6: (Al- An 'am)- The Cattle

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Bismillah-ir-Rahman-ir-Rahim.

In the Name of Allâh, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful. All the praises and thanks be to Allâh, the Lord of the 'Alamîn . The Only Owner of the Day of Recompense. You (Alone) we worship, and You (Alone) we ask for help. Guide us to the Straight Way. The Way of those on whom You have bestowed Your Grace , not (the way) of those who earned Your Anger, nor of those who went astray .


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6: (Al- An 'am)- The Cattle

Number of Rukus-20
Number of verses-165

The Cattle or Sūrat al-Anʻām (Arabic: سورة الأنعام‎‎) is the sixth chapter of theQur'an. It is a Makkan sura and its main topics are monotheism,resurrection, heaven and hell.

The surah reports the story of the prophet Abraham,[Quran 6:74-80] who, by using his own reason, stops worshiping celestial bodies and turns towards Allah so that he could receive revelation.

It includes a version of the Mosaic Ten Commandments.

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Warns against hedonism:"What is the life of this world but play and amusement? But best is the home in the hereafter, for those who are righteous."6:59 - teaches that none but Allah is Omniscient:"And with Him are the keys of the Invisible. None but He Knoweth them. And He Knoweth what is in the land and the sea. Not a leaf falleth but He Knoweth it, not a grain amid the darkness of the earth, naught of wet or dry but (it is noted) in a clear record."6:68 - commands avoiding vain conversations:"And when thou seest those who meddle with Our revelations, withdraw from them until they meddle with another topic. And if the devil cause thee to forget, sit not, after the remembrance, with the congregation of wrong-doers."6:73 - teaches about Allah's Omnipotence:"In the day when He Saith: Be! it is."6:151 - The Ten Commandments[1]

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This Surah takes its name from vv. 136, 138 and 139 in which some superstitious beliefs of the idolatrous Arabs concerning the lawfulness of some cattle (an'am) and the unlawfulness of some others have been refuted.

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Period of Revelation

According to a tradition of Ibn Abbas, the whole of the Surah was revealed at one sitting at Makkah. Asma, a daughter of Yazid and a first cousin of Hadrat Mu'az-bin Jabl, says, "During the revelation of this Surah, the Holy Prophet was riding on a she-camel and I was holding her nose-string. The she-camel began to feel the weight so heavily that it seemed as if her bones would break under it." We also learn from other traditions that the Holy Prophet dictated the whole of the Surah the same night that it was revealed.

Its subject-matter clearly shows that it must have been revealed during the last year of the Holy Prophet's life at Makkah. The tradition of Asma, daughter of Yazid, also confirms this. As she belonged to the Ansar and embraced Islam after the migration of the Holy Prophet to Yathrib, her visit to the Holy Prophet at Makkah must have taken place during the last year of his life there. For before this, his relations with those people were not so intimate that a woman from there might have come to visit him at Makkah.

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Occasion of Revelation

After determining the period of its revelation, it is easier to visualize the background of the Surah. Twelve years had passed since the Holy Prophet had been inviting the people to Islam. The antagonism and persecution by the Quraish had become most savage and brutal, and the majority of the Muslims had to leave their homes and migrate to Habash (Abyssinia). Above all, the two great supporters of the Holy Prophet. Abu Talib and Hadrat Khadijah, were no more to help and give strength to him. Thus he was deprived of all the worldly support. But in spite of this, he carried on his mission in the teeth of opposition. As a result of this, on the one hand, all the good people of Makkah and the surrounding clans gradually began to accept Islam ; on the other hand, the community as a whole, was bent upon obduracy and rejection. Therefore, if anyone showed any inclination towards Islam, he was subjected to taunts and derision, physical violence and social boycott. It was in these dark circumstances that a ray of hope gleamed from Yathrib, where Islam began to spread freely by the efforts of some influential people of Aus and Khazraj, who had embraced Islam at Makkah. This was a humble beginning in the march of Islam towards success and none could foresee at that time the great potentialities that lay hidden in it. For, to a casual observer, it appeared at that time as if Islam was merely a weak movement it had no material backing except the meager support of the Prophet's own family and of the few poor adherents of the Movement. Obviously the latter could not give much help because they themselves had been cast out by their own people who had become their enemies and were persecuting them.
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