Sūrat al-Masad is unlike almost any other chapter of the Qurʾān: it names a specific, living man — the Prophet’s ﷺ own uncle — and declares that he will die a disbeliever and burn in the Fire. For years afterward Abū Lahab could have falsified the sūrah with a single word of feigned belief, and never did. Five verses, aimed at one household, became a standing sign that the Qurʾān speaks from beyond human knowledge.
The Warning on Mount Ṣafā
When the command came to “warn your nearest kinsfolk” (al-Shuʿarāʾ 26:214), the Prophet ﷺ climbed the hill of al-Ṣafā, beside the Kaʿbah, and called out to the clans of Quraysh by name: “O Banū Fihr! O Banū ʿAdiyy!” — clan after clan — until they gathered. He asked them: “If I told you that a cavalry was in the valley behind this mountain, about to attack you, would you believe me?” They answered as one: “Yes — we have never known you to lie.” He said: “Then I am a warner to you before a severe punishment.”1
His uncle Abū Lahab answered him. “Tabban laka!” he snarled — “Ruin to you! Is it for this that you gathered us?” — and turned away. In response, this sūrah was revealed, taking his own word tabb — ruin — and returning it upon him.2 It is one of the few passages of the Qurʾān revealed to answer a single man by name, and the answer was devastating: the uncle who had wished ruin on his nephew was told that ruin was his own.3
Who was Abū Lahab?
Abū Lahab was ʿAbd al-ʿUzzā ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib — a paternal uncle of the Prophet ﷺ, brother of his late father ʿAbdullāh. His nickname, Abū Lahab (“father of flame”), was given for his bright, ruddy, handsome face. That the harshest opposition came from within the Prophet’s ﷺ own family made the disavowal all the more striking: kinship, so sacred in Arabia, gave Abū Lahab no shelter from the consequences of his choice.4
The Qurʾān pointedly calls him by this nickname rather than his given name. The commentators note two reasons: his real name, ʿAbd al-ʿUzzā, means “servant of al-ʿUzzā” — an idol the Qurʾān would not dignify — and “father of flame” aptly foreshadows the fate the sūrah announces: a Fire “of flame.”5
Who was his wife?
His wife was Umm Jamīl, whose name was Arwā bint Ḥarb ibn Umayya — the sister of Abū Sufyān, and thus from the powerful clan of Banū Umayya. Husband and wife were partners in hostility: she is remembered in the tradition for carrying thorny branches to strew in the Prophet’s ﷺ path, and for carrying tales to stir up enmity against him. The sūrah names her too, and ties her fate to her husband’s.4
When was it revealed?
Al-Masad is an early Makkan sūrah, revealed as the public call was gathering opposition. In the traditional chronological lists it is ranked around sixth in order of revelation — a scholarly reconstruction, as with the sūrahs before it on this site, rather than an ordering fixed by hadith. What is certain is its setting: the open confrontation with Quraysh that followed the Prophet’s ﷺ call on al-Ṣafā.6
The Five Verses
May the hands of Abū Lahab perish, and may he perish.
His wealth availed him nothing, nor what he earned.
He will burn in a Fire of blazing flame,
And his wife, the carrier of firewood,
Around her neck a rope of twisted palm-fibre.
Verse by Verse
- Verse 1 — the curse returned. “May the hands of Abū Lahab perish, and may he perish.” The word tabba means loss, ruin, utter failure — the very word Abū Lahab had thrown at the Prophet ﷺ. The commentators note that the “hands” stand for the whole man and all his effort: everything he set his hands to against the message would come to nothing.4
- Verse 2 — the useless fortune. “His wealth availed him nothing, nor what he earned.” Abū Lahab was rich and well-connected; none of it would help him. “What he earned” (mā kasab) is understood by Ibn ʿAbbās and others to include his children — a man’s offspring being among his “earnings” — for they too would fail to save him.7
- Verse 3 — the fitting fire. “He will burn in a Fire of blazing flame.” Here is the wordplay that seals the sūrah: the man called Abū Lahab, “father of flame,” will enter a Fire “of flame” (lahab). His very nickname foretold his end.4
- Verse 4 — the wife. “And his wife, the carrier of firewood.” The commentators read “carrier of firewood” two ways, and both are ancient: literally, that Umm Jamīl gathered thorns to scatter in the Prophet’s ﷺ path; and figuratively, that she “carried firewood” in the Arab idiom for tale-bearing — spreading slander to kindle the fire of enmity between people.7
- Verse 5 — the rope. “Around her neck a rope of twisted palm-fibre.” Jīd is the neck — pointedly, the neck that wore fine necklaces of Makkah’s elite. In place of her jewellery, a coarse rope of masad, twisted palm-fibre; the commentators add that it is a fetter of the Fire. The proud persecutor is shown bound like the firewood she carried.4
The Meaning of “al-Masad”
The sūrah takes its name from its final word, al-Masad — twisted palm-fibre, the rough cordage plaited from the fibres of the date-palm and used for ropes and bindings. Its image is deliberate: against the fine adornments of a wealthy Makkan woman, the Qurʾān sets a common, coarse rope around the neck — a picture of humiliation and captivity.4
The sūrah carries other names too. It is often called al-Lahab (“The Flame”) or Sūrat Abī Lahab, after the uncle it names, and Tabbat, after its opening word. Each name points to the same small, sharp scene: a man of flame, bound for a Fire of flame, and his wife bound with a rope — the whole household’s ruin drawn in five lines.
Key Themes
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Kinship cannot shield disbelief. The target of the sūrah is the Prophet’s ﷺ own uncle. Blood, which meant everything in Arabia, counted for nothing against persistent rejection of the truth.
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Wealth and status save no one. “His wealth availed him nothing.” Abū Lahab had every worldly advantage; the sūrah strips them away in a single verse, as al-ʿAlaq and al-Qalam warned of the man who thinks himself self-sufficient.
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Justice fits the crime. The persecutor’s fate mirrors his deed: the man of “flame” meets a Fire of flame; the wife who “carried firewood” is bound with a rope around her neck.
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A prophecy on the record. By naming a living opponent and his end, the sūrah staked the truth of the revelation on a future no human could guarantee.
A Prophecy That Could Have Been Disproved
There is something in this short sūrah that sets it apart. It named a specific, living man and effectively declared that he would die rejecting the message and enter the Fire. Abū Lahab lived on for years after it was recited across Makkah — and all he needed to do to make the Qurʾān appear false was to say, even insincerely, “I believe.” He never did. He remained an enemy of the message to the end and died a disbeliever. Later commentators point to this as a kind of standing challenge: the revelation predicted his obstinacy, and his own life confirmed it.4
He died not long after the Muslims’ victory at Badr, of a virulent sore the Arabs called ʿadasa, which his people feared as contagious; the sīrah reports that his body was left untended for days before it was buried at a distance. These historical details come from the biographical (sīrah) tradition rather than the primary hadith collections, and are best received as such — but the core fact, that he died in his disbelief, is not in dispute.8
One narration, often raised in connection with him, must be reported carefully. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī notes — in a brief, disconnected form, as a dream seen after his death — that Abū Lahab’s torment was said to be eased by a sip of water because he had once freed the slave-woman Thuwayba, who suckled the infant Muḥammad ﷺ. The popular additions to this report — that the relief comes on Mondays, or that it was for his joy at the Prophet’s birth — are not part of that brief notice and rest on weak chains; scholars have long questioned whether it establishes any real lightening of a disbeliever’s punishment at all. It should not be leaned upon.9
Why This Matters
Al-Masad is a hard sūrah, and it is meant to be. It shows that the Qurʾān’s warnings are not abstractions: they can name a name, and history can be left to answer. But its lesson reaches past one man. Abū Lahab had everything Makkah prized — noble blood, wealth, sons, standing — and the sūrah shows all of it evaporating before God. What a person builds with their hands against the truth will perish (tabba); what they possess cannot buy them out. Set beside the mercy that opens the Qurʾān in al-Fātiḥah, al-Masad is its shadow: the same Lord who guides those who turn to Him will not be thwarted by those who set their hands against Him — not even by a man of the Prophet’s ﷺ own house.
Sources & References
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Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, Kitāb al-Tafsīr, on Sūrat al-Shuʿarāʾ (commentary on “and warn your nearest kinsfolk,” 26:214), Ḥadīth no. 4770, narrated by Ibn ʿAbbās (r.a.) — the Prophet’s ﷺ call upon the clans of Quraysh from al-Ṣafā and his warning of a severe punishment. ↩
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Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, Kitāb al-Īmān, Ḥadīth no. 208, narrated by Ibn ʿAbbās (r.a.) — the fuller account of the call on al-Ṣafā, Abū Lahab’s retort “Tabban laka! Is it for this you gathered us?”, and the revelation of Sūrat al-Masad in reply. ↩
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Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, Kitāb al-Tafsīr, Tafsīr Sūrat al-Masad, Ḥadīth nos. 4971–4972, narrated by Ibn ʿAbbās (r.a.) — the occasion of the sūrah’s revelation. ↩
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Ismāʿīl ibn ʿUmar Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm, on Sūrat al-Masad — the identity of Abū Lahab (ʿAbd al-ʿUzzā ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib) and his nickname, the meaning of tabba and of the “hands,” the wordplay of lahab, the sense of masad, and the sūrah as a fulfilled report of Abū Lahab’s obstinate disbelief. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7
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Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Qurṭubī, al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, on Sūrat al-Masad — the sūrah’s names, and why the Qurʾān names Abū Lahab by his kunya rather than his given name (avoiding the idolatrous “ʿAbd al-ʿUzzā,” and foreshadowing the Fire “of flame”). ↩
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Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī, al-Itqān fī ʿUlūm al-Qurʾān, on the order of revelation (tartīb al-nuzūl), which ranks al-Masad around sixth — a scholarly reconstruction, not an ordering fixed by an authentic prophetic hadith. Its Makkan status is undisputed. ↩
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Muḥammad ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ al-Bayān ʿan Taʾwīl Āy al-Qurʾān, on Sūrat al-Masad — the reading of “what he earned” (mā kasab) as including his children, and the two interpretations of “carrier of firewood” (the literal thorns and the figurative tale-bearing). ↩ ↩2
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Ṣafī al-Raḥmān al-Mubārakpūrī, al-Raḥīq al-Makhtūm (The Sealed Nectar), on the aftermath of Badr — the death of Abū Lahab shortly afterward. The vivid particulars (the ʿadasa sore, the neglected body) belong to the sīrah / historical reports rather than the primary hadith collections. ↩
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Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, Kitāb al-Nikāḥ, near Ḥadīth no. 5101 — a brief, disconnected (muʿallaq / mursal) notice of a dream seen after Abū Lahab’s death, in which his torment is eased for having freed Thuwayba, the woman who suckled the Prophet ﷺ. The common additions (“on Mondays,” “for joy at the Prophet’s birth”) are not part of this notice and rest on weak chains; scholars debate whether it establishes any relief for a disbeliever at all, and it should not be relied upon. ↩