Surah Al-Layl

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 · Al-Layl

﴾١﴿ وَاللَّيْلِ إِذَا يَغْشَىٰ

Wal-layli idha yaghsha

By the night when it covers.

﴾٢﴿ وَالنَّهَارِ إِذَا تَجَلَّىٰ

Wan-nahari idha tajalla

And by the day when it appears in full.

﴾٣﴿ وَمَا خَلَقَ الذَّكَرَ وَالْأُنثَىٰ

Wa ma khalaqa adh-dhakara wal-untha

And by the One who created the male and the female.

﴾٤﴿ إِنَّ سَعْيَكُمْ لَشَتَّىٰ

Inna sa'yakum lashatta

Indeed, your strivings are divergent.

﴾٥﴿ فَأَمَّا مَنْ أَعْطَىٰ وَاتَّقَىٰ

Fa-amma man a'ta wattaqa

As for the one who gives and guards himself.

﴾٦﴿ وَصَدَّقَ بِالْحُسْنَىٰ

Wa saddaqa bil-husna

And affirms the best.

﴾٧﴿ فَسَنُيَسِّرُهُ لِلْيُسْرَىٰ

Fasanuyassiruhu lil-yusra

We will ease him toward ease.

﴾٨﴿ وَأَمَّا مَن بَخِلَ وَاسْتَغْنَىٰ

Wa amma man bakhila wastaghna

And as for the one who withholds and considers himself self-sufficient.

﴾٩﴿ وَكَذَّبَ بِالْحُسْنَىٰ

Wa kadhdhaba bil-husna

And denies the best.

﴾١٠﴿ فَسَنُيَسِّرُهُ لِلْعُسْرَىٰ

Fasanuyassiruhu lil-'usra

We will ease him toward hardship.

﴾١١﴿ وَمَا يُغْنِي عَنْهُ مَالُهُ إِذَا تَرَدَّىٰ

Wa ma yughni 'anhu maluhu idha taradda

And his wealth will not avail him when he falls.

﴾١٢﴿ إِنَّ عَلَيْنَا لَلْهُدَىٰ

Inna 'alayna lal-huda

Indeed, upon Us is the guidance.

﴾١٣﴿ وَإِنَّ لَنَا لَلْآخِرَةَ وَالْأُولَىٰ

Wa inna lana lal-akhirata wal-ula

And indeed, to Us belong the last and the first.

﴾١٤﴿ فَأَنذَرْتُكُمْ نَارًا تَلَظَّىٰ

Fa-andhartukum naran talazza

So I have warned you of a fire that blazes.

﴾١٥﴿ لَا يَصْلَاهَا إِلَّا الْأَشْقَى

La yaslaha illa al-ashqa

None will enter it except the most wretched.

﴾١٦﴿ الَّذِي كَذَّبَ وَتَوَلَّىٰ

Alladhi kadhdhaba wa tawalla

The one who denied and turned away.

﴾١٧﴿ وَسَيُجَنَّبُهَا الْأَتْقَى

Wa sayujannabuha al-atqa

And the most God-conscious will be kept far from it.

﴾١٨﴿ الَّذِي يُؤْتِي مَالَهُ يَتَزَكَّىٰ

Alladhi yu'ti malahu yatazakka

The one who gives his wealth to purify himself.

﴾١٩﴿ وَمَا لِأَحَدٍ عِندَهُ مِن نِّعْمَةٍ تُجْزَىٰ

Wa ma li-ahadin 'indahu min ni'matin tujza

And no one has done him a favor that must be repaid.

﴾٢٠﴿ إِلَّا ابْتِغَاءَ وَجْهِ رَبِّهِ الْأَعْلَىٰ

Illa ibtigha-a wajhi Rabbihi al-a'la

He gives only seeking the Face of his Lord, the Most High.

﴾٢١﴿ وَلَسَوْفَ يَرْضَىٰ

Wa lasawfa yarda

And he is going to be satisfied.

The Tafsir · The Breakdown

What The Surah Means

Overview

Surah Al-Layl is twenty-one verses, chapter 92, Makki. It sits directly beside Ash-Shams in the Mushaf and finishes the argument Ash-Shams starts. Ash-Shams establishes the interior fact: the soul was proportioned, and both fujur (corruption) and taqwa (God-consciousness) were inspired into it. Al-Layl takes that soul out of the chest and puts it in the hand. It measures a man by what he does with his wealth.

The surah runs in five movements. Verses 1 to 4 are three oaths built entirely on opposites, closing on the thesis: your strivings are divergent. Verses 5 to 11 lay out the two roads, three conditions each, with the same verb of easing applied to both. Verses 12 and 13 state the sovereign claim behind the whole structure. Verses 14 to 16 issue the warning. Verses 17 to 21 draw the portrait of the man who is kept far from the fire, and close on the word yarda, satisfaction.

Ash-Shams asks what is in the soul. Al-Layl asks what is in the hand. The same man is being examined from two directions.

Verses 1–4 · The Three Oaths and the Verdict

By the night when it covers. By the day when it appears in full. By the One who created the male and the female. Indeed, your strivings are divergent.

Every oath here is a pair of opposites. Night against day. Concealment against disclosure. Male against female. Reality is built out of contrast, and the oaths establish that pattern before the verdict lands on human beings.

Wal-layli idha yaghsha: the night when it covers. The same verb, yaghsha, is used in Ash-Shams 91:4 for the night covering the sun. The two surahs are speaking the same vocabulary.

Wa ma khalaqa adh-dhakara wal-untha: al-Tabari records two readings of ma here. Read as a relative pronoun for the Creator it means the One who created the male and the female, which is the reading most commonly rendered in translation. Read as a verbal noun it means the creation of the male and the female itself. Either way the oath is sworn on a designed polarity.

Inna sa'yakum lashatta: your sa'y is shatta. Sa'y is striving, effort, the work a man actually does, not the intention he reports. Shatta means scattered, divergent, running in different directions. The oaths on paired opposites arrive at this: humanity is not moving as one body toward one destination. The strivings split.

Three oaths on opposites. One verdict. The efforts diverge, so the destinations diverge.

Verses 5–7 · The First Road

As for the one who gives and guards himself, and affirms the best, We will ease him toward ease.

Three conditions, and the order is the lesson. A'ta comes first. Giving is named before taqwa and before affirmation. The open hand is placed at the front of the evidence.

A'ta: he gave. The verb is left without an object. What he gave is not specified, which widens it past money to time, knowledge, protection, and access.

Wattaqa: and he guarded himself. Giving without taqwa is philanthropy. The two are bound together in one clause.

Wa saddaqa bil-husna: and he affirmed al-husna, the best. Ibn Kathir records three positions among the mufassirun on what al-husna names here: the Garden, the reward promised for the giving, and the word of tawhid. The affirmation is what converts the act into worship, because it means the man believes there is something on the other side of the giving.

Fasanuyassiruhu lil-yusra: We will ease him toward al-yusra. The road is not merely opened. He is moved along it. In the narration of Ali ibn Abi Talib recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, the Prophet ﷺ was sitting at a funeral, said that every soul's place is already written, and when he was asked whether that meant they should abandon action, he answered that they should act, because everyone is eased toward what he was created for, and then recited these verses.

Give, guard yourself, affirm the best. The road smooths under the feet that already chose it.

Verses 8–11 · The Second Road

And as for the one who withholds and considers himself self-sufficient, and denies the best, We will ease him toward hardship. And his wealth will not avail him when he falls.

The mirror is exact. Three conditions again, inverted one for one.

Bakhila: he withheld. The closed hand answers the open one.

Wastaghna: and he considered himself beyond need. This is the same disease named in Al-Alaq 96:6 and 96:7, where the human transgresses because he sees himself as self-sufficient. Withholding is the behavior. Istighna is the belief underneath it. A man does not close his hand until he has first decided he does not need anyone, including Allah.

Fasanuyassiruhu lil-'usra: the verb does not change. Yassara, to make easy, is applied to the road of hardship exactly as it was applied to the road of ease. This is the most sobering sentence in the surah. Ease of passage proves nothing about direction. A man can be moving smoothly, without friction, gathering momentum, and be smoothly moving toward al-'usra.

Wa ma yughni 'anhu maluhu idha taradda: the wealth he clenched will not reach him when he taradda. Ibn Kathir reports the word carrying the sense of falling into the grave and falling into the Fire. Note the irony held inside the language: he sought istighna, to be beyond need, and the verse answers with ma yughni, it will not enrich him, from the same root.

He withheld because he believed he needed no one. The same wealth he trusted stays behind at the edge of the pit.

Verses 12–13 · The Claim Behind the Structure

Indeed, upon Us is the guidance. And indeed, to Us belong the last and the first.

Inna 'alayna lal-huda: the preposition carries obligation. Guidance is stated as something Allah has taken upon Himself. No man arrives at the two roads uninformed. The map was issued before the accounting begins.

Wa inna lana lal-akhirata wal-ula: the Hereafter and this life both belong to Him. The order is deliberate. The last is named before the first. The wealth in verse 11 was never the man's property to withhold, and the world he was hoarding it for is owned by the One he was withholding it from.

He supplies the guidance. He owns both worlds. The two roads run through territory that is entirely His.

Verses 14–16 · The Warning

So I have warned you of a fire that blazes. None will enter it except the most wretched, the one who denied and turned away.

Naran talazza: a fire that blazes and flares. The warning is issued in the first person, which sharpens it. The delivery of the warning is itself part of the guidance promised in verse 12.

Al-ashqa: the most wretched. Al-Qurtubi and Ibn Kathir both address the apparent narrowness of the exclusive phrasing, since the Quran elsewhere describes sinners entering the Fire. The reading they carry is that the verse describes the one who enters and never leaves, the settled resident rather than every visitor.

Alladhi kadhdhaba wa tawalla: two acts, not one. He denied with the tongue and he turned away with the body. Denial is a position. Turning away is a movement. The surah keeps insisting that belief and action are one file.

Denied and turned away. The verdict names both the word and the walk.

Verses 17–21 · The Portrait of the Atqa

And the most God-conscious will be kept far from it. The one who gives his wealth to purify himself. And no one has done him a favor that must be repaid. He gives only seeking the Face of his Lord, the Most High. And he is going to be satisfied.

Al-atqa: the superlative answers al-ashqa. Two men stand at the end of the surah, and the only thing described about the second one is what he does with his money.

Yu'ti malahu yatazakka: he gives his wealth yatazakka, purifying himself. The verb shares the root of zakka in Ash-Shams 91:9, where the successful man is the one who purifies his soul. Al-Layl names the instrument. The soul is purified by the hand opening.

Wa ma li-ahadin 'indahu min ni'matin tujza: nobody has a favor on him that this giving repays. The giving is stripped of every transactional motive. It is not gratitude, not obligation, not the settling of a debt, and not the purchase of future loyalty.

Illa ibtigha-a wajhi Rabbihi al-a'la: one motive is left standing. Seeking the Face of his Lord, the Most High. This is the definition of ikhlas (sincerity) rendered as behavior rather than as a claim.

Al-Wahidi in his Asbab an-Nuzul, along with al-Tabari and Ibn Kathir, reports that these verses were revealed regarding Abu Bakr as-Siddiq, who spent his wealth buying and freeing enslaved Muslims who were being tortured for their faith, Bilal ibn Rabah among them. A number of mufassirun hold that the wording is general in form and that Abu Bakr is its foremost instance rather than its only one. Both positions are recorded in the tafsir literature.

Wa lasawfa yarda: the seal. Sawfa pushes the satisfaction into the future. The giving happens now and the contentment arrives later, which is precisely the trade the withholder refused to make. The surah does not end with what the man receives. It ends with the state he reaches.

He gave, owing nothing to anyone, wanting nothing back from anyone. And he is going to be satisfied.

Structural Summary

Twenty-One Verses. Give Or Withhold.

Verses 1–4Three OathsNight against day, male against female. Reality is built on opposites, and the verdict follows: your strivings diverge.

Verses 5–7The First RoadGave, guarded himself, affirmed the best. He is eased toward ease. Giving is named first in the evidence.

Verses 8–10The Second RoadWithheld, claimed self-sufficiency, denied the best. The same verb of easing carries him toward hardship.

Verse 11The Wealth StaysWhat he clenched will not avail him when he falls. He sought to be beyond need and it will not enrich him.

Verses 12–13The ClaimGuidance is upon Us. The last and the first belong to Us. Both roads run through His territory.

Verses 14–16The WarningA fire that blazes. The one who denied with the tongue and turned away with the body.

Verses 17–21The AtqaHe gives to purify himself, owing no favor, seeking only the Face of his Lord. And he is going to be satisfied.

Why This Surah Is For You

Sacred Society trains four pillars. Mind, Body, Spirit, Money. Al-Layl is the surah of the fourth. It refuses to treat money as a neutral resource sitting outside the spiritual file. The hand that opens and the hand that closes are the visible readout of what the soul decided in private.

Run verse 8 as a diagnostic on yourself, not on the men around you. Bakhila wastaghna. The withholding is downstream. The belief that you are self-sufficient is upstream. Every man who has built something feels the pull of istighna, because building creates the evidence that argues for it. The surah names that feeling as the first step onto the second road.

Verse 7 and verse 10 should end any argument that a smooth run is proof of divine approval. Both roads get eased. Momentum is not a verdict. Ask instead which direction the momentum is carrying you, and answer it with the hand.

Verse 19 is the hardest standard in the surah. No favor owed, nothing to repay, nothing to collect. Audit your giving against it. Money that buys loyalty, reputation, leverage, or a future return is a transaction, and transactions are fine, but the surah is not describing transactions. It is describing the man who gives where there is nothing to gain and no one watching.

The Practice · Daily Integration

Twenty-One Verses. Open The Hand.

Memorize Al-Layl alongside Ash-Shams. They sit next to each other in the Mushaf, they share vocabulary, and they examine the same man from the inside and the outside.

Recite verses 5 to 10 as a weekly audit. Six verses, two columns. Read your actual week against them before you read your intentions.

Give something every week that cannot be traced back to you. Verse 19 is the standard. No favor repaid, no return expected, no witness required.

When a season runs smooth, recite verse 10 alongside verse 7. Ease of passage tells you the road is chosen, not that it is correct.

The strivings diverge. The hand shows which road you are on. Give, and be satisfied later.

آمِين

Prepared with discipline · Ameen

Verse-By-Verse · Test Yourself

The Quiz

Two questions per verse. Translation and a key Arabic word. Walk through it slow. The goal is comprehension, not speed.

Verse 11 / 42

The Verse

وَاللَّيْلِ إِذَا يَغْشَىٰ

Wal-layli idha yaghsha

This verse swears an oath by: