Ar-Rahman ('The Most Merciful'), 78 verses whose Meccan or Medinan placement is disputed, is built around a refrain repeated thirty-one times: 'so which of the favours of your Lord would you deny?' Addressed to both humans and jinn, it moves through the gifts of creation, the sun and moon in their courses, the two seas that do not merge, the pearl and coral, to the twin gardens of paradise, in a cadence prized by reciters.
The refrain's address to 'jinn and mankind' together is unusual among the surahs, and commentators read the pairing of paradise gardens for 'those who fear the standing before their Lord' (55:46) in duplicate, two gardens described and then two more of a lesser register, as extending the surah's rhetorical structure of matched pairs, seen also in its 'two seas' that meet without merging (55:19-20) and its balance set for all creation (55:7-9). Ar-Rahman is traditionally called 'the bride of the Quran' in a title attributed to a hadith many scholars, including al-Tirmidhi's collection, class as weak, though the name has stayed in popular use regardless. Its opening declaration that God 'taught the Quran, created the human, taught him speech' (55:1-4) places revelation and language ahead even of the account of creation that follows, an ordering exegetes read as underscoring that guidance, not just existence, is the first gift being catalogued.