Al-Ma'un الماعون
Small Kindnesses
Al-Ma'un opens by asking who denies the Judgement, then answers in a direction most people wouldn't expect: not a theological skeptic, but someone who pushes away the orphan and doesn't urge feeding the needy. The surah then turns to people who do pray — and condemns them too, if their prayer is heedless, performed only to be seen, while they withhold even maʿun, the small household items (traditionally glossed as things like a cooking pot, a bucket, salt) that cost a neighbor nothing to lend. The structure is deliberate: it refuses to separate belief in the Judgement from how a person treats the vulnerable, and it refuses to let ritual prayer stand in for that treatment if the prayer itself is just for show. Among the shortest surahs, it's also one of the most direct in tying orthodoxy to daily conduct rather than letting them sit apart.
أَرَءَيْتَ ٱلَّذِى يُكَذِّبُ بِٱلدِّينِ
[Prophet], have you considered the person who denies the Judgement?
فَذَٰلِكَ ٱلَّذِى يَدُعُّ ٱلْيَتِيمَ
It is he who pushes aside the orphan
وَلَا يَحُضُّ عَلَىٰ طَعَامِ ٱلْمِسْكِينِ
and does not urge others to feed the needy.
فَوَيْلٌ لِّلْمُصَلِّينَ
So woe to those who pray
ٱلَّذِينَ هُمْ عَن صَلَاتِهِمْ سَاهُونَ
but are heedless of their prayer;
ٱلَّذِينَ هُمْ يُرَآءُونَ
those who are all show
وَيَمْنَعُونَ ٱلْمَاعُونَ
and forbid common kindnesses.
Arabic text and translation (M.A.S. Abdel Haleem) via the Quran.Foundation API.
Frequently asked
Seven verses.
Meccan, revealed in Makkah.
"Small kindnesses" or "common necessities" — traditionally understood as everyday household items, like a cooking pot or salt, that cost nothing to lend a neighbor.
Not a doctrinal skeptic, but someone who mistreats the orphan, doesn't urge feeding the needy, prays only to be seen, and withholds small everyday kindnesses from others.