✦ AT A GLANCE ✦
الإخلاص
Al-Ikhlas
✦ Why this name
The Sincerity — al-Ikhlas. The Prophet ﷺ said it equals a third of the Quran.
✦ When it came
Meccan. People asked the Prophet ﷺ to describe his Lord — his lineage, what He is made of. These four verses were the answer.
✦ The story
Four lines, and the whole of tawhid.
*"Say: He is Allah, One. Allah, the Eternal Refuge. He neither begets nor is born. Nor is there to Him any equivalent."*
*Ahad* — not merely one in number, but one in a way nothing else is. *As-Samad* — the one everything turns to and who needs nothing; the word has no clean English equivalent, which is why translations vary.
No parent, no child, no equal. The definition works by removing everything that could be confused with Him.
The Prophet ﷺ said it equals a third of the Quran, and told a man who loved it and recited it in every prayer that his love for it would admit him to Paradise.
✦ How it unfolds
✦ Verses to carry
✦ Where it sits
The third of the three surahs recited nightly with Al-Falaq and An-Nas.