Surah As-Sajda – Khaled Abu Shady

As-Sajda (The Prostration) is the 32nd surah of the Quran. A Meccan surah of 30 verses in the twenty-first juz, it is counted 75th in the traditional order of revelation, after Al-Mumenoon. It affirms the divine origin of the Quran, describes the creation of man and his return to God, and praises the believers who prostrate and rise at night to pray. The Prophet recited it at the Friday dawn prayer.

Name

The surah takes its name from verse 15, a verse of prostration: true believers, when reminded of God's verses, "fall down in prostration" and glorify their Lord without arrogance. In the hadith it is called by its opening words, Alif-Lam-Mim Tanzil. Some scholars held verses 16 to 20 to be Medinan.

Themes

• Revelation and creation (32:1–9). The Book comes from the Lord of the worlds. God created the heavens and the earth in six days; He began the creation of man from clay, breathed into him of His spirit and gave him hearing, sight and hearts.
• Death and the return (32:10–14). To those who doubt they will be created anew, the answer is that the angel of death will take their souls; on the Day, the guilty will hang their heads and ask in vain to be sent back.
• The believers (32:15–22). They rise from their beds to call on their Lord in fear and hope (32:16), and "no soul knows what delight of the eyes is kept hidden for them" (32:17).
• Moses (32:23–30). God gave Moses the Book and made leaders of those who were patient and certain of His signs (32:24).

Virtues

According to al-Bukhari and Muslim, the Prophet recited As-Sajda and Al-Insan at the Friday dawn prayer. Al-Tirmidhi reports that he would not sleep before reciting As-Sajda and Al-Mulk, a hadith graded sahih by al-Albani. In Sahih al-Bukhari, Abu Hurayra cites verse 17 after the divine saying: "I have prepared for My righteous servants what no eye has seen and no ear has heard."