Asbab al-Nuzul

Occasions or circumstances of revelation (asbāb al-nuzūl, أسباب النزول) names the historical context in which Quranic verses were revealed from the perspective of traditional Islam. Though of some use in reconstructing the Qur'an's historicity, asbāb is by nature an exegetical rather than a historiographical genre, and as such usually associates the verses it explicates with general situations rather than specific events. The study of asbāb al-nuzūl is part of the study of Tafsir (interpretation of the Qur'an). Asbāb أَسْبَابْ is the plural of the Arabic word sabab سَبَبْ, which means "cause", "reason", or "occasion", and nuzūl نُزُولْ is the verbal noun of the verb root nzl ن ز ل, literally meaning "to descend" or "to send down", and thus (metaphorically) "to reveal", referring God (Allah) sending down a revelation to his prophets. Though technical terms within Qur'anic exegesis often have their origins in the book itself (e.g. naskh), sabab/asbāb does not: Despite the appearance of the stem sbb over 11 times Quran (Q.2:166, Q.18:84, Q.18:85 Q.18:89, Q.22:15, Q.38:10, Q.40:36-37), none of the verses seem the least bit connected to a statement concerning the occasions of revelation. Within exegetical literature, the use of sabab in a technical sense did not occur until relatively late: the material which would be later called by asbāb writers used alternate phraseologies to introduce their reports, such as al-āya nazalat fī hādhā- "the verse was revealed about such and such"- or fa-anzala allāh- "so God revealed/sent down". The term "sabab" in its technical sense (meaning "occasion of revelation") seems to begin to make its appearance in the works of Tabari (d. 922 CE) and al-Nahhas (d. 950 CE). Al-Jassas (d. 981) was the first to use the term regularly in introducing reports about the revelation of the Quran. Modern scholarship has long posited an origin for the sabab al-nuzūl based largely on its function within exegesis.