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قQuranicpediaEncyclopedia of the Glorious Qur’an

Sleep as a Sign سُبَات

In review — pending scholar verification

The Quran identifies sleep as a sign of Allah — a daily death-like rest from which the sleeper is restored each morning, a daily proof of resurrection.

Overview

The Quran identifies sleep (Arabic: سُبَات, subāt) as a sign of Allah. The classical commentators (Ibn Kathīr) read the daily cycle of sleep — a brief death-like rest — as a daily microcosm of resurrection: each night the soul is taken up partially; each morning it is restored.

Surah An-Naba 78:9 reads: "And We made your sleep a means of rest." Surah Az-Zumar 39:42 develops the theme: "Allah takes the souls at the time of their death, and those that do not die [He takes] during their sleep. Then He keeps those for which He has decreed death and releases the others until a specified term."

Quranic references

  • Surah An-Naba 78:9 — sleep as rest.
  • Surah Al-Furqān 25:47 — "And it is He who has made the night for you a covering and sleep [a means for] rest."
  • Surah Az-Zumar 39:42 — sleep as a partial taking of the soul.
  • Surah Ar-Rūm 30:23 — "And of His signs is your sleep by night and day, and your seeking of His bounty."

Hadith

Hudhayfah reported the Prophet ﷺ used to say upon awakening: "All praise is to Allah who gave us life after having taken it from us; and to Him is the resurrection." — Sahih al-Bukhari 6314

See also

References

  1. The Quran: Surahs Al-Furqān 25:47; Ar-Rūm 30:23; Az-Zumar 39:42; An-Naba 78:9.
  2. Sahih al-Bukhari 6314.
  3. Ibn Kathir, Tafsīr, on Surah Az-Zumar 39:42.