Surah Al-Lail

About Surah Al-Lail

The Arabic name of Surah Al-Lail is الليل, also written Al-Layl. Al-Layl means “The Night”. The surah opens with an oath by the night. It is a Makki surah, revealed in Makkah before the Prophet’s migration to Madinah. Its subject is so close to Ash-Shams that the two surahs explain each other, and both were revealed at about the same time. In the revelation-order list used by quran.com, it is number 9 of 114. In the order of the Mushaf it comes after Surah Ash-Shams and before Surah Ad-Duhaa.

Main Themes of Surah Al-Lail

The surah contrasts two ways of living and shows that their results are as different as night and day.

• Human efforts are as different in moral nature as night is from day.
• Two ways of life are contrasted: giving, God-consciousness and affirming the good, against miserliness, indifference to Allah and denying the good.
• For the first, Allah makes the way of good easy; for the second, the hard way becomes their path.
• The two ways are different in nature, so they cannot lead to the same result.

Learn Surah Al-Lail with Tajweed

Smart Quran Academy offers one-to-one online classes in which qualified teachers listen to your recitation and correct it gently. Learn Surah Al-Lail with the rules of Tajweed, memorize it in our memorization classes, and request a free trial lesson when you are ready. Teachers work on the articulation points of the letters, the rules of noon and meem sakinah, and the correct length of each madd.