Cheatsheet

Sūrah Al-IsrāʾThe Night Journey · Makkah · 111 āyāt · 4 movements

The 50th surah revealed, opening the fourth phase of the Makkan mission. It begins with the Night Journey from the Sacred Mosque to al-Masjid al-Aqṣā — a consolation given after the death of Khadījah and Abū Ṭālib and the rejection at Ṭāʾif — and then lays down the moral charter of a believing society in āyāt 23–39: parents, kin, the poor, wealth, the orphan, the measure, speech, walking, killing, adultery. Between these it answers Quraysh's demands for miracles, states that the Qurʾān is itself the sign, and closes with the challenge that jinn and mankind together could not produce its like.

Full study unit Practice papers Print sheet

At a glance

Āyāt	Movement	In one line
1–8	Glory be to the One who took His servant by night	Consolation in the Qurʾān often comes as elevation, not as removal of the difficulty.
23–39	The charter: parents, kin, wealth, speech and the measure	The rights of parents are legislated immediately after the right of Allah.
82–89	The Qurʾān as healing, and the challenge no one met	Some knowledge is deliberately withheld; admitting the limit is part of belief.
78–81	Prayer at the sun's decline, and the station of the night	A moral charter is only sustainable when it is anchored to a daily timetable of prayer.

Occasion & setting

Revealed after the ʿām al-ḥuzn — the year in which Khadījah رضي الله عنها and Abū Ṭālib died — and after the Prophet ﷺ was driven out of Ṭāʾif. Quraysh were demanding physical miracles as the price of belief, and the small Muslim community had no state, no land and no protector.

— Bukhārī 3887 and Muslim 162 (the Isrāʾ); Bukhārī 125 and 4721 (Ibn Masʿūd on the question about the rūḥ); Ibn Kathīr, introduction to Sūrat al-Isrāʾ

Key messages

· When people close every door, Allah may answer by opening the heavens.
· The highest title given to the best of creation is 'servant'.
· A believing society is defined by how it treats parents, orphans, the poor and the traveller — before anything else.
· Forbidden things are fenced off at their approaches, not just at the act.
· Never assert what you have not verified; your hearing, sight and heart will each be questioned.
· The night prayer is the private engine behind public elevation.
· The Qurʾān is the standing miracle: the challenge to produce its like remains open and unmet.
· Holding a sacred place or a scripture protects no community that abandons justice.

Root vocabulary

س ر ي

to travel by night

أَسْرَىٰ (He took by night) · إِسْرَاء (a night journey) · سَرَىٰ (he travelled by night)

ق ض ي

to decree, decide, complete an affair

4, 23

قَضَىٰ (He decreed) · قَضَاء (a decree, judgement) · مَقْضِيًّا (decreed, settled)

ح م د

praise given for what is good by choice

79, 111

مَحْمُود (praised) · ٱلْحَمْد (all praise) · مُحَمَّد (the much-praised one)

ش ف ي

to heal, to cure

شِفَاء (healing) · يَشْفِى (He heals) · شَافِى (healer)

ق ر ب

to draw near, to approach

32, 34

تَقْرَبُوا۟ (you approach) · قَرِيب (near) · قُرْبَىٰ (kinship)

ف س د

to corrupt, to spoil what was sound

فَسَاد (corruption) · مُفْسِد (a corrupter) · أَفْسَدَ (he corrupted)

ع ل م

to know; knowledge as a basis for claims

36, 85

عِلْم (knowledge) · أُوتِيتُم (you were given) · عَلِيم (all-knowing)

Flip cards

19 cards over the roots, movements, takeaways and seerah events of this surah. Anything you mark “still learning” comes back before the deck ends.

Sūrah Al-Isrāʾ deck

1 / 19 · 0 known

Concept map

The surah at the centre, its movements in sequence around it, and the roots, seerah moments and messages that hang off each one. Tap a node to focus its connections — the same way a linked notebook shows you what a single idea touches.

Tap any node to focus it and dim everything it is not connected to — the movement it sits in, the roots that carry it, and the moment of the seerah it answers.