Surah Al-A’raf

Ta'awwudh · Seeking Refuge

أَعُوذُ بِاللَّهِ مِنَ الشَّيْطَانِ الرَّجِيمِ

A'udhu billahi min ash-shaytani ar-rajim. I seek refuge in Allah from Satan, the accursed.

The Name · Bismillah

بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ

Bismillahi ar-Rahmani ar-Rahim. In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

✦

The Surah · In Four Parts

Al-A’raf is the second longest chapter in the Quran and it holds the fullest account of how any of this began. The command to prostrate. One refusal, and the reasoning behind it. A whisper in a garden, an oath sworn to make it convincing, and two people covering themselves with leaves.

Then the same pattern, run through seven communities in sequence. Nuh, Hud, Salih, Lut, Shu’ayb, and then Musa across the longest single stretch of narrative in the chapter. Each one arrives, each one is answered with the same few arguments, and each account closes on what happened to the people who used them.

The chapter takes its name from verse 46, the heights, a place between the garden and the fire where men stand who have entered neither, looking in both directions, greeting one side and pleading not to be sent to the other.

It closes on a covenant taken from the loins of Adam before anyone was born, a man given the signs of Allah who slipped out of them like a snake out of skin, and a verse of prostration.

Four parts, in order.

Part One

Verses 1 to 58

I Am Better Than Him.

A chest told not to tighten. Towns taken while comfortable. The command, the refusal, and the first argument ever made. A whisper, an oath, and leaves fastened in a hurry. Then the courtroom, and the men standing on the heights between the two.

آمِين

Prepared with discipline · Ameen