Surah Luqman, Luqman

Surah 31 · 34 verses · revealed at Mecca

Luqman is named after a wise man, not a prophet, whose advice to his son is quoted in the middle of the surah.

The advice is short and almost entirely practical. Do not associate anything with God. Be good to your parents, who carried you in weakness upon weakness. Keep up the prayer. Tell people to do right and stop them doing wrong. Be patient with what happens to you. Do not turn your face away from people in scorn, and do not walk about the earth boastfully. Be moderate in your pace and lower your voice, for the harshest of sounds is the braying of a donkey.

The last line has kept its bite for fourteen centuries and is still quoted to anyone who talks too loudly.

Around the advice, the surah deals with the same question as its neighbours: what is actually owed to God and why. It uses the image of every tree on earth being pens and the sea, with seven more seas behind it, being ink, and God's words still not being exhausted.

Its closing verse lists five things said to be known to God alone, among them the hour, the rain, and what is in the womb. It is one of the Qur'an's clearest statements of a boundary around human knowledge, and it has been argued over ever since.

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