"By the declining day, truly mankind is in loss, save those who believe, perform righteous deeds, exhort one another to truth, and exhort one another to patience."
Quran 103:1-3
This is the entire 103rd surah, al-Asr, here rendered as "The Declining Day." When interested non-Muslims ask me what surahs they should read I often direct them first to surah 18, Maryam (Mary), because it includes characters, notably Mary and Jesus, that they would recognize and would probably be surprised to find in Islam, but also because it includes many important themes of Islam. Or, I might direct them to the following surah, the 19th, al-Kahf, "The Cave," because it is utterly fascinating and includes brilliant metaphors, which help people understand that Islam is not the intellectually dry, literal faith that it is sometimes described as. And I always send them off to read this surah, one of the shortest in the entire Quran. It's my favorite surah, and one that finds it's way into my prayers constantly. It was the first surah where the obvious pairing of belief and righteous deeds first jumped out at me, and launched me to counting the number of times that they are paired in the Quran (over fifty), and that shaped my perception of what the faith means. Plus, in a very simple way, it explains what, at least to me, the faith is about. As Nasr tells us in the Study Quran, "From one perspective, these three short verses contain the entire meaning of the Quran." He then quotes the scholar al-Shafi'i who opined, "Were the people to ponder this surah, it would suffice them."
Quran 103:1-3
This is the entire 103rd surah, al-Asr, here rendered as "The Declining Day." When interested non-Muslims ask me what surahs they should read I often direct them first to surah 18, Maryam (Mary), because it includes characters, notably Mary and Jesus, that they would recognize and would probably be surprised to find in Islam, but also because it includes many important themes of Islam. Or, I might direct them to the following surah, the 19th, al-Kahf, "The Cave," because it is utterly fascinating and includes brilliant metaphors, which help people understand that Islam is not the intellectually dry, literal faith that it is sometimes described as. And I always send them off to read this surah, one of the shortest in the entire Quran. It's my favorite surah, and one that finds it's way into my prayers constantly. It was the first surah where the obvious pairing of belief and righteous deeds first jumped out at me, and launched me to counting the number of times that they are paired in the Quran (over fifty), and that shaped my perception of what the faith means. Plus, in a very simple way, it explains what, at least to me, the faith is about. As Nasr tells us in the Study Quran, "From one perspective, these three short verses contain the entire meaning of the Quran." He then quotes the scholar al-Shafi'i who opined, "Were the people to ponder this surah, it would suffice them."
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