Surah Al-Inshiqaq, The Splitting Open

Surah 84 · 25 verses · revealed at Mecca

Al-Inshiqaq opens with the sky splitting open and listening to its Lord, and the earth flattened out, casting out what is in it and emptying itself.

What is striking in the opening is that both are described as doing this in obedience — the sky listens and does what is right for it to do, and so does the earth. The undoing of the world is presented not as chaos but as compliance.

Then comes the line that gives the surah its weight: O human being, you are labouring towards your Lord, labouring hard, and you will meet Him. It is among the most quoted verses in Muslim writing about work and about the shape of a life.

The surah describes the two ways a record may be received — in the right hand, whose owner will go back to his people in joy, or from behind the back, whose owner will call out for destruction.

Its closing oaths are by the twilight glow, by the night and what it gathers in, and by the moon when it is full, followed by the statement that you will certainly move from stage to stage. Commentators have read that line as being about the stages of a life, the stages of the next world, or both at once, and it has been recited over the newborn and over the dying alike.

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