Asbāb al-nuzūl اسباب النزول, an Arabic term meaning "occasions/circumstances of revelation", is a secondary genre of Qur'ānic exegesis (tafsir) directed at establishing the context in which specific verses of the Qur'ān were revealed. Though of some use in reconstructing the Qur'ān's historicity, asbāb is by nature an exegetical rather than a historiographical genre, and as such usually associates the verses it explicates with general situations rather than specific events.