Surah Ghafir, The Forgiver

Surah 40 · 85 verses · revealed at Mecca

Ghafir is named from its third verse, which calls God the forgiver of sin and the accepter of repentance, severe in punishment and limitless in bounty.

It is also called Al-Mu'min, the believer, after the man at its centre — a member of Pharaoh's own household who had kept his faith hidden, and who stands up when the decision is taken to kill Moses and argues against it in front of everybody.

His speech is the longest given to any unnamed person in the Qur'an. He starts carefully, asking whether they would kill a man for saying that God is his Lord, and pointing out that if he is lying the lie is on him, and if he is truthful some of what he threatens will fall on them. Then he warns them about the fate of earlier nations, and by the end he is speaking openly. The surah says he was protected from the evil they plotted.

Around this sit some of the Qur'an's most direct statements about prayer: that God says call on Me and I will answer you. It is quoted more often than almost any other line in the book.

The surah is the first of seven consecutive chapters that open with the same two letters, known collectively as the Ha-Mim surahs, and it shares their concern with revelation itself — who brings it, who argues about it, and on what grounds.

Surah Ghafir on this site

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