As-Saffat ('Those Ranged in Ranks'), 182 Meccan verses, opens with the ranks of angels and surveys the prophets Noah, Abraham, Moses, Aaron, Elijah, Lot and Jonah. Its central scene is Abraham's dream to sacrifice his son and the son's willing submission, ransomed by 'a great sacrifice' (37:107), commemorated at the festival of Eid al-Adha.
The identity of Abraham's son in the sacrifice narrative, unnamed in the Quranic text itself, is debated across the exegetical tradition, with a majority of later commentators, including Ibn Kathir, favouring Ishmael against an earlier and once more common view, held by figures such as Ibn Abbas in some transmitted reports, that favoured Isaac; the ransoming sacrifice (37:107) is commemorated annually at Eid al-Adha with the slaughter of an animal, a rite tied to the pilgrimage rather than confined to Mecca alone. The surah's opening image of angels 'ranged in ranks' is read by classical commentators as describing both angelic worship and, by extension, the ordered rows of congregational prayer, a connection cited to explain why straightening the prayer line is emphasised in Islamic ritual practice. Jonah's episode within the surah (37:139-148), swallowed by the fish for fleeing his mission and cast onto a barren shore where a gourd vine grew to shade him, supplies detail absent from the fuller account of his people's belief given in the surah bearing his name, illustrating the Quran's habit of distributing a single narrative's episodes across different chapters.