Ayah Unpacked – Connection Map

Surah Al-A’raf, in outline

All 206 verses in order, grouped into the surah’s sections, with what it is about and what to take from it. The lines between verses come next.

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What this surah is about

A Meccan surah named after the Heights between Paradise and Hell, where some people wait. It opens with Iblis refusing to bow to Adam, Adam and Hawwa’ tempted and repenting together, and a warning to the children of Adam that Satan sees them from where they cannot see him. It describes the clothing of taqwa as the best garment, the conversations between the people of Paradise and the Fire, and then the long line of prophets: Nuh, Hud, Salih, Lut, Shu’ayb, and Musa at greatest length, from Pharaoh’s magicians to the tablets and the golden calf. It recalls the covenant taken from all the children of Adam before birth, and Allah’s most beautiful names.

This page is an outline. Every verse of the surah is drawn below as a bar whose width is the length of that verse in the Arabic, grouped into the surah’s sections, so its shape is visible at a glance. The notes and the lines joining verses to each other and to the rest of the Quran have not been drawn yet; they will be added here, verified against the Arabic, as this surah’s full map is built.

206verses, Meccan
8sections
 the longest verse
7surah in the mushaf

Each bar is one ayah, and its width is how long that ayah actually is. Hover any bar to read the Arabic and Pickthall’s English, or tap one on a phone; click it to open the verse on Quran.com.

Surah Al-A’raf الأعراف

Chapter 7 · 206 verses · Meccan · read top to bottom

See every surah drawn this way →

Key takeaways

What to carry away from Surah Al-A’raf. Drawn mainly from The Clear Quran, alongside the tafsir and teachers credited below.

  1. Admit your wrong and ask forgiveness. Adam and Hawwa’ said: our Lord, we have wronged ourselves.
  2. The best clothing is taqwa. Beyond what covers the body.
  3. Eat and drink, but do not waste. He does not love the wasteful.
  4. Every soul already testified. The covenant before birth: am I not your Lord?
  5. Call on Him by His beautiful names. And leave those who distort them.
  6. Listen when the Quran is recited. So that you may receive mercy.

Where this comes from

The connections on these maps come from more than one place. Most are counts and comparisons made directly in the Arabic, and those say so. Readings of a word, or of the occasion a surah came down in, come from the classical books of tafsir. Some pages also draw on teachers whose lectures shaped how a surah is read, and they are credited by name below. Every connection names its own source in its popup, so you can always tell whether you are looking at something the text states, something the tafsir records, or one teacher’s reading of it.

Tafsir books

When a page says the commentators, it means the classical works of tafsir, Ibn Kathir and al-Tabari first among them, where the readings of a word, an occasion or a verse are recorded along with who held them. Where those readings differ, the page sets them side by side rather than picking one.

Ibn Kathir on this surah

The Clear Quran

Dr Mustafa Khattab’s thematic English translation. The summary at the top of this page, the key takeaways at the bottom and the way the surah is divided into sections all draw mainly on its surah introductions, section headings and notes, written here in our own words.

theclearquran.org

The text on this page

Arabic is the Uthmani script and numbering follows Hafs. The English is Marmaduke Pickthall’s 1930 translation, which is in the public domain. Its wording is deliberately old-fashioned; every ayah links straight to Quran.com, where you can read the same verse in The Clear Quran, Saheeh International, Abdel Haleem and others.

Surah 7 on Quran.com