Surah Al-Kawthar — Abundance

Introduction to Surah Al-Kawthar

Three verses, Meccan, one hundred and eighth in the written order, and the shortest surah in the Qur’an.

The occasion

Traditional accounts connect it to a taunt. The Prophet’s sons had died in infancy, and in the social arithmetic of Mecca a man with no surviving son was abtar — cut off, docked, the end of a line. The word was used of him publicly; the accounts name different Meccans as the speaker.

What it says

That We have given you al-kawthar; so pray to your Lord and sacrifice; and that it is the one who hates you who is cut off.

The surah answers the taunt by using the taunter’s own word back, in the last line, and it does not argue the point.

The word in the middle

Al-kawthar is from a root meaning abundance and is not an ordinary noun. The hadith literature identifies it as a river or fountain given to the Prophet in paradise: Anas reports Gabriel naming it to him (Sahih al-Bukhari 6581), and elsewhere the Prophet calls it a canal promised to him with abundant good in it, to which his people will come on the day of resurrection (Sahih Muslim 400a). That is the most common understanding. Classical commentators also recorded broader readings — abundant good of any kind, or the Qur’an itself, or the standing he was given — and several held that the specific and the general readings do not exclude one another.

The middle verse is the one that is easiest to pass over: between the gift and the reply to the insult sits an instruction to pray and to sacrifice. What is asked for in return for the abundance is worship, and it is placed in the centre of the three lines.