The Surah takes its name from the first Ayat, لَا أُقْسِمُ بِهَـٰذَا الْبَلَدِ “I swear by this city (Makkah)” [90:1]. There are 20 Ayat in this Surah.The Surah begins with a reference to the city of Makkah where the Prophet was going through an experience of pain and suffering due to the denial of his people. It talks about the different stages of human life. This world is not the place of real comfort. Here is the test of human beings to do good deeds and then the final judgment will be in the Hereafter.In this Surah a vast subject has been compressed into a few brief sentences, it’s a miracle of the Qur’an that a complete ideology of life which could hardly be explained in a thick volume has been abridged most effectively in brief sentences of this short Surah. Its theme is to explain the true position of man in the world and of the world in relation to man and to tell that God has shown to man both the highways of good and evil, has also provided for him the means to judge and see and follow them, and now it rests upon man’s own effort and judgment whether he chooses the path of virtue and reaches felicity or adopts the path of vice and meets with doom.
