Al-Kafirun الكافرون
The Disbelievers
Al-Kafirun is a direct address — "Say, disbelievers" — reported to answer a real offer made to the Prophet ﷺ by Meccan leaders: alternate years of worship, his god one year and theirs the next, as a compromise to end the conflict between them. The surah's answer is a flat, repeated refusal with no room for a middle position: "I do not worship what you worship, you do not worship what I worship," stated and restated rather than argued. It closes with lakum dinukum wa liya din — "you have your religion and I have mine" — a verse frequently cited (including outside Muslim scholarship) as an early statement of religious coexistence without doctrinal compromise: the surah rejects the offer to blend belief, not the disbelievers' right to hold theirs.
قُلْ يَـٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلْكَـٰفِرُونَ
Say [Prophet], ‘Disbelievers:
لَآ أَعْبُدُ مَا تَعْبُدُونَ
I do not worship what you worship,
وَلَآ أَنتُمْ عَـٰبِدُونَ مَآ أَعْبُدُ
you do not worship what I worship,
وَلَآ أَنَا۠ عَابِدٌ مَّا عَبَدتُّمْ
I will never worship what you worship,
وَلَآ أَنتُمْ عَـٰبِدُونَ مَآ أَعْبُدُ
you will never worship what I worship:
لَكُمْ دِينُكُمْ وَلِىَ دِينِ
you have your religion and I have mine.’
Arabic text and translation (M.A.S. Abdel Haleem) via the Quran.Foundation API.
Frequently asked
Six verses.
Meccan, revealed in Makkah.
Tradition holds it answers an offer from Meccan leaders proposing the Prophet ﷺ and his opponents alternate which god they worshipped year to year — the surah refuses any such compromise.
The surah's closing verse (109:6) — often read as rejecting doctrinal compromise while still affirming that each side keeps its own belief, rather than as a call to conflict.