وَٱذْكُرِ ٱسْمَ رَبِّكَ وَتَبَتَّلْ إِلَيْهِ تَبْتِيلًۭا
And remember the name of your Lord and devote yourself to Him with [complete] devotion.
Introduction
This is āyah 8 of Sūrat Al-Muzzammil (The Enshrouded One), the 3rd sūrah in the traditional order of revelation. It was revealed in the Meccan period and sits within Juzʾ 29. Meccan verses tend to address faith, the oneness of God, and the hereafter.
This introduction is a starting point — the community and Bilal will enrich it over time.
Revelation & occasion
- Period
- Meccan
- Order revealed
- 3 of 114
- Surah
- Al-Muzzammil (73)
And remember the name of thy Lord and devote thyself to Him devoutly. Devotion is one of the states of the travelers, those who, in their states of encounter and unveilings, have reached the point that paradise with all its trees and streams does not enter into the beauty of their imagination; hell, with all its fetters and shackles, trembles in fear at the burning in their breasts. The viper of this world's avarice cannot put its fangs into the days of their delight, thorns from the thickets of envy and pride fail to catch in their skirts, dust from the desert of the com- manding soul does not sit on the robe of their submission, smoke from the abyss of caprice never reaches their eyes. They look at people with the eye of heedfulness, they speak with the tongue of tenderness, they become familiar with the heart of mercy. They are kings in attribute and beggars in form, sultans of the road in the garment of the indigent, travelers who have nothing of distance, fliers without the causality of wings and feathers, drunk with the wine of passion, alive with the life of proximity. A group who have cleared away everything other than Us, striking the fire of their hearts' grief into the spheres. Distant from everything outside of Us, they reached the Throne, their tents set up in the dust.
Tafsir
Hafiz Ibn Kathir
Chains of transmission
Oral — isnād
- ~610–632 CERevelation & memorisation
Received by the Prophet ﷺ and preserved by the ḥuffāẓ (memorisers) among the Companions.
- 1st century AHMutawātir transmissionawaiting curation
Carried by mass-transmission through the generations of qurrāʾ.
- TodayLiving chainsawaiting curation
Continuous ijāzah chains link reciters today back to the Prophet ﷺ.
Verified isnād chains for this āyah will be added by curators.
Written — the manuscript record
- ~650 CEʿUthmānic codicesawaiting curation
The standardised muṣḥaf sent to the great cities (e.g. the Topkapı and Samarqand codices).
- 8th–10th c.Early Ḥijāzī & Kūfic foliosawaiting curation
Surviving leaves in Birmingham, Sanaa, Paris (BnF) and beyond.
- Modern printModern printawaiting curation
The 1924 Cairo edition → today: the standard printed muṣḥaf used worldwide.
A curated chain of manuscript images for this exact āyah — roughly one per century — is coming. Help us source and verify them.
And now — what do you think?
The text, its history and the classical commentary are laid out above. Share your own understanding, ask a question, or reason with others.
Community resources
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