Surah Al-Maa'un

The name. Al-Ma'un means "Small Kindnesses," or "Common Necessities" — everyday items and assistance neighbors would lend one another, taken from the surah's closing word describing those who withhold even this (107:7). It is Meccan, and its title names not the surah's main subject but its final, sharpest accusation, the smallest-scale failure it lists after larger ones.

What it is known for. The surah is known for opening with a question — have you seen the one who denies the Recompense — and answering it not with a theological claim but with two concrete social failures: driving away the orphan and not encouraging the feeding of the poor (107:1-3). It then turns to people who do pray, but are heedless of their prayer, who show off their deeds, and withhold assistance (107:4-7) — a surah that ties denial of the Hereafter directly to how a person treats the vulnerable and to prayer performed without sincerity, rather than treating belief and conduct as separate questions.

Reading it. At 7 ayahs it is a short surah, read in about a minute. Its structure moves from one denial to two connected failures, orphan and poor, then to a second group whose fault is not disbelief but insincerity in worship itself, so a first-time reader should notice that the surah's harshest words are aimed not at open unbelief but at prayer performed for show, placed last and given the most detail of anything in the surah.