the beginning of chapter lvi. Muir places it in about the same period of time, which would fix the date at about the fifth year of the call of Muhammad to preach. Asbab al-nuzul Asbāb al-nuzūl, an Arabic term meaning "occasions/circumstances of revelation", is a secondary genre of Qur'anic exegesis (tafsir) directed at establishing the context in which specific verses of the Qur'an were revealed. 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. Nasa'i and other traditionists have related a tradition from Ibn 'Abbas, and Hakim hold it as authentic, that Nadr bin al-Harith Kaladah had said "O God, if it is really the Truth sent down by You, then rain down stones on us from the heavens, or send down any other painful torment on us." (AI-Anfal: 32). The person here meant is generally supposed to have been al Nudár Ibn al Hárith, who said, ‘O God, if what Muhammad preaches be the truth from thee, rain down upon us a shower of stones, or send some dreadful judgment to punish us.’ Others, however, think it was Abú Jahl, who challenged Muhammad to cause a fragment of heaven to fall on them."—Sale, Baidawi. Abdul-Qadir Gilani, an influential Islamic Sufi religious figure, teacher, preacher and writer, however, holds the opinion that the demand for torment referred in the first ayah of this surah was made by Prophet Muhammad himself for the disbelievers due to the increasing Persecution of Muslims by the Meccans. And for example Dr. Israr Ahmed cites the demand of torment by prophet Nūḥ against his people in the next surah which is also the pair of surah Al-Ma'arij. For references, Dr. Ahmed cites the works of Fakhr al-Din al-Razi and Abdul-Qadir Gilani. Theme and subject matter Sayyid Qutb an Egyptian author, educator and Islamic theorist in his magnum opus, Fi Zilal al-Quran (In the shade of the Qur'an), a 30-volume commentary on the Qur'an, summarizes the overview of surah Al-Ma'arij in these words: "We may say that this surah represents a round in the long, hard battle the Qur'an fights within the human soul, going deep inside it to eradicate all lingering traces of jahiliyyah. This battle is greater and longer lasting than the wars the Muslims later had