Al-Ikhlas الإخلاص
Sincerity
Al-Ikhlas is four verses long and states, without qualification, what God is not: not born, not begetting, without equal. Tradition holds it was revealed in answer to a direct question — disbelievers asking the Prophet ﷺ to describe God's lineage, the way one might describe a tribal chief's. The surah refuses the premise entirely: God is ahad, One, samad, the sole refuge everything else depends on, and utterly without peer. A well-known hadith records the Prophet ﷺ saying it is "equivalent to a third of the Quran" — not in length, but because tawhid, God's oneness, is the axis the rest of the Quran's law and narrative turns on. It's among the most memorized and recited surahs, especially in the two daily sunnah rakahs and before sleep alongside Al-Falaq and An-Nas.
قُلْ هُوَ ٱللَّهُ أَحَدٌ
Say, ‘He is God the One,
ٱللَّهُ ٱلصَّمَدُ
God the eternal.
لَمْ يَلِدْ وَلَمْ يُولَدْ
He begot no one nor was He begotten.
وَلَمْ يَكُن لَّهُۥ كُفُوًا أَحَدٌۢ
No one is comparable to Him.’
Arabic text and translation (M.A.S. Abdel Haleem) via the Quran.Foundation API.
Frequently asked
Four verses.
Meccan, revealed in Makkah.
A hadith (Sahih al-Bukhari 5013) records the Prophet ﷺ describing it this way because it concentrates tawhid — God's oneness — the theme the Quran's law and narrative both rest on, not because of its length.
In the two daily sunnah rakahs, and together with Al-Falaq and An-Nas (the three together are sometimes called the Three Quls) before sleep and after the five daily prayers.