Surah kafiroon

Share Page This is a Makki Surah and asks the Prophet ﷺ to completely disassociate himself from disbelief and polytheism. This leaves no room for compromise or ambiguity concerning Islam’s position on the status of other religions, they cannot be mixed with Islam. Even after conveying the Divine Message to the people, if they insist on following their false ways, then the believer in Islam must absolve himself of any responsibility towards them, and declare that the responsibility for their actions lies with them. The Prophet ﷺ recited Surah Al Kafirun in the first unit of the Sunnah prayer of Fajr, and obligatory prayer of Maghrib, as well as in the second unit of the Witr prayer.

Ala-Maududi (109:2) I do not worship those that you worship [2] 2. This includes all those deities whom the disbelievers and the polytheists have been, and are still, worshipping everywhere in the world, whether they are the angels, the jinn, prophets, saints, spirits of the living or dead men, or the sun, the moon, stars, animals, trees, rivers, idols and imaginary gods and goddesses. One may say that the pagans of Arabia also acknowledged Allah as a deity and the other pagans of the world also have never disacknowledged Allah as a deity till today. As for the followers of the earlier scriptures, they also acknowledge Allah alone as the real deity. How then can it be correct to exonerate oneself from the worship of all the deities of all those people, without exception, when Allah too is included among them? The answer is that if Allah is worshipped along with others regarding Him as a deity among other deities, the believer in Tauhid will inevitably express his immunity from this worship, for in his sight Allah is not a deity out of a collection of deities, but He alone is the real deity, and the worship of the collection of deities is no worship of Allah, although worship of Allah is also included in it. The Quran has clearly stated that Allah’s worship is only that which does not have any tinge of the worship of another and in which man makes his worship exclusively Allah’s. And the only command they were given, was to worship Allah, making their religion sincerely His...

Name The Surah takes its name from the word al-kafirun occurring in the Period of Revelation Hadrat Abdullah bin Mas'ud, Hadrat Hasan Basri and Ikrimah, say that this Surah, is Makki, while Hadrat Abdullah bin Zubair says that it is Madani. Two different views have been reported from Hadrat Abdullah bin Abbas and Qatadah, first that it is Makki, and second that it is Madani. However, according to the majority of commentators, it is a Makki Surah, and the subject matter itself points to its being a Makki revelation. Historical Background There was a time in Makkah when although a storm of opposition had arisen in the pagan society of Quraish against the message of Islam preached by the Holy Prophet (upon whom be peace), the Quraish chiefs had not yet lost hope that they would reach some sort of a compromise with him. Therefore, from time to time they would visit him with different proposals of compromise so that according to them, he would accept one of them and the dispute between them would be brought to an end. In regards to this, different traditions have been related in the Hadith. According to Hadrat Abdullah bin Abbas, the Quraish proposed to the Holy Prophet; "We shall give you so much of wealth that you will become the richest man of Makkah. We shall give you whichever woman you like in marriage. We are prepared to follow and obey you as our leader, only on the condition that you will not speak ill of our gods. If you do not agree to this, we present another propos...