Why does Surah at-Tawbah not begin with the Basmala, unlike every other surah?

Surah at-Tawbah (also called Bara'ah) is the one surah of the 114 that is not preceded by "Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim." Several explanations have been passed down from the early generations. The most commonly cited, reported from the companion Uthman ibn Affan, is that the Prophet did not clearly instruct that a Basmala be written before it, and because at-Tawbah's opening content — a formal disavowal of broken treaties with hostile idolaters (9:1) — was seen as thematically continuous with the end of the preceding surah, al-Anfal, some companions treated the two as almost a single unit and did not separate them with a Basmala. Other scholars offer a thematic reason: the Basmala carries connotations of mercy and safety, while at-Tawbah opens with a declaration of severance against treaty-breakers, a tone considered inconsistent with a phrase invoking divine mercy. Whatever the precise reasoning, the omission has been consistently preserved in every generation of manuscripts and printed mushaf since the time of the companions, reflecting the meticulous, unbroken transmission of the Quran's exact wording and layout, not any later editorial choice.

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