Surah al-Najm is Makkan. (1)
In the Name of Allah, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful.
“By the star when it sets.” (1)
“By the star when it sets”: Ibn Abbas said, in the narration of al-Walibi and al-Awfi: It means the Pleiades when they fall and disappear; its setting is its disappearance. The Arabs call the Pleiades a star.
It is related in a hadith from Abu Hurayrah, may Allah be pleased with him, traced back to the Prophet: “The star never rises while any affliction remains on earth except that it is lifted.” (2) What is meant by “the star” is the Pleiades.
Mujahid said: It refers to all the stars of the sky when they set. Though the wording is singular, the intended meaning is plural. A celestial body is called a star because of its rising, and everything that emerges is a star. One says: “The tooth, the horn, and the plant emerged,” when they come forth.
Ikrimah narrated from Ibn Abbas that it refers to the shooting stars—that is, those by which the devils are pelted when they eavesdrop.
(1) Ibn Mardawayh narrated from Ibn Abbas that he said: Surat al-Najm was revealed in Makkah. See al-Durr al-Manthur, 7:639.
(2) Imam Ahmad recorded it, 2:341 and 388, with the wording: “When the star rises in the morning, the affliction is lifted.” In al-Jami al-Saghir, al-Suyuti indicated that it is hasan (sound); see 5:454, together with Fayd al-Qadir. Al-Haythami said in Majma al-Zawa'id, 4:103: “Ahmad and al-Tabarani in al-Saghir both narrated it in full, with the wording: ‘When the star rises, the affliction is lifted from every land.’ Al-Tabarani narrated something similar in al-Awsat. Its chain includes Asal ibn Sufwan, whom Ibn Hibban declared trustworthy, though he said that he makes mistakes and contradicts others. A group of scholars declared him weak, while the rest of its narrators are narrators of the Sahih.” Imam Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Shaybani also recorded it through a chain whose narrators are reliable in Kitab al-Athar, p. 159, as did al-Tahawi in Mushkil al-Athar, 3:91. Ibn Adi also recorded it in al-Kamil, 7:2478. See also Mushkil al-Athar, 3:92; Mulla Ali al-Qari, Sharh Musnad Abi Hanifah, p. 141; and al-Albani, Silsilat al-Ahadith al-Da'ifah, 1:389-390.