✦ AT A GLANCE ✦
الشرح
Ash-Sharh
✦ Why this name
The Relief — ash-Sharh, from the opening question: "Did We not expand for you your breast?"
✦ When it came
Meccan, immediately after Ad-Duha and continuing it. The consolation moves from Allah's past kindness to what He did inside the Prophet ﷺ himself.
✦ The story
Eight short verses that many people know before they know anything else.
*"Did We not expand for you your breast, and remove from you your burden, which had weighed upon your back? And raised high for you your mention?"*
Then the promise, and it is said twice: *"For indeed, with hardship comes ease. Indeed, with hardship comes ease."*
Not after. **With.** The ease is inside the hardship, arriving at the same time, not waiting on the other side of it.
And then the surah refuses to let relief become rest: *"So when you have finished, stand up, and to your Lord direct your longing."* Finish one thing, start the next.
✦ How it unfolds
- AYAH 7-8
So when you have finished
Relief that turns into the next effort, and longing directed upward.
✦ Verses to carry
✦ Where it sits
Read straight after Ad-Duha — the two are one consolation in two halves.