A CHRONOLOGICAL QUR'AN: 13th: Sura 103

AL-ASR (THE DECLINING DAY, EVENTIDE, THE EPOCH)

Total Verses: 3 Ibn Kathir on Sura 103
Given in Mecca Robert Spencer on Sura 103

103.001
YUSUFALI: By (the Token of) Time (through the ages),
PICKTHAL: By the declining day,
SHAKIR: I swear by the time,

103.002
YUSUFALI: Verily Man is in loss,
PICKTHAL: Lo! man is a state of loss,
SHAKIR: Most surely man is in loss,

103.003
YUSUFALI: Except such as have Faith, and do righteous deeds, and (join together) in the mutual teaching of Truth, and of Patience and Constancy.
PICKTHAL: Save those who believe and do good works, and exhort one another to truth and exhort one another to endurance.
SHAKIR: Except those who believe and do good, and enjoin on each other truth, and enjoin on each other patience.

NOTES

The University of Southern California Qur'an database is the source of the three translations used here. There, of course, the chapters are arranged in the standard order, not chronologically.

The chronological order used here is adopted from a webpage at the Oxford Islamic Studies website. That webpage connects the same chonological order to the Al-Azhar scholars who prepared the authoritative Arabic Cairo edition of the Qur'an. Although the Oxford webpage in question is no longer available except by subscription, you can see an overview of the same chronological order at many other sites on the web. For example, click on this link and scroll down until you see a chart. Or see this. Or this.

The chronological order shown at those sites, and at the Oxford site, and used here, has its source in traditional, scholarly Muslim opinion. That said, there are some disputes among traditional Muslim scholars about the chronology of a few of the chapters and verses. I have not focused on those somewhat marginal disputes. My purpose is only to present a chronological Qur'an whose sequence is accurate in broad outline, in the sense that it conforms to the views of most traditional Islamic scholars.

When I seem to indicate on this site that a chapter or verse has an indubitable position in the time sequence, it's not because I'm under any illusion that such conclusions are really without doubt. I'm merely presenting what seem to be the most widely accepted opinions among Islam's scholarly authorities.

Occasionally in the ordering here you may find apparent or actual contradictions. Those contradictions are present in the sources used, but are too few to cause traditional scholars to abandon the broad general lines of the chronological sequence they've established.

The Oxford webpage (as well as this webpage), besides showing the chronological order of Qur'an chapters, also lists a number of individual verses that traditional scholars often think are not from the same period as the Qur'an chapters in which they are found. I have flagged each of those "wayward" verses, when they appear here within any Qur'an chapter, so the reader will easily see them when coming upon them, and know if they were given in the Mecca period, Medina period, or in other circumstances.

If you are reading the Qur'an here for the first time, it may be best to read just one of the translations, and ignore the other two, so you can move more quickly through the text.

A CHRONOLOGICAL QUR'AN

13th: Sura 103

NOTES

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