This surah was revealed in Makkah at a time when the hostility of the Quraysh, and their fear and hatred of Islam and of the Prophet, were at their height. They adopted every measure to stop the Prophet from preaching…

These surahs compel us to call to mind realities that we accept are true but which we almost-never include in our conscious, deliberate calculations when we decide on a course of action or when we put a value on something when we say…

This surah can be paired with the one before it. Al-Qiyamah ended with a brief account of the lowly first stages of human life, from which one can hardly imagine that there could emerge so complex a creature as a human being capable of knowing right from wrong and therefore…

Woe unto the mean-hearted – those who, when they take the measure from people, strive to have it full, and when they measure for them, strive to make it short. Although some translations render mutaffifin as fraudsters…

This surah is a condensed overview of the themes found in more extended narration elsewhere in the Qur’an, of the story of Nuh `alayhi s-salam, notably Surah Hud. As always in the Qur’an, the focus on certain elements…

The longer surahs at the beginning of the received text of the Qur’an have a complex arrangement of passages because they are simultaneously addressing three major concerns of the Qur’an, and the focus of attention alternates between these concerns.

If a woman’s menstruation stops while she is at work or travelling and she is not able in that situation to take a bath (ghusl), is she allowed to miss the obligatory prayers (i.e. defer them until she can take a bath)?

Who should I pay my zakah to in the West? The qualification in the question, “in the West”, does not have much significance for the answer, except that in the West, Muslims however numerous, do not (or do not yet) organise the collection and expenditure of zakah as a state function.