A Glance at the Way the Sūras of the Holy Qur ān were Revealed

In traditions, the quality of the revelation of the Holy Qur’an’s sūras has been reported in three ways of gradual and successive revelation, gradual and dispersed revelation of the verses of the sūra, and instantaneous revelation of the sūra. Despite the fact that all interpreters have pointed out the instantaneous revelation of some of the verses of the Qur’an, some interpreters while approving this notion have emphasized that many of the verses have been revealed in a dispersed way and according to specific circumstances and exigencies and then have been juxtaposed by the order of the Prophet or legal decision (ijtihād) of the companions. Providing some evidences, this article proves that the Holy Qur’an has been revealed sūra by sūra and the current viewpoint on the revelation of some of the sūras of the Qur’an in separate verses is incorrect. Furthermore, the doubts that the opponents of this theory have expressed on the theory of the sūra by sūra revelation are reviewed and critiqued. According to the research done in this article, the viewpoint of continuous revelation of the sūras enjoy strong proofs based on the Qur’an and hadith, but there are no acceptable proofs based on the Qur’an and hadith for the viewpoint of sūra by sūra revelation.