Sura al-Hijr

Sura al-Hijr (audio)

Sūra al-Hijr (Arabic: سورة الحِجر) is the fifteenth sura of the Qur'an. It is a Makki sura in the juz' fourteen. The appellation of the sura as "al-Hijr" is because of its reference to the story of the people of the Prophet Salih (a), that is, people of Thamud, in verses eighty through eighty four. They lived in a land called al-Hijr.

Sura al-Hijr talks about the origin of the world, signs of the resurrection, the belief in God, the punishment of wrong-doers, and the greatness of the Qur'an. The sura has references to the story of the creation of Adam (a), the prostration of all angels for Adam (a) except Iblis, the story of angels visiting the Prophet Abraham (a) and giving good tidings to him, the punishment of the people of Lot, and the story of Thamud.

A well-known verse in the sura is its ninth verse in which God emphasizes that He has sent down the Qur'an and that He will be its guardian. Many exegetes have cited the verse as evidence that the Qur'an is immune from any distortions. According to hadiths, one virtue of reciting the Sura al-Hijr is that if one recites the sura, he will be given rewards by God ten times greater than the number of the Muhajirun and Ansar.

This Surah al-hijr is recited by Abdul Basit, Mohamed Siddiq El-Minshawi, Abu Bakr al-Shatri and Saad al-Ghamdi, in their beautiful voices.