Oaths · a Light

Seven oaths in a row open one short chapter

Surah al-Shams begins with the longest run of oaths in the Qur'an. By the sun and its morning brightness, by the moon when it follows it, by the day when it displays it, by the night when it covers it, by the sky and what built it, by the earth and what spread it, by the soul and what proportioned it. Seven verses, seven oaths, moving from the largest visible object down to the interior of one person, and the last of them puts the human soul in the same series as the sun. Only then does the thing sworn to arrive: he has succeeded who purifies it, and he has failed who buries it.

Surah al-Shams, verses 1 to 10

Source · Qur'an 91:1-10