✦ AT A GLANCE ✦
القصص
Al-Qasas
✦ Why this name
The Stories — al-Qasas, from the account of Musa عليه السلام told here at greater length than anywhere else.
✦ When it came
Meccan, near the end of that period. Told to a community being crushed by a stronger one — the story of another community that was crushed, and what happened next.
✦ The story
Pharaoh is at the height of his power, killing the sons of a people he has enslaved. And the Quran says something extraordinary about how Allah works: the child who will end him is raised *inside his own house*, at his own wife's insistence, and nursed by his own mother, who is paid to do it.
Musa عليه السلام grows up, strikes a man in anger, kills him by accident, and flees. He arrives in Madyan with nothing, helps two women water their flock, and sits under a tree with the most honest du'a in the Quran: *"My Lord, I am in need of whatever good You send me."* Within a page he has a home, work, and a wife.
Then Qarun — a man from Musa's own people, so wealthy the keys to his treasure burdened strong men, who said *"I was only given it because of knowledge I have."* The earth swallowed him and his house. And the people who had envied him the day before woke up saying: *how strange, it is Allah who extends provision.*
✦ How it unfolds
- AYAH 1-13
A baby in the river
A mother inspired to let go, a basket, and a child raised in the house of the man hunting him.
- AYAH 14-28
Exile in Madyan
A death by accident, flight, the two women at the well, and a du'a made with nothing left.
- AYAH 76-84
Qarun
Wealth mistaken for merit, the ground opening, and the crowd's change of mind overnight.
✦ Verses to carry
- 24"My Lord, indeed I am in need of whatever good You would send down to me." The du'a of someone with nothing.
- 77"Seek the home of the Hereafter — and do not forget your share of this world. Do good as Allah has done good to you."
- 56"You do not guide whom you like, but Allah guides whom He wills." Said about the Prophet's ﷺ own uncle.