, as the carrier of firewood (111:4), with a fibre rope at her throat (111:5). There is a further edge to it that the first audience would have felt. These five ayahs were recited openly in Makkah for years while both of them were alive, free to answer it, and neither ever did.