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Chapter 80

He FrownedʿAbasa ( عبس )

42 verses • revealed at Meccan

»The surah that opens with admonishing the Prophet and refers to him as He [who] Frowned and turned away. While the Prophet was speaking to some unbelieving nobles of Quraysh, hoping to convert them, a blind Muslim man came up to learn from him, but in his eagerness to attract the disbelievers to Islam, the Prophet frowned at him. The Prophet is then reproached and told not to concern himself with the disbelievers. It takes its name from the word “he frowned” (ʿabasa) in verse 1. The surah also deals with the condemnation of man’s ingratitude: man becomes self-satisfied and forgets his origin and his final return to God.«

The surah is also known as He Made a Wry Face, He Who Frowned

بِسمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحمٰنِ الرَّحيمِ

Muhammad Asad: In The Name of God, The Most Gracious, The Dispenser of Grace:

1
عَبَسَ وَتَوَلّىٰ

Muhammad Asad

REVEALED at a very early stage of the Prophet's mission, this surah has always been designated by the predicate with which its first sentence opens. The immediate cause of the revelation of the first ten verses was an incident witnessed by a number of the Prophet's contemporaries (see verses 1-2 and the corresponding note 1 below).
HE FROWNED and turned away