Surah Al-Ikhlas

About Surah Al-Ikhlas

The name means purity or sincerity, and the word itself never appears in the text. It describes what the four ayahs do rather than quoting from them, which is unusual among surah names. The subject is the answer to a plain question: what is God. Makkan and very short, it replies in definitions instead of descriptions, and everything it says is a boundary, marking out what cannot be said of Him.

He is One (112:1). He is as-Samad (112:2), a word with no clean English equivalent, translated here as the Eternal Refuge and carrying the sense of the one whom everything turns to and who needs nothing from anything. He does not beget and was not begotten (112:3), which rules out both descent from Him and origin for Him. And there is nothing comparable to Him (112:4). It is reported in both Bukhari and Muslim that the Prophet said this surah equals a third of the Quran. Commentators generally explain that by its content: the Quran teaches belief, law and reports of the unseen, and these four ayahs carry the first of the three on their own.