Picture two of the Prophet's Companions meeting. A report recorded by al-Tabarani says that two of them would not part until one had recited surah al-'Asr to the other, all of it, and they had exchanged the greeting of peace. All of it is three lines.
The first line is an oath: By al-'asr. An oath calls something to witness, and here the witness is time. The Arabic word is wider than the English one. It can mean time as a whole, an age, or the last stretch of the afternoon before the sun goes down.
Whichever is meant, the picture is of something running out. And an oath is only half a sentence. The listener is left waiting to hear what time is being called to witness.
Qur'an 103:1 A closer look: The story behind it, ayah 103:1-3
A surah to part on Ibn Kathir and Ma'ariful Qur'an both pass on a report recorded by al-Tabarani: whenever two of the Prophet's Companions met, they would not part until one of them had recited surah al-'Asr in full to the other. Ibn Kathir's wording adds that one then gave the other the greeting of peace.
Neither commentary gives a grading for the report. They also name its narrator slightly differently: 'Abdullah ibn Hisn in the English Ibn Kathir, 'Ubaydullah ibn Hisn in Ma'ariful Qur'an.
Straight after it, both quote Imam al-Shafi'i: if people were to think this surah through, it would be enough for them. Ma'ariful Qur'an adds its own gloss: in three lines the surah lays out a complete way of living.
Researched with AI help, from: Tafsir Ibn Kathir (abridged English edition) (the report from al-Tabarani, and al-Shafi'i's saying); Ma'ariful Qur'an (Mufti Muhammad Shafi)
A closer look: The story behind it, ayah 103:1-3
The rival who answered with a hyrax Ibn Kathir opens his commentary on this surah with a story. He introduces it with "they have mentioned", and says he found a chain of narrators for part of it, or for something close to it, in a book by Abu Bakr al-Khara'iti. So it comes as a story passed on, not as a graded report.
'Amr ibn al-'As, before he became a Muslim, went to visit Musaylimah, a man who claimed that revelation came to him too and whom Ibn Kathir calls by his nickname, the Liar. Musaylimah asked what had been revealed to Muhammad ﷺ lately. 'Amr said: a short surah, and recited these three lines.
Musaylimah thought for a while and said something like it had come to him as well. Then he produced a rhyme addressed to a hyrax, a small furry animal: you are only two ears and a chest, and the rest of you is digging and burrowing. What do you think, 'Amr?
'Amr answered: by Allah , you know that I know you are lying. Ibn Kathir's own comment is that the lines were meant to rival the Qur'an and did not convince even an idol worshipper of the time.
Researched with AI help, from: Tafsir Ibn Kathir (abridged English edition) (a story he passes on with "they have mentioned")
A closer look: Where scholars differ, ayah 103:1
Time, the afternoon, or the afternoon prayer What exactly is al-'asr? The commentaries give several answers.
Ibn Kathir: it is time itself, the time in which everything people do takes place, good or bad. He calls this the popular opinion. He also passes on a second view, from Zayd ibn Aslam through Malik: it is the evening.
Al-Jalalayn translates it as time, then offers two more: the stretch from when the sun starts to decline until sunset, or the afternoon prayer.
Tafsir al-Tustari reads the oath as "by the Lord of time", and also mentions the afternoon prayer.
The two translations below both choose time. One says "By time", the other "By the time". Neither can carry the afternoon as well. The Arabic word holds both at once: all of time, and the hour when the day is almost gone.
Saheeh International
1 By time,
Rowwad Translation Center
1 By the time,
Researched with AI help, from: Tafsir Ibn Kathir (abridged English edition) (his own view, and the report from Zayd ibn Aslam); Tafsir al-Jalalayn; Tafsir al-Tustari
A closer look: The connection, ayah 103:1-2
Why time is the witness Ma'ariful Qur'an asks a plain question: an oath should have something to do with the thing sworn to. What does time have to do with loss?
It gives two answers. The first it reports as the general view of the commentators: everything a person is and does happens inside time, and time is the one thing being spent whatever else happens. Hours, days and years go, strength fades, and nobody asked.
The second it offers as another possibility. Time, in the sense of history, is the evidence. Look at why people and nations rose and fell, it says, and the record bears out what the surah is about to claim.
Researched with AI help, from: Ma'ariful Qur'an (Mufti Muhammad Shafi)
The surah calls time itself as its witness.
Everyone is running at a loss The second line is what the oath was for: the human being is in loss. Not some people. Al-Jalalayn notes that the word is generic. It means the whole species.
The commentators hear the market in the word loss. Al-Jalalayn glosses it as loss "in all his bargaining". Ma'ariful Qur'an spells the picture out. A lifetime is a person's capital. The person is the trader. And every day a little of the capital is taken away, without the trader's permission.
So in this surah there is no neutral position. Tazkirul Quran puts it in one sentence: to succeed a person has to exert himself, while for failure he has to do nothing. It is already on its way.
إِنَّ ٱلۡإِنسَٰنَ لَفِي خُسۡرٍ ٢
2 Indeed, mankind is in loss,
Qur'an 103:2 A closer look: The image, ayah 103:2
The ice seller in the market Ma'ariful Qur'an tells it briefly: one of the old scholars said he learned what this ayah means from an ice seller. That trade leaves no room for carelessness. Look away for a moment and the whole capital has melted.
Tazkirul Quran gives the fuller version and credits it to al-Razi's great commentary. The scholar heard an ice seller calling out in the market: people, have mercy on one whose assets are melting away. He said to himself that a lifetime goes the same way.
The point of the image is the kind of capital involved. Money can be put in a box for later. Ice cannot, and neither can a day. Ma'ariful Qur'an says the same in its own words: this capital is not frozen. It is flowing all the time.
Al-Razi's commentary itself was not read for this page. The story is given here as these two works tell it.
Researched with AI help, from: Ma'ariful Qur'an (Mufti Muhammad Shafi); Tazkirul Quran (crediting al-Razi's Tafsir al-Kabir)
A closer look: The connection, ayah 103:2
Life as a trade, elsewhere in the Qur'an Is the trader a commentator's flourish? Ma'ariful Qur'an argues that it is the Qur'an's own language. In 61:10 the believers are asked: shall I tell you about a trade that will save you from a painful punishment? Ma'ariful Qur'an notes that the Qur'an uses the word trade there for faith and good deeds.
It also quotes a saying of the Prophet ﷺ : when a person wakes in the morning he puts his own self into a venture, and some people free it while others destroy it. The commentary gives no collection or grading for the saying, so it is passed on here only as the commentary's quotation.
From there Ma'ariful Qur'an counts three outcomes. Invest the capital of a lifetime in good and the return has no limit. Invest it in harm and the capital is lost, with a load of sins on top. Invest it in nothing at all and both the profit and the capital are gone anyway.
Researched with AI help, from: Ma'ariful Qur'an (Mufti Muhammad Shafi); The Qur'an 61:10 (Rowwad translation; Saheeh International has "transaction")
A closer look: Where scholars differ, ayah 103:2
Every human being, or one man? Who is "man" in this line? Al-Jalalayn says the word is generic: all people. Ibn Kathir reads it the same way, speaking of "the species of man", from which the next line makes its exception.
Tafsir al-Tustari attaches it to one person: all the days of Abu Lahab were wasted. Abu Lahab was the Prophet's uncle and an enemy of his message. The Qur'an names him in surah 111.
The two readings do not have to compete. One gives the rule. The other gives it a face.
The translations below differ on how heavy the loss is. One has "in loss", the other "in utter loss". The commentaries lean toward the heavier word: Ibn Kathir and Tafsir al-Mukhtasar both gloss it as loss and destruction.
Saheeh International
2 Indeed, mankind is in loss,
Rowwad Translation Center
2 man is in utter loss,
Researched with AI help, from: Tafsir al-Jalalayn; Tafsir Ibn Kathir (abridged English edition); Tafsir al-Tustari; Tafsir al-Mukhtasar; Saheeh International and Rowwad, footnotes to 111:1 (who Abu Lahab was)
Doing nothing is not standing still. The stock melts either way.
The third line begins with except, and it is the longest of the three. Four things take a person out of the loss: to believe, to do good, to urge one another to the truth, and to urge one another to patience.
Ibn Kathir reads the first two as a pair: belief in the heart, good deeds with the limbs. Ma'ariful Qur'an points to the shape of the whole list. The first two are about putting yourself right. The last two are about the people around you. On its reading, a person's own good deeds are not enough if everyone nearby is left to it.
Patience, sabr in Arabic, comes last, and Ibn Kathir explains why it has to be there. Tell people the truth and some of them will make you pay for it. So the surah ends on staying the course.
That brings back the two Companions of the report. Reciting these lines to each other before they parted, they were doing what the last line describes.
Ibn Kathir quotes Imam al-Shafi'i on the whole surah: if people were to think it through, it would be enough for them.
إِلَّا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ وَعَمِلُواْ ٱلصَّٰلِحَٰتِ وَتَوَاصَوۡاْ بِٱلۡحَقِّ وَتَوَاصَوۡاْ بِٱلصَّبۡرِ ٣
3 Except for those who have believed and done righteous deeds and advised each other to truth and advised each other to patience.
Qur'an 103:3 A closer look: How translators put it, ayah 103:3
Urging one another: a word that also means a will The verb in this line is tawasaw. Ma'ariful Qur'an traces it to wasiyyah, which it defines as advising someone strongly and effectively about the best thing to do. Wasiyyah is also the word for a will: the instructions a person leaves for after their death.
On that reading this is more than a passing remark between friends: it is strong, careful advice, the kind a will contains. Ma'ariful Qur'an calls truth and patience "two chapters of the same testament".
The form of the verb matters too. It is mutual: one another. Nobody in this line is only the adviser, and nobody only the advised.
English has no single word for that, and the translators show it. The two below have "advised each other" and "exhort one another". The English Ibn Kathir has "recommend one another", al-Jalalayn "enjoin one another", Tafsir al-Mukhtasar "encourage each other".
Saheeh International
3 Except for those who have believed and done righteous deeds and advised each other to truth and advised each other to patience.
Rowwad Translation Center
3 except those who believe and do righteous deeds, and exhort one another to the truth and exhort one another to patience.
Researched with AI help, from: Ma'ariful Qur'an (Mufti Muhammad Shafi); Tafsir Ibn Kathir (abridged English edition); Tafsir al-Jalalayn; Tafsir al-Mukhtasar
A closer look: Where scholars differ, ayah 103:3
What truth, and patience with what? The line names truth and patience without defining either. The commentaries fill them in differently.
Ibn Kathir: urging to truth means doing what is commanded and leaving what is forbidden. Patience is needed for what follows: the plots and harm from people who resent being told.
Al-Jalalayn: truth is faith. Patience is keeping up obedience and holding back from disobedience.
Ma'ariful Qur'an gives two ways to divide them. Either truth is right belief and good action together, and patience is staying away from wrong. Or truth is belief, and patience covers all of practice. It notes that sabr at root means to withhold and bind oneself.
It then cites Ibn Taymiyyah, who it says wrote that two things keep people from faith and good deeds. One is doubt: not being sure what is true. The other is desire: knowing, and not doing. Urging to truth answers the first. Urging to patience answers the second.
Tafsir al-Tustari is the shortest of all: truth here means Allah.
Researched with AI help, from: Tafsir Ibn Kathir (abridged English edition); Tafsir al-Jalalayn; Ma'ariful Qur'an (Mufti Muhammad Shafi) (its own two readings, and Ibn Taymiyyah as it cites him); Tafsir al-Tustari
A closer look: The word, ayah 103:3
Patience is to action as the head is to the body Tafsir al-Tustari spends almost all of its commentary on this surah on the last word. It is set out as a teacher being questioned.
Is there anything better than patience? No act is better, he answers, and no reward is greater. Is patience itself a kind of action? Yes: patience is to action as the head is to the body. One is useless without the other.
How long does patience last? As long as it takes to wait for relief from Allah.
He also separates two kinds of patient people. Some are patient for the sake of this world, until they get what they want from it, and he calls that blameworthy. Others are patient for the sake of the next life. For them he lists patience in obeying, patience in holding back from wrong, and patience when hardship comes.
Researched with AI help, from: Tafsir al-Tustari
A closer look: How it is built, ayah 103:3
Four exceptions, or three? Ma'ariful Qur'an counts four, in two pairs: two for a person's own betterment, two for other people. It credits the pairing to Ibn Kathir, although the abridged English Ibn Kathir read for this page does not put it in those words.
Tazkirul Quran counts three: faith, good deeds, and advising people to truth and patience as a single course. On its reading the third grows out of the first. A person realises a truth so deeply that they cannot keep it to themselves.
Either way the turn is the same. The list starts inside one person and ends between people. Ma'ariful Qur'an presses the point close to home: it singles out a person's own family.
Researched with AI help, from: Ma'ariful Qur'an (Mufti Muhammad Shafi); Tazkirul Quran; Tafsir Ibn Kathir (abridged English edition)
Two for yourself, two for others. In al-'Asr nobody gets out alone.