Surah Al-Jinn

Al-Jinn ("The Jinn") is the 72nd surah of the Quran, in the 29th juz. It is a Meccan surah of 28 verses, 40th in the traditional order of revelation, after Al-A'raf. It reports the words of a group of jinn who heard the Quran and believed, and affirms that worship, and knowledge of the unseen, belong to God alone.

It opens with the command "Say: it has been revealed to me that a group of jinn listened" and said: we have heard a wondrous Quran that guides to right conduct, so we believe in it (72:1-2); hence its other name, Qul uhiya. Ibn Abbas relates that when the jinn were barred from overhearing the news of heaven, some of them came upon the Prophet ﷺ at Nakhla, on the road to the market of 'Ukaz, as he led his companions in the dawn prayer. They listened, returned to their people with this message, and God revealed the surah (al-Bukhari, Muslim).

The first fifteen verses give the jinn's own words: God has taken neither wife nor son; they had thought no one would lie about God; they used to sit in stations in the sky to eavesdrop, but now find it filled with guards and flames (72:8-9); some of them are righteous and some are not, some submit to God and some deviate.

The rest addresses the Prophet ﷺ. Had people kept to the right way, God would have given them abundant water (72:16). The places of worship belong to God, so call on no one alongside Him (72:18). The Prophet ﷺ is to say that he has no power to harm or to guide them and only conveys God's message (72:20-23). God alone knows the unseen and discloses it only to a messenger He approves, guarded on every side (72:26-28). Another account of jinn listening to the Quran appears in Al-Ahqaf.