The Prostration: Creation, Death and Revival

As-Sajda ('The Prostration'), 30 Meccan verses, is named for the verse at which reciters prostrate. It sets the truth of the revelation, the creation and re-creation of the human being, and the contrast between the believer who rises in the night and the heedless. It is traditionally recited, with Surah 76, at the dawn prayer of Friday.

As-Sajda's title verse, at which reciters and listeners alike are traditionally understood to perform a single prostration outside the ordinary prayer, is one of some fifteen such verses scattered through the Quran, called ayat as-sajda, and their number and precise location have varied slightly across the classical legal schools without affecting the practice's basic form. The surah's description of the righteous who 'forsake their beds' to call on their Lord in fear and hope (32:16) is read by commentators as praise specifically for voluntary night prayer beyond the five obligatory ones, a practice with a long history in both early Muslim asceticism and Sufi devotional life. Its pairing with Surah 76, Al-Insan, in the customary recitation at the Friday dawn prayer is attested in hadith describing the Prophet's own regular practice, and commentators read the combination as fitting, since As-Sajda opens with the certainty of revelation and re-creation while Al-Insan closes with a vision of the reward awaiting the patient, together framing the day of congregational worship with a reminder of both creation and its ultimate purpose.