Surah Qaf, Qaf

Surah 50 · 45 verses · revealed at Mecca

Qaf is named after the letter that opens it, and the Prophet is reported to have recited it regularly at the Friday prayer and at the two festivals.

Its subject is the resurrection, and its argument is built on scale. The sky above with no flaws in it, the earth spread out with firm mountains set on it, gardens and harvest grain and tall palm trees with clustered fruit — and then the question of whether the One who made all that would find it difficult to make a person again.

Its most quoted verse says that God is nearer to a person than his jugular vein. Another describes two recording angels seated one on the right and one on the left, and says that not a word is uttered without a watcher ready beside it.

The surah is short, its verses are short, and its sound is famously heavy. It ends with an instruction to be patient with what people say and to keep the prayer before sunrise and before sunset, and in part of the night.

It also contains the line, addressed to a person at the moment of dying, that they were heedless of this, and that the covering has now been removed from them, so that their sight today is sharp. It is among the most frequently quoted verses in Muslim writing about death.

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