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The Ocean of the Quran

Chapter 96 of 114

Al-ʿAlaq · The Clinging Mass

19 versesMeccanPublished · 19 of 19 verses

Read from the beginning

سُورَةُ العلق

About this chapter

Sūrat al-ʿAlaq is the ninety-sixth chapter of the Quran and it was revealed in Mecca. It is widely considered, across the Muslim sectarian divide and across the centuries, to be the very first of the Quran to be revealed to Prophet Muhammad (s). It consists of nineteen verses.

The introduction sets out when the chapter came and what it addresses; the merits gather what the narrations say of reading it. Both are written as units of the tafsir, with their own footnotes.

IntroductionWhat the chapter is about, and when it cameMeritsWhat the narrations say of reading it

The verses

Each with the first line of its translation

Verses you have read are marked; the one you are on is shaded

  1. 1 Recite in the name of your Lord who created.
  2. 2 He created man from a clinging form.
  3. 3 Recite, as your Lord is the most generous.
  4. 4 Who taught by the pen.
  5. 5 Taught man what he did not know.
  6. 6 Indeed man becomes rebellious.
  7. 7 When he considers himself self-sufficient.
  8. 8 Indeed to your Lord is the return.
  9. 9–10 Have you seen the one who forbids
  10. 11–12 Have you seen whether he is rightly guided,
  11. 13 Have you seen whether he denies the truth and turns away from it?
  12. 14 Does he not know that Allah sees?
  13. 15–16 No indeed! If he does not stop, We shall seize him by the forelock;
  14. 17 Let him summon his cohorts.
  15. 18 We shall summon the guards of hell.
  16. 19 No! Do not obey him, but prostrate and draw near.

Works cited in this chapter