Surah Ta-Ha

Surah 20 · 135 verses · revealed at Mecca

Ta-Ha takes its name from the two letters that open it, and like the other opening letters their meaning was never settled. Some later commentators treated the pair as a form of address to the Prophet, and the name has been used that way in Muslim tradition since.

Most of the surah is the story of Musa, told at greater length here than anywhere else. It begins with a man walking at night who sees a fire in the distance and goes to fetch a burning branch for his family, and finds something else entirely. He is sent to Pharaoh, protests that he is not a speaker, and asks for his brother to go with him. The prayer he makes at that moment — asking that his chest be opened, his task made easy, and the knot loosened from his tongue — is recited by Muslims before speaking in public to this day.

Then Pharaoh, the magicians summoned to compete and their sudden belief, the crossing, and the golden calf made while Musa was away. The surah gives the man who made the calf a voice and lets him explain himself, and the explanation is thin, and everyone can hear that it is thin.

Ta-Ha also contains one of the shortest and most frequently repeated prayers in the book: my Lord, increase me in knowledge.

The traditional accounts of the Prophet's life record that 'Umar ibn al-Khattab, then set on killing him, came upon his sister reading this surah, read it himself, and went instead to accept Islam. Like the account of Abyssinia, this comes from the biographies rather than the hadith collections; it is among the best known stories in Muslim history.

Surah Ta-Ha on this site

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Surah Ta-Ha

Surah Ta-Ha on this site

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