Surah al-Lahab — also called al-Masad (‘the palm-fiber’) — is the only surah in the Quran that names a specific contemporary, Abu Lahab, the Prophet’s paternal uncle ‘Abd al-’Uzza, who became one of the most aggressive opponents of the early Meccan mission. The asbab al-nuzul reports place the revelation immediately after Abu Lahab publicly insulted the Prophet at the foot of Mount Safa during the Prophet’s first open call to monotheism. The surah’s curse is therefore not generic but historically located — and that specificity has generated a long classical and modern intra-Muslim conversation about how the verse functions in perpetuity.