Ayah Unpacked – Connection Map
All 5 verses in order, with the lines between them drawn. One request, then four things to be kept from — the first covering everything, and the next three named.
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Five verses: one request for refuge, and then four things to be kept from. The first covers everything — the evil of what He created — and the next three name something specific, so the surah goes from all of it to three particular cases rather than building a list. Shar, evil, appears four times, once in each of those verses. And seven of the words here occur nowhere else in the Quran in these forms, which for a surah of twenty-three words is most of what is distinctive about it. It is one of the two surahs the Quran opens with say, I seek refuge in the Lord of; the other is the one immediately after it.
Click any curve to jump between the two ayahs it joins, and again to travel back. Tap a key to hide that kind of line. Each bar is one ayah and its width tracks that ayah’s length, though the label beside it takes room too, so read the bars as a rough shape rather than a measurement. Counted properly the five verses run 14, 9, 15, 18 and 15 letters. Hover any bar to read the Arabic, or tap one on a phone.
Chapter 113 · 5 verses · Meccan · read top to bottom
The same notes the map shows when you tap a line, written out in verse order, each with its source.
113:1
Qul a’udhu bi-rabbi al-falaq. Only two verses in the Quran open with qul a’udhu bi-rabbi, and they are this one and an-Nas 114:1. Here the Lord is named by what He splits open; there, by the people He is asked to guard. The two surahs are recited together and are reported together in the sunnah.
Source: A search of the whole Quran returns qul a’udhu bi-rabbi as the opening of 113:1 and 114:1 only. Checked in the Arabic.
113:2
Verse 2 asks for refuge from the evil of what He created — which leaves nothing out. Then verses 3, 4 and 5 each name something. So the surah does not build up to a general statement; it opens with the general one and then stops on three cases, as if those three were the ones worth saying out loud.
Source: 113:2 is general and 113:3 to 113:5 are specific. Reading the order as deliberate is a structural observation.
113:3
Ghasiqin idha waqab — darkness, when it settles. Hasidin idha hasad — an envier, when he envies. Verses 3 and 5 both attach idha and a verb, so the thing named is not asked about in general but at the point it acts. Verse 4, between them, has no such clause.
Source: 113:3 and 113:5 both carry an idha clause; 113:4 does not. Checked in the Arabic.
113:4
Those who blow on knots. Both words occur once in the Quran, and the phrase is read as sorcery worked on cords, and more widely as anyone who works on a person by whispering at the ties that hold them to other people. The commentators differ, and the page does not settle it. Al-Baqarah 2:102 is where the Quran deals with sorcery at length.
Source: an-naffathat and al-’uqad each occur once in the Quran, at 113:4. The range of readings is a long-standing difference among the commentators.
113:5
Al-falaq, ghasiq, waqab, an-naffathat, al-’uqad, hasid and hasad — each occurs once in the Quran in this form. In a surah of twenty-three words, seven of them are its own. The root of the last two does appear elsewhere, at al-Baqarah 2:109, an-Nisa 4:54 and al-Fath 48:15; the exact words do not.
Source: Each of the seven forms returns a single verse on a search of the whole Quran. The root h-s-d also occurs at 2:109, 4:54 and 48:15 in other forms. Checked in the Arabic.
Axis · 113:1–5
Say, I seek refuge in the Lord of the daybreak: from the evil of what He created, and of darkness when it settles, and of those who blow on knots, and of an envier when he envies. The request is made once and the rest of the surah is what it is made against.
Source: 113:1 to 113:5 state this.
Contrast · 113:2 and 113:5
Verse 2 covers the whole of creation in four words. Verse 3 narrows to a time of day, verse 4 to a practice, and verse 5 to a single person at a single moment. The surah closes on the smallest and most ordinary of the four, which is the one you are most likely to meet.
Source: 113:2 is general and 113:5 names an individual with an idha clause. Reading the narrowing as deliberate is a structural observation.
113:1 → an-Nas 114:1
Al-Falaq 113:1 names Him as Lord of the daybreak; an-Nas 114:1 as Lord of mankind. The two surahs are the only places the Quran opens a verse this way, and they split the job between them: this one asks about things outside a person — night, sorcery, envy — and the next about something that gets inside.
Source: qul a’udhu bi-rabbi opens 113:1 and 114:1 only. 113 names four external evils; 114:4 names the whisperer. Checked in the Arabic.
113:1 → al-Ikhlas 112:1
Al-Ikhlas, al-Falaq and an-Nas close the mushaf and each opens with qul. Al-Ikhlas answers who He is; the other two ask Him for shelter. Five surahs in the Quran open on that word and three of them are these.
Source: Surahs 72, 109, 112, 113 and 114 open with qul. Checked in the Arabic.
113:2 → an-Nas 114:4
Al-Falaq uses shar four times, once in each of its last four verses. An-Nas uses it once, and spends the rest of the surah on who the one evil is and where it comes from. Two surahs built the same way around the same word, one going wide and the other going deep.
Source: shar occurs at 113:2, 113:3, 113:4 and 113:5, and at 114:4. Checked in the Arabic.
113:3 → ad-Duhaa 93:2
Ad-Duhaa 93:2: wa al-layli idha saja — by the night when it is still, sworn by as something to trust. Al-Falaq 113:3: ghasiqin idha waqab — darkness when it settles, named as something to be kept from. Both run a word for night, then idha, then a verb for it arriving. One surah swears by it and the other asks for shelter from it.
Source: 93:2 and 113:3 both run night plus idha plus a verb. Checked in the Arabic.
113:4 → al-Baqarah 2:102
Al-Baqarah 2:102 is the Quran’s long treatment: what the devils taught, the two angels at Babylon, that it harms and does not benefit, and that nothing happens by it except by Allah’s permission. Al-Falaq 113:4 gives it four words and asks for refuge instead of explanation.
Source: 2:102 treats sihr at length; 113:4 names an-naffathat fi al-’uqad. Checked in the Arabic.
113:5 → al-Baqarah 2:109
Al-Baqarah 2:109: many would turn you back to disbelief hasadan min ’indi anfusihim — out of envy from within themselves, after the truth had become clear. Al-Falaq 113:5 asks for refuge from an envier at the moment he envies. The same root; one verse explains where it comes from and the other asks to be kept out of its way.
Source: The root h-s-d occurs at 2:109, 4:54, 48:15 and 113:5. Checked in the Arabic.
113:5 → al-Qalam 68:51
Al-Qalam 68:51: those who disbelieve would almost strike you down with their eyes when they hear the reminder. Al-Falaq 113:5 asks for refuge from the evil of an envier when he envies. One verse describes the look and the other asks to be kept from what is behind it.
Source: Both verses state their own half. Reading them together is a structural observation.
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.
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 surahShort animated walkthroughs of each surah. The framing of this surah as something to recite for protection is theirs, along with the reading of al-falaq as both the daybreak and everything He splits into being, the range they give for what He created — people, weather, animals, illness — the reading of the knot-blowers as those who work on a person’s mind and turn them against their own, and the practice of reciting it with the surah after it at daybreak, at night and after prayer.
YouTubeBayyinah Institute, known for close linguistic readings of the Quran and for treating each surah as one coherent piece. More of his work will show up here as further surahs are added.
YouTubeArabic 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 113 on Quran.com