Ad-Duhaa · Makki · ayah 2 of 11

Ad-Duhaa 93:2

وَٱلَّيْلِ إِذَا سَجَىٰ

“And [by] the night when it covers with darkness,[1941]”

Saheeh International

Essence

The night is sworn by at its stillest, when the world lies covered and calm, and even that stillness is His work.

A reflection

Who stills the sea of the night

The Arabs called the sea sājī when its waves lay down. A pre-Islamic poet taunted a rival that his sea was so still it could not even hide the tadpoles. A night was sājiya when the wind dropped and nothing moved. The same letters describe a cloth drawn over one who sleeps the last sleep. So the night that sajā has settled over the world like a calm sea and a covering.

Try to do that yourself. You cannot make one mind stop racing at night, not even your own. Yet every night whole cities fall still: traffic, markets, birds, people.

We live as if everything depends on us staying switched on. Notifications, late emails, the fear of missing something. The ayah quietly takes that self-importance apart. The world keeps its rhythm without you holding it up.

Your part is to lie down, and trust the One who stills it. Every night He lays the waves of a whole world flat, and asks nothing of you but to rest on the water.

The full entry has 6 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.