Use it in your browser

Surah Al-Kawthar Explained: The Shortest Surah, the Biggest Promise

CinematicDuration 4:17Qur’an explained

The player is YouTube’s privacy-enhanced version: it sets no cookies, and YouTube’s privacy policy applies to the video. More about this. Watch on YouTube

About this video

Surah al-Kawthar is ten words long, yet it answers a cruel taunt and carries a vast promise to the Prophet ﷺ. We read its three verses in translation, hear how Anas (may Allah be pleased with him) remembered its revelation, and see why the earliest explanation calls al-Kawthar ‘abundant good’ with the river inside it. Framing is drawn, with attribution, from Maulana Maududi's Tafhim al-Qur'an and Dr Israr Ahmed's Bayan-ul-Qur'an.

Also available

English channel

Subscribe to the channel

Chapters

  1. 0:00Surah al-Kawthar · 108
  2. 0:16The surah · 108:1–3
  3. 0:34Why it came
  4. 1:03Sahih Muslim 400
  5. 1:40River, or abundance?
  6. 2:23Verse 2 · the response
  7. 2:54Verse 3 · the reversal
  8. 3:26An honest note
  9. 4:03Recap

Choose a chapter to play the video from that point.

Sources in this video

  • Qur'an 108:1–3, 94:4, 6:162, 2:269 (Pickthall, public domain)
  • Sahih Muslim 400 (Sahih)
  • Sahih al-Bukhari 4966 (Sahih; the explanation of Ibn ʿAbbas) and 4964 (Sahih)
  • Tafhim al-Qur'an, Introduction to Surah 108 and notes 1–4 (Maududi)
  • Bayan-ul-Qur'an (Urdu ed.) vol. 7 pp.537–538 (Dr Israr Ahmed)

How it was made

Backgrounds are AI-generated; all Arabic on screen is the verified corpus text, never retyped.

On-screen translations — Qur'an: Pickthall (1930, public domain) · hadith: Learning Heaven's own rendering of the verified Arabic.

Written down in

Our sourcing method, in the Trust Centre

All videos

Start in your browser, or install it on Android

Free, in English, Urdu and Arabic. The Android app needs Android 7.0 or above.

Use it in your browserGet it on Google Play