وَلَكُمْ فِيهَا جَمَالٌ حِينَ تُرِيحُونَ وَحِينَ تَسْرَحُونَ
And for you in them is [the enjoyment of] beauty when you bring them in [for the evening] and when you send them out [to pasture].
Introduction
This is āyah 6 of Sūrat An-Nahl (The Bee), the 70th sūrah in the traditional order of revelation. It was revealed in the Meccan period and sits within Juzʾ 14. 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
- 70 of 114
- Surah
- An-Nahl (16)
And in them is beauty for you when you bring home to rest and drive forth to pasture. Some people attach beauty to possessions, some to states. The wealthy find beauty when they bring home to rest and drive forth to pasture, and the poor busy themselves with their Patron when they wake in the morning and rest in the evening. The rich consider the perfection of their beauty to lie in possessions, and possessions are one of two: permitted or forbidden. If they are permitted, they are a tribulation, and if they are forbid- den, they are a curse. The poor consider their status and beauty to lie in union with the Patron and see perfect intimacy in companionship with the Patron. It is said that Rābiʿa ʿAdawiyya was cut off from a caravan and was wandering lost in the desert. She sat down under a thorn tree and put her head on the knees of remorse. She heard a call from the air of exaltedness, “You feel terrified when I am with you?” On the night of the miʿrāj all the beauty and wealth of jinn and men were offered as ransom for one footstep of the Master of the Children of Adam, but he did not glance at it. His boast was this: “Replete one day, I praise Thee; hungry one day, I thank Thee.”
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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