✦ AT A GLANCE ✦
الإسراء
Al-Isra
✦ Why this name
The Night Journey — from the opening verse, in which the Prophet ﷺ was taken by night from the Sacred Mosque to the Farthest Mosque. It is also called Bani Isra'il.
✦ When it came
Meccan, around the time of the Isra and Mi'raj — after the year of grief, when Khadijah رضي الله عنها and Abu Talib had both died and Ta'if had rejected him. The five daily prayers were given on this journey.
✦ The story
It opens with a single verse about a journey no one witnessed, and then never returns to it. What follows is what the journey was for: how a person who has been given prayer should now live.
The centre is a code of conduct, and it is remarkably domestic. Do not kill your children for fear of poverty. Do not go near adultery. Do not touch the orphan's property. Give full measure. Do not follow what you have no knowledge of. Do not walk the earth in arrogance — *you will never tear the earth apart, nor reach the mountains in height.*
And at its heart, the passage every Muslim knows: when your parents reach old age with you, do not say to them *uff* — not even that syllable. Lower to them the wing of humility. Say: *my Lord, have mercy on them as they raised me when I was small.*
The surah also names the Quran as a healing and a mercy, and describes the night prayer as an additional gift for the Prophet ﷺ — the practice that came out of the journey it opened with.
✦ How it unfolds
- AYAH 1
The journey by night
One verse, no elaboration — from the Sacred Mosque to the Farthest Mosque, to be shown some of Allah's signs.
- AYAH 13-22
Every neck carries its record
Each person's deeds fastened to them, and a book they will be told to read for themselves.
- AYAH 23-39
The code
Parents, relatives, the poor, the traveller; no waste, no killing, no adultery, no false claims, no arrogance.
- AYAH 78-89
A healing and a mercy
The Quran as cure, the night prayer, and the challenge that humans and jinn together could not produce its like.
✦ Verses to carry
- 23"Do not say to them uff" — the Quran forbidding even a sound of irritation toward ageing parents.
- 24"My Lord, have mercy upon them as they brought me up when I was small." The du'a for parents.
- 82"We send down of the Quran that which is healing and mercy for the believers."
- 36"Do not pursue what you have no knowledge of — the hearing, the sight and the heart will all be questioned."