وَإِذْ صَرَفْنَآ إِلَيْكَ نَفَرًۭا مِّنَ ٱلْجِنِّ يَسْتَمِعُونَ ٱلْقُرْءَانَ فَلَمَّا حَضَرُوهُ قَالُوٓا۟ أَنصِتُوا۟ ۖ فَلَمَّا قُضِىَ وَلَّوْا۟ إِلَىٰ قَوْمِهِم مُّنذِرِينَ
When We dispatched toward you a team of jinn listening to the Quran, when they were in its presence, they said, ‘Be silent!’ When it was finished, they went back to their people as warners.
قَالُوا۟ يَٰقَوْمَنَآ إِنَّا سَمِعْنَا كِتَٰبًا أُنزِلَ مِنۢ بَعْدِ مُوسَىٰ مُصَدِّقًۭا لِّمَا بَيْنَ يَدَيْهِ يَهْدِىٓ إِلَى ٱلْحَقِّ وَإِلَىٰ طَرِيقٍۢ مُّسْتَقِيمٍۢ
They said, ‘O our people! Indeed, we have heard a Book, which has been sent down after Moses, confirming what was before it. It guides to the truth and to a straight path.
يَٰقَوْمَنَآ أَجِيبُوا۟ دَاعِىَ ٱللَّهِ وَءَامِنُوا۟ بِهِۦ يَغْفِرْ لَكُم مِّن ذُنُوبِكُمْ وَيُجِرْكُم مِّنْ عَذَابٍ أَلِيمٍۢ
O our people! Respond to Allah’s summoner and have faith in Him. He will forgive you some of your sins and shelter you from a painful punishment.’
وَمَن لَّا يُجِبْ دَاعِىَ ٱللَّهِ فَلَيْسَ بِمُعْجِزٍۢ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ وَلَيْسَ لَهُۥ مِن دُونِهِۦٓ أَوْلِيَآءُ ۚ أُو۟لَٰٓئِكَ فِى ضَلَٰلٍۢ مُّبِينٍ
Those who do not respond to Allah’s summoner cannot frustrate [Allah] on the earth, and they will not find any protectors besides Him. They are in manifest error.
أَوَلَمْ يَرَوْا۟ أَنَّ ٱللَّهَ ٱلَّذِى خَلَقَ ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضَ وَلَمْ يَعْىَ بِخَلْقِهِنَّ بِقَٰدِرٍ عَلَىٰٓ أَن يُحْۦِىَ ٱلْمَوْتَىٰ ۚ بَلَىٰٓ إِنَّهُۥ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَىْءٍۢ قَدِيرٌۭ
Do they not see that Allah, who created the heavens and the earth and [who] was not exhausted by their creation, is able to revive the dead? Yes, indeed He has power over all things.
وَيَوْمَ يُعْرَضُ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا۟ عَلَى ٱلنَّارِ أَلَيْسَ هَٰذَا بِٱلْحَقِّ ۖ قَالُوا۟ بَلَىٰ وَرَبِّنَا ۚ قَالَ فَذُوقُوا۟ ٱلْعَذَابَ بِمَا كُنتُمْ تَكْفُرُونَ
The day when the faithless are exposed to the Fire, [He will say,] ‘Is this not a fact?’ They will say, ‘Yes, by our Lord!’ He will say, ‘So taste the punishment because of what you used to disbelieve.’
فَٱصْبِرْ كَمَا صَبَرَ أُو۟لُوا۟ ٱلْعَزْمِ مِنَ ٱلرُّسُلِ وَلَا تَسْتَعْجِل لَّهُمْ ۚ كَأَنَّهُمْ يَوْمَ يَرَوْنَ مَا يُوعَدُونَ لَمْ يَلْبَثُوٓا۟ إِلَّا سَاعَةًۭ مِّن نَّهَارٍۭ ۚ بَلَٰغٌۭ ۚ فَهَلْ يُهْلَكُ إِلَّا ٱلْقَوْمُ ٱلْفَٰسِقُونَ
So be patient just as the resolute among the apostles were patient, and do not seek to hasten [the punishment] for them. The day when they see what they are promised, [it will be] as though they had remained [in the world] only an hour of a day. This is a proclamation. So shall anyone be destroyed except the transgressing lot?
English translation: Ali Quli Qarai
The sura's second story turns to the unseen: a party of jinn hear the Qurʾan, fall silent, and return to their people as warners (vv.29-30), calling them to answer God's summoner and warning that none who refuses can frustrate God (vv.31-32). Then the argument for the Resurrection from the ease of creation (v.33), the disbelievers' forced confession at the Fire (v.34), and the closing command to the Prophet to be patient as the resolute messengers were patient (v.35).
The jinn episode. Al-Tabarsi and al-Tusi explain that the jinn were turned to the Prophet — by grace, or after the shooting-stars barred them from eavesdropping on heaven — and heard him reciting (at Batn Nakhla); both note the divergent reports on their number (seven or nine) and homeland (Nasibin, said to be in Yemen). Al-Qummi and al-Bahrani fix the occasion at Wadi Majanna on the Prophet's return from a fruitless call at ʿUkaz, and add that he taught the jinn the laws of Islam and that Surah al-Jinn was then revealed. Al-Tabarsi frames the whole within the moving narrative of al-Taʾif after Abu Talib's death — the rebuff of Thaqif, the stoning, and the Christian slave ʿAddas — closing with Jabir's report that the jinn were better in response than you.
Distinctly Imami additions, reported as attributed: al-Qummi and al-Bahrani both transmit that the Prophet set ʿAli over the jinn to instruct them, and that the believing jinn do not enter Paradise but dwell in enclosures between the Garden and the Fire together with the profligate of the Shiʿa; al-Bahrani further preserves ʿAli's reply to a Jew that the jinn were subjected to Muhammad by faith, unlike the devils subjected to Solomon in their disbelief.
Resurrection and patience. On verse 33 all the surviving sources read the appeal to God's unwearied creation as decisive proof of His power to raise the dead — al-Qummi and al-Bahrani specifying the addressees as the Dahriyya (materialists). On verse 35 the sources converge on the five ulū al-ʿazm — Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad — al-Tabarsi and al-Tusi preferring the partitive reading (bringers of an abrogating law) over the view that all prophets qualify, and al-Bahrani grounding the five in explicit narrations from al-Sadiq and al-Rida (the latter defining ʿazm as possessing determined laws). Al-Tabatabai, al-Qummi and al-Bahrani gloss had they tarried but an hour by the tradition that between this world and the next is 'the blink of an eye,' and all end with al-Zajjaj's note (in al-Tabarsi) that no verse is stronger in hope than the sura's final Shall any be destroyed but the transgressing people? The Enlightening Commentary treats the jinn as rational, accountable beings who believed on hearing a few verses while men like Abu Jahl did not, and reads the close as consolation and encouragement to the Prophet.