Sūrah Al-Masad The Palm Fiber
سورة المسد
A Makkan sūrah of 5 verses the only sūrah that names a specific person in condemnation: Abū Lahab, the Prophet's uncle and fiercest opponent. His wealth and children will not avail him; he will burn in a fire of flame, and his wife will carry firewood with a rope of palm fiber around her neck.
Surah Overview
Key Themes from Ibn Kathīr
The occasion: when the Prophet ﷺ stood on Ṣafā calling the Quraysh clans by name to warn them of the Hellfire, Abū Lahab (ʿAbd al-ʿUzzā ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, the Prophet's paternal uncle) shouted: "Taban lak! A-li-hādhā jamaʿtanā?" (Woe to you! Did you gather us for this?) cursing the Prophet. This sūrah was revealed as a direct response. The name "Abū Lahab" (Father of Flame) was his kunya ironically appropriate for one condemned to fire.
Ibn Kathīr notes this sūrah is a miracle of the Quran: it was revealed early in the Makkān period stating Abū Lahab would perish in the Hellfire as a kāfir. Abū Lahab had the choice to accept Islam and expose the "lie" but he never did. He died in kufr ten years after the sūrah was revealed, in the aftermath of Badr (grief over his allied tribes' defeat), and his body was abandoned for three days before burial due to plague-like disease. His wife Umm Jamīl was equally hostile, scattering thorns in the Prophet's path she is condemned as "the carrier of firewood," meaning she carried the firewood of slander and discord.
- Miracle of Quran: The sūrah declared Abū Lahab would die in kufr he had a decade to accept Islam and "disprove" it; his inability to do so confirms divine foreknowledge.
- Wealth avails nothing: Abū Lahab was one of the wealthiest Qurayshīs the sūrah specifically says his māl and his kasab (wealth and earnings) cannot save him.
- His wife as co-condemned: Umm Jamīl is the only woman named in condemnation in the Quran her equal partnership in opposition earned her equal condemnation.
- ḥammālat al-ḥaṭab: Ibn Kathīr's preferred interpretation: she carried slander (wood of discord) in this world; in the next she literally carries firewood to fuel the flames around her neck.
- Kunya of fire: "Abū Lahab" (Father of Flame) was his worldly name the Quran used it to mark him as destined for the flame, a fitting irony that the sūrah preserves permanently.