✦ AT A GLANCE ✦
السجدة
As-Sajdah
✦ Why this name
The Prostration — from verse 15, at which the reciter and listener prostrate.
✦ When it came
Meccan. The Prophet ﷺ used to recite this surah together with Surah al-Insan in the Fajr prayer on Fridays.
✦ The story
A short surah with a long reach. It describes creation beginning from clay and continuing through a lineage, then the soul breathed in, then hearing, sight, and hearts given — *little are you grateful.*
Its most beautiful passage is about people who get up at night: *"their sides forsake their beds, calling upon their Lord in fear and hope."* And then a promise deliberately left unspecified: *"No soul knows what has been hidden for them of comfort for the eyes, as a reward for what they used to do."* Whatever it is, it is being kept out of sight on purpose.
✦ How it unfolds
- AYAH 1-11
Creation and return
From clay, then a lineage, then the spirit — and a day whose measure is a thousand years.
- AYAH 15-17
Sides that leave their beds
Those who rise at night, and the reward no soul has been told about.
- AYAH 25-30
Dead land revived
Water driven to barren land, crops that feed both cattle and people — the argument for resurrection.