Sometimes it happens that two verses are closely connected...

Sometimes it happens that two verses are closely connected in meaning but differ greatly in length; for example, the thirtieth and thirty-first verses of " The Cloaked One ", the first being a single sentence and the second more than eleven sentences. We should not forget that most of the shorter verses like " The Dawn " and " The Night " are Meccan, and those whose subject matter is treated in greater length and detail are Medinan.

The first verse to be revealed to the Prophet was during the revelation of the first five verses of "The Clot" and the last to be revealed was verse 281 of " The Cow ": " And guard yourselves against a day in which you will be brought back to Allah. Then every soul will be paid in full that which it has earned and they will not be wronged.

" The Reasons for the Revelations Many of the verses are connected with events and circumstances which took place as the Prophet called the people to Islam, for example " The Cow ". Other chapters, like " The Tribe ", refer to the exile of the Banu al-Nadir and the chapter " The Coursers " was revealed for the Bedouin Arabs of the Dry Valley and other tribes.

Some chapters or verses were revealed because of the need to explain the laws and directions of Islam; for example, the chapter " Women " which defined marriage and the inheritance of women, " The Spirits " which explains how to deal with the prisoners-of-war captured as booty and, the chapter " Divorce " which was revealed, as its name suggests, explaining divorce.

The circumstances leading to the revelation of these chapters are called " reasons for revelation " and there are countless traditions on this subject. Amongst the Sunni's there are many traditions which deal with the reasons for revelation; several thousand narrations may be enumerated (although in the Shi'ah School only a few hundred may be counted). Many of these are without a chain of narration and are not accepted as fully trustworthy; moreover, a considerable number are classified as weak.

The dubious nature of the majority of these may be ascribed to the following reasons. Firstly, it is obvious from the form of many of these sayings that the narrator had not learned them through oral transmission but rather based on his own judgment, that the revelation of a certain verse was connected with certain events. Thus the narrator links a certain event to a verse of suitable meaning mentioned in the tradition.