Tell us your Lord's family tree It starts with a question. In Makkah, gods had shapes and relatives. So some of the people who worshipped idols came to Muhammad ﷺ and asked for his Lord's family tree: tell us the lineage of your Lord. One report adds that they asked what He was made of. Gold? Silver?
By their lights it was a fair question. Every god they knew was made of something and descended from someone.
The reply is one of the shortest surahs (chapters) of the Qur'an. It is called al-Ikhlas, which means sincerity, or making something pure. It has four ayat (verses; one of them is an ayah). Say: He is Allah , One. Allah, the One everyone turns to. He has no child and was no one's child. Nothing is equal to Him.
The reply refuses the terms of the question. There is no family tree to hand over, because He was never born and has no heirs. Each line shuts a door: not many, not in need, not a parent, not a child, not one among equals.
The Prophet ﷺ said this surah equals a third of the Qur'an.
قُلۡ هُوَ ٱللَّهُ أَحَدٌ ١
1 Say, "He is Allāh, [who is] One,
Qur'an 112:1 ٱللَّهُ ٱلصَّمَدُ ٢ لَمۡ يَلِدۡ وَلَمۡ يُولَدۡ ٣ وَلَمۡ يَكُن لَّهُۥ كُفُوًا أَحَدُۢ ٤
2 Allāh, the Eternal Refuge. 3 He neither begets nor is born, 4 Nor is there to Him any equivalent."
Qur'an 112:2-4 A closer look: The story behind it, ayah 112:1
Who asked, and where? Ibn Kathir gives the report from Ubayy ibn Ka'b, a Companion (one of the people who lived alongside the Prophet ﷺ ): the idol worshippers said, Muhammad, tell us the lineage of your Lord, and this surah came down. He adds that at-Tirmidhi, one of the great hadith collectors, also has it in a mursal form, meaning its chain of narrators has a gap at the Companion's end, and judged that form the more correct.
Ma'ariful Qur'an adds a second report, in which they asked whether Allah was made of gold, silver or something else. It also notes that some narrations give the question to the Jews of Madinah, years later.
That is why the early authorities split on where the surah was revealed. Ma'ariful Qur'an, quoting al-Qurtubi, lists Ibn Mas'ud, al-Hasan al-Basri, 'Ata', 'Ikrimah and Jabir for Makkah, and Qatadah and ad-Dahhak for Madinah. Ibn 'Abbas is reported both ways.
Ibn Kathir also passes on a wider framing from 'Ikrimah: Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians and idol worshippers had each said what they worshipped, and this surah was the reply to all of them at once.
Researched with AI help, from: Tafsir Ibn Kathir (abridged English edition) (the report from Ubayy ibn Ka'b in Musnad Ahmad; at-Tirmidhi's judgement; 'Ikrimah); Ma'ariful Qur'an (Mufti Muhammad Shafi), quoting al-Qurtubi (gold or silver; Makkah or Madinah)
A closer look: The word, ayah 112:2-3
Whatever is born dies, and whatever dies leaves an inheritance Ibn Kathir notes that at-Tirmidhi and Ibn Jarir (al-Tabari) carry the same report with a line of explanation added. Allah is the One who does not give birth and was not born. Why does that matter? Because nothing is born except that it will die, and nothing dies except that it leaves an inheritance behind. Allah does not die, and He leaves no inheritance.
Read with the question in mind, that is the reply in one thought. A family tree is a record of births, deaths and heirs. The people of Makkah asked for the tree of one who, the surah says, never began and will never end.
Researched with AI help, from: Tafsir Ibn Kathir (abridged English edition) (the addition in the narrations of at-Tirmidhi and Ibn Jarir)
A closer look: The word, ayah 112:1-2
Two words that carry the surah: ahad and samad Arabic has two words for one. Ma'ariful Qur'an explains that the surah uses ahad, the stronger of the two: not made up of parts, with no partner, and resembling nothing. That answers the people who asked about gold and silver. He is not made of anything. Ibn Kathir adds that this word is not used to describe anyone else in a plain positive statement.
The second ayah calls Allah as-Samad. Both translations in this app say the Eternal Refuge, and both need a footnote, because the word holds more than one English phrase can. Ibn Kathir passes on Ibn 'Abbas, the Prophet's ﷺ cousin, through two students. In one report it means the One all creation depends on for its needs. In the other it is the master whose mastery is complete, the noble one whose nobility is complete, and so on through knowledge and wisdom.
Sahl al-Tustari, an early commentator, gives two more: the master people turn to in every need, and the One who has no need of food or drink.
Which is right? Ma'ariful Qur'an reports that the hadith scholar at-Tabarani gathered all the explanations and judged them all sound. The root picture, he said, is a chief with no one above him, whom everyone turns to. All depend on him. He depends on no one.
Researched with AI help, from: Ma'ariful Qur'an (Mufti Muhammad Shafi) (ahad; at-Tabarani's conclusion, cited through Ibn Kathir); Tafsir Ibn Kathir (abridged English edition) (Ibn 'Abbas through 'Ikrimah and through 'Ali ibn Abi Talhah); Tafsir al-Tustari
A closer look: The story behind it, ayah 112:1-4
The man who would not stop reciting it Ibn Kathir collects the reports about what this surah meant to the first Muslims. In one, from Sahih al-Bukhari, a man heard another man reciting it over and over through the night. In the morning he mentioned it to the Prophet ﷺ , as if it were not much. The Prophet ﷺ said: by Him in whose hand is my soul, it equals a third of the Qur'an.
In another, a man led the prayer at the mosque of Quba', near Madinah, and began every rak'ah (one cycle of the prayer) with this surah before reciting anything else. His companions found it odd and asked him to choose: this surah or another. He refused, and offered to step down. They did not want anyone else. When the Prophet ﷺ asked him why he held to it, he said: I love it. The reply: your love of it will take you into Paradise. Ibn Kathir notes that al-Bukhari records this one without a full chain, but in a way that shows he accepted it.
A third man, the commander of an expedition, did much the same. Asked why, he said: because it describes the Most Merciful, and I love to recite it.
Researched with AI help, from: Tafsir Ibn Kathir (abridged English edition) (Sahih al-Bukhari from Abu Sa'id, from Anas and from 'A'ishah; also in Muslim and an-Nasa'i)
Asked for Allah's ancestry, the Qur'an answers that He has none. He is One.
Shelter from what is out there The next surah follows from the last. If Allah is the One everything depends on, then He is the one to run to when something frightens you. Surah 113, al-Falaq (the Daybreak), is that run, put into words.
It is a prayer, and it begins the way al-Ikhlas does, with the word Say. I seek refuge in the Lord of daybreak. Then it lists what the shelter is from. First, the harm in anything He created: everything, in one line. Then three things are picked out. The dark when it settles in. Those who blow on knots, which is a picture of sorcery. And an envier when he envies.
Why these three, when the first line already covers everything? The commentators' answer is that these three are especially severe. Al-Jalalayn says so in a word. Ma'ariful Qur'an adds that sorcery works unnoticed, so people mistake it for an ordinary illness. Night is when thieves and enemies move. Sorcery is done out of sight. And envy, they say, was the motive behind the spell that tradition ties to this surah (see the closer look).
Then there is who is being asked. Not the Lord of power, or of armies. The Lord of daybreak: the one who splits the night open every morning.
قُلۡ أَعُوذُ بِرَبِّ ٱلۡفَلَقِ ١
1 Say, "I seek refuge in the Lord of daybreak
Qur'an 113:1 مِن شَرِّ مَا خَلَقَ ٢ وَمِن شَرِّ غَاسِقٍ إِذَا وَقَبَ ٣ وَمِن شَرِّ ٱلنَّفَّٰثَٰتِ فِي ٱلۡعُقَدِ ٤ وَمِن شَرِّ حَاسِدٍ إِذَا حَسَدَ ٥
2 From the evil of that which He created 3 And from the evil of darkness when it settles 4 And from the evil of the blowers in knots 5 And from the evil of an envier when he envies."
Qur'an 113:2-5 A closer look: The word, ayah 113:1
Falaq: the split The word falaq comes from a verb that means to split or cleave, Ma'ariful Qur'an explains. Ibn Kathir gives one meaning, the morning, and lists Jabir, Ibn 'Abbas, Mujahid, Sa'id ibn Jubayr, Qatadah and others for it. Three of those he quotes, al-Qurazi, Ibn Zayd and Ibn Jarir, compare surah 6, ayah 96, where Allah is called the Cleaver of the daybreak. Dawn, in this picture, is something that breaks out of the night.
Why call on Allah by this name here? Ma'ariful Qur'an, citing Tafsir Mazhari, says it is because night so often brings trouble and daylight clears it. The name itself carries the hope.
It is not the only reading. Al-Tustari records others: a valley in Hell (ad-Dahhak), a chamber in Hell (Wuhayb), a well in Hell (al-Hasan), and, introduced only with it has been said, all of creation or the rock that water bursts from.
Researched with AI help, from: Tafsir Ibn Kathir (abridged English edition); Ma'ariful Qur'an (Mufti Muhammad Shafi), citing Tafsir Mazhari; Tafsir al-Tustari (the other readings)
A closer look: The story behind it, ayah 113:4
A comb, a well, and a man he chose not to expose Several commentaries tie this surah and the next to one event in Madinah: a man named Labid ibn A'sam cast a spell on the Prophet ﷺ .
Ibn Kathir gives the account from Sahih al-Bukhari, told by 'A'ishah, the Prophet's wife. He was unwell, and at times thought he had done things he had not done. Then he told her that two figures had come to him, one sitting at his head and one at his feet, and talked over him. What is wrong with this man? He is bewitched. By whom? Labid ibn A'sam, of the clan of Banu Zurayq. With what? A comb, and the hair from it. Where? Under a rock in a well called Dharwan, inside the dry sheath of a date palm.
He went to the well and it was taken out. 'A'ishah asked: will you not make this public? He said: Allah has cured me, and I hate to spread harm among the people. Ma'ariful Qur'an adds that some Companions offered to kill the man and got the same answer, and that Labid went on attending the Prophet's gatherings without ever seeing a sign of complaint on his face.
Who was Labid, and why did he do it? The Bukhari report calls him a hypocrite, meaning someone who professed Islam outwardly, and an ally of the Jews of Madinah. Other reports differ: al-Tustari, al-Jalalayn and the Musnad Ahmad account in Ma'ariful Qur'an call him a Jew. Ma'ariful Qur'an gives the motive as envy: there were people in Madinah who could not bear how fast the new community was growing, and could not stop it in the open.
The Bukhari account does not mention the two surahs. The link comes from other reports. Ma'ariful Qur'an passes one on from al-Tha'labi: the spell was a cord with eleven knots, the two surahs came down with eleven ayat between them, and the Prophet ﷺ untied one knot with each ayah he recited. Al-Tustari and al-Jalalayn also tie the surahs to Labid. Ma'ariful Qur'an gives that report no grading, so it is told here as a report and no more.
Not everyone dates the surah to Madinah. Wahiduddin Khan's Tazkirul Qur'an says al-Falaq was revealed in Makkah, years before.
The story also explains a difference between the two translations below. The Arabic word is a feminine plural: women who blow on knots. One translation says sorceresses. Al-Jalalayn and Ma'ariful Qur'an both mention a view that Labid's daughters tied the knots. Ma'ariful Qur'an also allows a second reading, in which the unspoken noun is souls, and that covers men and women alike. The other translation leaves it open: the blowers.
And the obvious question: can a prophet be affected by such a thing? Ma'ariful Qur'an answers that prophets were never immune to physical causes. They felt the heat of fire, and fever laid them low. It puts this in the same class.
Saheeh International
4 And from the evil of the blowers in knots
Rowwad Translation Center
4 from the harm of the sorceresses who blow on knots,
Researched with AI help, from: Tafsir Ibn Kathir (abridged English edition) (the account in Sahih al-Bukhari from 'A'ishah); Ma'ariful Qur'an (Mufti Muhammad Shafi) (Musnad Ahmad; the report from al-Tha'labi; the motive; prophets and physical causes); Tafsir al-Jalalayn; Tafsir al-Tustari; Tazkirul Qur'an (Wahiduddin Khan) (revealed in Makkah)
A closer look: Where scholars differ, ayah 113:3
The dark when it settles: night, moon or stars? The ayah asks for shelter from the ghasiq when it sets in. What is the ghasiq? Ibn Kathir sets out four answers.
Most of the names he gives say the night, as it comes on with its darkness. He names Ibn 'Abbas, Mujahid, al-Hasan and Qatadah, among others. Az-Zuhri said the sun as it sets.
A report from Abu Hurayrah says the star. Ibn Zayd explains: the Arabs used the word for the setting of the Pleiades, the star cluster, because sickness and plague grew worse when it went down and eased when it rose.
Others said the moon, and they have a hadith. 'A'ishah said the Prophet ﷺ took her by the hand, showed her the moon as it rose, and told her to seek refuge with Allah from the evil of this ghasiq when it grows dark. Ibn Kathir cites it from Musnad Ahmad, at-Tirmidhi and an-Nasa'i. Al-Jalalayn joins the two readings: the night when it darkens, and the moon when it is gone.
Why would the dark be something to fear? Ma'ariful Qur'an, citing Ibn al-Qayyim, is practical about it: night is when thieves, enemies and harmful creatures come out, and with dawn they fade.
The two translations below show the choice. One says darkness when it settles. The other adds night in brackets and says when it spreads around, following the night reading. The verb, says Ma'ariful Qur'an, means to cover completely.
Saheeh International
3 And from the evil of darkness when it settles
Rowwad Translation Center
3 from the harm of darkening [night] when it spreads around,
Researched with AI help, from: Tafsir Ibn Kathir (abridged English edition) (the four readings; the hadith of 'A'ishah); Tafsir al-Jalalayn; Ma'ariful Qur'an (Mufti Muhammad Shafi), citing Ibn al-Qayyim
A closer look: The word, ayah 113:5
Why it says "when he envies" The surah does not ask for shelter from the envier. It asks for shelter from the envier when he envies. Ma'ariful Qur'an explains the extra words. Envy that stays inside a person hurts only that person. It becomes a harm to someone else at the moment the envier acts on it, in word or deed. Al-Jalalayn reads it the same way: when he shows his envy and behaves accordingly.
The Arabic word is hasad, and Ma'ariful Qur'an separates it from a feeling that looks similar. Hasad is being unhappy at someone else's good fortune and wanting it taken from them. Wanting the same good thing for yourself, without wishing the other person to lose it, is a different word, ghibtah, and there is no blame in it.
Then a line from al-Qurtubi, quoted in Ma'ariful Qur'an, that puts envy at the root of the oldest stories the Qur'an tells. It was the first wrong done in heaven and the first done on earth. Iblis , the Qur'an's name for Satan, envied Adam. And Adam's son Qabil (Cain) envied his brother Habil (Abel).
Researched with AI help, from: Ma'ariful Qur'an (Mufti Muhammad Shafi), quoting al-Qurtubi; Tafsir al-Jalalayn
The Lord who ends every night is the one asked for shelter from the dark.
Shelter from the voice inside Al-Falaq looked outward. The last surah of the Qur'an, an-Nas (People, or Mankind), looks in.
Say: I seek refuge in the Lord of people, the King of people, the God of people. Three names in a row. Then a single thing to be sheltered from: the whisperer who withdraws, who whispers into people's chests, from among jinn and people. Jinn are unseen beings the Qur'an speaks of alongside humans.
Ma'ariful Qur'an sets the two surahs side by side. In al-Falaq, Allah is named once and the harms are many. In an-Nas, He is named three times and the harm is one. The commentator's reading: a hurt to the body can be treated, but a voice that talks a person into wrong does deeper damage and is far harder to catch.
So a story that began with a question about who Allah is ends very close to home. Not with an enemy at the gate. With a quiet suggestion in a person's own chest.
قُلۡ أَعُوذُ بِرَبِّ ٱلنَّاسِ ١
1 Say, "I seek refuge in the Lord of mankind,
Qur'an 114:1 مَلِكِ ٱلنَّاسِ ٢ إِلَٰهِ ٱلنَّاسِ ٣ مِن شَرِّ ٱلۡوَسۡوَاسِ ٱلۡخَنَّاسِ ٤ ٱلَّذِي يُوَسۡوِسُ فِي صُدُورِ ٱلنَّاسِ ٥ مِنَ ٱلۡجِنَّةِ وَٱلنَّاسِ ٦
2 The Sovereign of mankind, 3 The God of mankind, 4 From the evil of the retreating whisperer - 5 Who whispers [evil] into the breasts of mankind - 6 From among the jinn and mankind."
Qur'an 114:2-6 A closer look: How it is built, ayah 114:1-3
Three names for one request Why Lord, then King, then God? Ma'ariful Qur'an walks through it. The first word, rabb, means the one who looks after and raises something. But Arabic also uses it for people: the rabb of a house is its owner. So the surah adds King, because not every owner is a king. And then God, because not every king is worshipped. Only Allah is all three. Ibn Kathir names the three: lordship, sovereignty, divinity.
Each name is also a reason to expect shelter. An owner looks after what is his. A king protects his subjects. A God protects those who worship Him.
Ma'ariful Qur'an then sets this surah against the one before it. There, one name and many harms. Here, three names and one harm. It takes that as a measure of how seriously the Qur'an treats the whisper.
And why Lord of people here, but Lord of daybreak there? Ma'ariful Qur'an gives an answer from al-Baydawi, by way of Tafsir Mazhari. The harms in al-Falaq strike the body, and animals suffer those too. The whisper is aimed at human beings, with the jinn alongside them.
Researched with AI help, from: Ma'ariful Qur'an (Mufti Muhammad Shafi), citing al-Baydawi through Tafsir Mazhari; Tafsir Ibn Kathir (abridged English edition)
A closer look: The image, ayah 114:4
The whisperer who backs away The Arabic gives him two names: al-waswas al-khannas. Waswas is the whisper itself. Ma'ariful Qur'an, citing al-Qurtubi, describes it as a suggestion that lands in the heart with no voice heard. Al-Jalalayn says he is named after the act because he does it so constantly.
Khannas comes from a verb meaning to pull back or slink away. Ibn Kathir passes on the picture from Ibn 'Abbas, the Prophet's ﷺ cousin: the devil crouches on the human heart. When the person is distracted and forgetful, he whispers. When the person remembers Allah, he withdraws. Mujahid and Qatadah said the same. Ma'ariful Qur'an adds the next beat: then the person forgets again, and he is back.
Ibn Kathir also records a second report from Ibn 'Abbas with a colder reading: he whispers, and once he is obeyed, he withdraws. The work is done.
The two translations below pull the word in different directions. One says retreating, which stresses the leaving. The other says lurking, which stresses the waiting to come back.
Sahl al-Tustari turns it into a small scene. The hunter is Satan, the bird is the person, and the grain is this world. Then his advice: the way to catch this enemy is to know him. Know him, and you have caught him. Fail to see that he is the enemy, and he has caught you.
Saheeh International
4 From the evil of the retreating whisperer -
Rowwad Translation Center
4 from the harm of the lurking whisperer,
Researched with AI help, from: Tafsir Ibn Kathir (abridged English edition) (Ibn 'Abbas through Sa'id ibn Jubayr, and through al-'Awfi); Ma'ariful Qur'an (Mufti Muhammad Shafi), citing al-Qurtubi; Tafsir al-Jalalayn; Tafsir al-Tustari
A closer look: Where scholars differ, ayah 114:5-6
Can a person be the whisperer? The surah ends: from among jinn and people. Ibn Kathir reports two ways to read that. He gives the second one below first, and introduces this one with it has also been said.
In the first, it describes the whisperers. Some are jinn and some are human. He compares surah 6, ayah 112, which speaks of devils among humans and jinn. Al-Jalalayn raises the obvious objection: people do not whisper inside other people's hearts. Its answer is that people whisper in their own way. It starts from outside, as words, and then reaches the heart and settles there. Ma'ariful Qur'an puts it as planting a doubt without ever saying it outright.
Ma'ariful Qur'an, which takes this reading, also passes on a sharper version from the scholar 'Izz al-Din ibn 'Abd al-Salam: the human whisperer is a person's own lower self, the nafs.
In the second reading, the last line describes the chests. The whisperer works on jinn and humans both. Ibn Kathir quotes Ibn Jarir (al-Tabari) in support: the Qur'an elsewhere speaks of men from among the jinn, so the word people can stretch to cover them. Al-Tustari reads it this way too: the enemy whispers in the chests of jinn and men alike. The lower self, he adds, whispers in the heart, and he quotes surah 50, ayah 16: We know what his soul whispers to him.
Ibn Kathir sets out both and does not rule firmly between them, though he says the wording supports the chests reading. One small thing in the translations below: the Arabic says chests. One translation keeps that, as breasts. The other says hearts, which is how al-Jalalayn explains it.
Saheeh International
5 Who whispers [evil] into the breasts of mankind - 6 From among the jinn and mankind."
Rowwad Translation Center
5 who whispers into the hearts of mankind, 6 from among jinn and mankind.”
Researched with AI help, from: Tafsir Ibn Kathir (abridged English edition) (both readings; Ibn Jarir); Tafsir al-Jalalayn; Ma'ariful Qur'an (Mufti Muhammad Shafi), citing 'Izz al-Din ibn 'Abd al-Salam; Tafsir al-Tustari
A closer look: The story behind it, ayah 114:5
"I would rather fall from the sky than say it" Ibn Kathir closes his commentary on the Qur'an with a short report from Ibn 'Abbas, found in Musnad Ahmad, Abu Dawud and an-Nasa'i. A man came to the Prophet ﷺ and said: sometimes I say things to myself that I would rather fall from the sky than say out loud.
He might have expected a rebuke. The Prophet ﷺ said: Allah is most great. Allah is most great. Praise be to Allah, who turned his plot back into nothing more than a whisper.
The thought was not the man's failure. A whisper was all the whisperer could manage. Ma'ariful Qur'an draws the same line in plainer terms: thoughts that arrive uninvited and pass are not held against a person, so long as they are not acted on or spoken.
Ibn Kathir tells one more, from the two Sahih collections. The Prophet ﷺ was walking his wife Safiyyah home at night when two men of Madinah saw them and hurried on. He called out: slow down, this is Safiyyah bint Huyayy. They were shocked that he thought he needed to say it. He told them that Satan runs in a person like blood, and he had feared something might be dropped into their hearts. These were his own Companions. Nobody, in this telling, is out of the whisper's reach.
Researched with AI help, from: Tafsir Ibn Kathir (abridged English edition) (Musnad Ahmad, Abu Dawud and an-Nasa'i from Ibn 'Abbas; the two Sahihs from Anas); Ma'ariful Qur'an (Mufti Muhammad Shafi) (thoughts that come unchosen)
The Qur'an's last request is for shelter from a whisper.
Three surahs before sleep So there are three surahs. One says who Allah is. Two ask Him for shelter, outside and in. The Prophet ﷺ did not leave them as three texts. He made them into something a person does.
'A'ishah, his wife, described it. Every night when he went to bed he cupped his hands, blew into them and recited the three surahs. Then he wiped his hands over as much of his body as he could reach, beginning with his head and face. He did this three times.
That is why Muslim children learn these three early, and why many adults say them last thing at night.
It is also how the Qur'an ends. Not with a law, and not with a story. With a person asking for shelter, and being told who to ask.
Every night when the Prophet went to bed, he would cup his hands, blow into them, recite Say He is Allah, One; Say I seek refuge in the Lord of daybreak; and Say I seek refuge in the Lord of mankind, then wipe over whatever he could of his body.
Sahih al-Bukhari 5017 Sahih In Sahih al-Bukhari
A closer look: The story behind it, ayah 113:1
"Say." "Say what?" All three surahs open with the same word: Say. Ibn Kathir collects reports of the Prophet ﷺ teaching them in just that way.
'Uqbah ibn 'Amir, a Companion, was walking with him. Say, the Prophet ﷺ told him. What should I say? Silence. Then again: Say. What should I say, Messenger of Allah? Say: I seek refuge in the Lord of daybreak. 'Uqbah recited it to the end. Then the same again for an-Nas. Then: no one asks with anything like these two, and no one seeks shelter with anything like these two. Ibn Kathir cites this from an-Nasa'i.
In another report from 'Uqbah, in Musnad Ahmad, he was leading the Prophet's mount along a path. The Prophet ﷺ got down and had 'Uqbah ride for a while, then taught him the two surahs, led the prayer with them, and told him afterwards to recite them whenever he lay down to sleep and whenever he got up.
And in Sahih Muslim, also from 'Uqbah, the Prophet ﷺ said: have you not seen the ayat sent down to me tonight, the like of which has never been seen?
A different Companion, 'Abdullah ibn Khubayb, tells of a dark night when the Prophet ﷺ took his hand and said the same single word. He was told to say al-Ikhlas and the two surahs of refuge three times each evening and morning, and that they would be enough for him. Ibn Kathir notes that at-Tirmidhi graded this one hasan sahih gharib, his term for a sound report that is also a rare one.
Researched with AI help, from: Tafsir Ibn Kathir (abridged English edition) (from an-Nasa'i, Musnad Ahmad, Sahih Muslim, and the report of 'Abdullah ibn Khubayb with at-Tirmidhi's grading)
A closer look: The story behind it, ayah 114:1
When he was too ill, 'A'ishah recited for him Ibn Kathir passes on a report from 'A'ishah, recorded by Malik and also by al-Bukhari, Abu Dawud, an-Nasa'i and Ibn Majah. Whenever the Prophet ﷺ was unwell, he recited the last two surahs over himself and blew. When his pain grew severe, she recited them over him, then took his own hand and wiped it over him.
Ma'ariful Qur'an places this at his final illness and gives her reason for using his hand: she did not think her own could stand in for it.
Ibn Kathir adds a report from Abu Sa'id, which at-Tirmidhi graded hasan sahih. The Prophet ﷺ used to ask for protection from the evil eye of jinn and people in other words. Once these two surahs were revealed, he used them and left everything else.
Researched with AI help, from: Tafsir Ibn Kathir (abridged English edition) (Malik from 'A'ishah; Abu Sa'id, with at-Tirmidhi's grading); Ma'ariful Qur'an (Mufti Muhammad Shafi)
A closer look: Where scholars differ, ayah 113:1
The Companion who left them out of his copy Ibn Kathir opens his commentary on al-Falaq with a report many readers do not expect. Ibn Mas'ud, one of the best known Companions, did not write the last two surahs into his mushaf , his own written copy of the Qur'an.
The report is in Musnad Ahmad. A man named Zirr ibn Hubaysh reported that Ubayy ibn Ka'b, another Companion, told him about it. Ubayy then said: I testify that the Messenger of Allah told me that Jibril (the angel Gabriel) said to him, Say: I seek refuge in the Lord of daybreak, and he said it. And Jibril said to him, Say: I seek refuge in the Lord of mankind, and he said it. So we say what the Prophet ﷺ said.
Ubayy's position is the one every copy of the Qur'an follows: the two surahs are in it. The English edition of Ibn Kathir gives the report and stops there. Why Ibn Mas'ud left them out is not explained in the commentaries read for this page, so it is left as an open question here.
Researched with AI help, from: Tafsir Ibn Kathir (abridged English edition) (Musnad Ahmad from Zirr ibn Hubaysh, from Ubayy ibn Ka'b)
A closer look: The connection, ayah 114:1-6
How the Qur'an opens, and how it closes Mufti Muhammad Shafi ends Ma'ariful Qur'an by setting the first surah beside the last. The Qur'an opens with al-Fatihah: praise of Allah, then a request to be guided on the straight path. What gets in the way of that path? In his reading, the whisperer. So the book that opens by asking for guidance closes by asking for shelter from the one thing that pulls a person off it.
He also repeats a point from Ibn Kathir's preface. Three times the Qur'an pairs two kinds of enemy (7:199 to 200, 23:96 to 98, 41:34 to 36). For the human enemy the advice is to answer wrong with something better, and he may turn into a close friend. For the whisperer there is no winning him over. The only advice given is to seek refuge with Allah. The last surah is that advice, in full.
Researched with AI help, from: Ma'ariful Qur'an (Mufti Muhammad Shafi), citing the preface of Tafsir Ibn Kathir
The Prophet ﷺ recited all three every night before sleep, and many Muslims still do.