“ ‘O Prophet, why do you forbid …’ as far as the beginning of the tenth verse (al-Tahrīm), ‘When the earth is shaken’ (al-Zalzalah), and ‘When the help of Allah comes’ (al-Naṣr) are sūrahs that were revealed in Madinah; the rest of the Qur’an was revealed in Makkah.

Abu Bakr said:

Whoever dismisses the transmitted reports, turns away from the consensus, and arranges the sūrahs solely according to whether they were sent down in Makkah or in Madinah will not know where to place al-Fātiḥah, for scholars differ about the location of its revelation. He will also be forced to move the verse that now stands at the head of verse 235 of al-Baqarah to the head of verse 240. Whoever corrupts the ordering of the Qur’an has in fact disbelieved in it and repudiated what Muhammad—peace and blessings be upon him—conveyed from his Lord, Exalted is He.

It has further been said that the reason the Medinan passages precede the Makkan ones is that Allah, Exalted is He, addressed the Arabs in their own tongue, employing the stylistic devices and modes of discourse they knew. Since one recognized feature of their speech was to advance what is normally deferred and defer what is normally advanced, they were addressed in that very style in the Book of Allah. Had this mode been absent from the Qur’an they would have said, “How is it stripped of a register that figures so prominently in our refined and cherished composition?”

ʿUbayd ibn al-Abras said:
“Because beasts have replaced its people,
And calamities have altered its state;
Your eyes—their tears flow in torrents,
As though their tear-ducts were split apart.”

What he meant was: “Your eyes—tears stream from them because beasts have replaced its people”; thus he advanced what is usually deferred and deferred what is usually advanced.

Sarūb means a channel or slope on the surface of the earth, and by extension a person who wanders aimlessly through the land. A poet said:
“Where have you roamed, when once you were no rover?”

His phrase “shaʾnihimā”—shaʾn, plural shuʾūn—refers to the joints of the skull where its parts meet, and from which tears emerge. Shuʿayb means “split apart” or “scattered.”