Surah An-Nas, Mankind

Surah 114 · 6 verses · classification disputed

An-Nas is the last surah in the written order of the Qur'an, and it is the pair to the one before it. Reading them together shows what each is for.

Al-Falaq asks for protection from things outside a person: the dark, sorcery, another's envy. An-Nas asks for protection from something inside. Its subject is the whisperer — the one who withdraws when God is remembered and returns when He is forgotten, and who whispers into the chests of people. The surah ends by naming where the whisperer comes from, and the answer is that it may be from the jinn or from among people themselves.

The opening is also unusual. Where Al-Falaq names God once, An-Nas names Him three times in three different ways before asking for anything at all: the Lord of mankind, the King of mankind, the God of mankind. Commentators have read this as deliberate escalation — the one who raised you, the one with authority over you, the one who deserves worship — a widening of the ground you are standing on before you say what you are afraid of.

Six verses, and the word "people" occurs five times. Nothing else in the Qur'an repeats a single word at that density in so short a space.

Like Al-Falaq, its placement is disputed between Mecca and Medina, and like Al-Falaq it is recited daily, in the morning and evening, before sleep, and over the sick.

That the Qur'an ends here is worth a moment. The book opens, in Al-Fatihah, with a request for guidance, and closes with a request for protection.

Surah An-Nas on this site

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Surah An-Nas, Mankind

Surah An-Nas on this site

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