al-Anʿām, al-Aʿrāf, and Yūnus, according to the statement of Saʿīd ibn Jubayr (1).

130- Yaʿqūb ibn Ibrāhīm narrated that to me, he said: Hushaym narrated to us, from Abū Bishr, from Saʿīd ibn Jubayr.

And a statement has been narrated from Ibn ʿAbbās indicating his agreement with this statement of Saʿīd.

131- That is what Muḥammad ibn Bashshār narrated to us, he said: Ibn Abī ʿAdī, Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd, Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar, and Sahl ibn Yūsuf narrated to us, they said: ʿAwf narrated to us, he said: Yazīd al-Fārisī narrated to me, he said: Ibn ʿAbbās narrated to me, he said: I said to ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān: "What made you target al-Anfāl, while it is from the Mathānī, and Barāʾa, while it is from the Hundreds, and pair them together without writing a line of 'In the name of Allah, the All-Merciful, the Most Merciful', and place them among the Seven Long Ones? What made you do that?" ʿUthmān said: "Time would pass for the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of God be upon him, while surahs containing numerous verses were being revealed to him. When something was revealed to him, he would call for some of those who used to write and say: 'Place these verses in the surah in which such and such is mentioned.' Al-Anfāl was among the earliest revealed in Medina, and Barāʾa was among the last of the Qurʾān to be revealed, and its story was similar to its story, so I thought it was part of it. Then the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of God be upon him, passed away without clarifying to us that it was part of it; therefore, I paired them together, and I did not write between them a line of 'In the name of Allah, the All-Merciful, the Most Merciful', and I placed them among the Seven Long Ones (2)."

This report informs regarding ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān, may Allah have mercy on him, that it had not become clear to him that