Muqatta'at in the context of Sad (surah)

A Meccan surah is, according to the timing and contextual background of their revelation (asbāb al-nuzūl) within Islamic tradition, a chronologically earlier chapter (suwar, singular sūrah) of the Qur'an. The traditional chronological order attributed to Ibn Abbas became widely accepted following its adoption by the 1924 Egyptian standard edition. The Meccan chapters are believed to have been revealed anytime before the migration of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and his followers from Mecca to Medina (Hijra). The Medinan surahs are those revelations which occurred after the move. There are 86 makkan surahs.

Meccan surahs are typically shorter than Medinan surahs, with relatively short verses (āyāt), and mostly come near the end of the Qur'an. (As a general rule, the chapters of the Qur'an are ordered from longest to shortest.) Most of the chapters containing Muqatta'at are Meccan, Except 2, 3 and 13.

The Quran is divided into 114 chapters, called surahs (Arabic: سُورَة, romanized: sūrah; pl. سُوَر, suwar) and around 6,200 verses (depending on school of counting) called ayahs (Arabic: آية, Arabic pronunciation: [ʔaː.ja]; plural: آيات ʾāyāt). Chapters are arranged broadly in descending order of length. For a preliminary discussion about the chronological order of chapters, see Surah.

Each surah except the ninth (al-Tawba) is preceded by a formula known as the basmala or tasmiah, which reads bismi-llāhi r-raḥmāni r-raḥīm ("In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful."). In twenty-nine surahs, this is followed by a group of letters called "muqaṭṭa'āt" (lit. "abbreviated" or "shortened"), unique combinations of a few letters whose meaning are unknown.