Surah Al-Qamar, The Moon

Surah 54 · 55 verses · revealed at Mecca

Al-Qamar opens with the hour drawing near and the moon splitting, an event the earliest Muslims understood as something the Meccans had seen and dismissed.

The surah then runs through Noah, 'Ad, Thamud, Lot's people and Pharaoh's, and after each one it repeats the same line: and We have made the Qur'an easy to remember, so is there anyone who will take heed. The line appears four times and is the reason this surah is recited so widely by people learning the book by heart.

Its verses are short and its rhythm is relentless. The accounts are compressed to a few lines each, keeping only the warning, the refusal and the end, and the repetition between them is deliberate.

It includes the statement that everything was created according to a measure, and that God's command is but a single word, like the blink of an eye.

The Prophet is reported to have recited this surah together with Qaf at the two annual festivals, and it is still often chosen for those prayers today.

Its closing two verses are among the most recited in the whole Qur'an: that those conscious of God will be in gardens and rivers, in a seat of truth, with a Sovereign who has all power. They are short, and they come after fifty-three verses of destruction.

Before them the surah says that everything people have done is in the records, and that everything small and great is written down. The line is often cited alongside the modern habit of recording everything, though the claim it makes is older and wider than that.

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