Dr Bassam Saeh says that Surah al-Falaq contains 38 brand new features that were not found in Arabic before the Quran.
The surah includes seven words that do not appear in any other chapter, such as al-falaq (daybreak), ghasiq (darkness), waqab (creeping in), and al-naffathat (those who blow into knots). Many of these words were unknown before the Quran or had different meanings. The surah also has new structures, like using “when” to describe something unknown, which was never used like that in Arabic before.
It creates powerful and surprising images, like darkness falling like an eye socket, or women blowing into knots to do magic. It uses phrases like “from the evil of what He created”, which was a new way to speak to Allah—asking Him to protect us from things He Himself created.
The surah repeats the phrase “from the evil” four times, creating a strong rhythm that ties all the verses together. This kind of repetition at the start of verses is rare and different from the usual end rhyme that Arabs were used to.
Surah al-Falaq and Surah al-Nas became daily protective prayers for Muslims. Together, they introduced more than 70 new linguistic features in just a few lines. These chapters helped reveal how the Quran broke through the patterns of normal Arabic, using short, deep, and rich language that was totally new to the people who first heard it.
This is the second chapter in reverse order in the Quran. It has 23 words, but we find in it 38 new linguistic patterns.
This chapter, like all chapters of the Quran, has its own special language. It includes new words that are not found in any other chapter: al-falaq, ghasiq, waqab, al-naffathat, al-uqad, hasid, and hasad. It also introduces new grammatical structures, especially the way it describes an unknown noun in two verses using the word when.
It also includes deep and unusual meanings, like seeking protection from something by turning to the one who made it. There are powerful visual images in the words al-falaq and waqab. Most of its expressions are not repeated anywhere else in the Quran.
Words and expressions
Say (قل)
This verb is the same one that starts Surah al-Nas. It is unfamiliar to the Arab listener because it starts in a way that was not used in any known type of writing. The speaker is not mentioned. The one being addressed is not mentioned. The meaning is closer to “repeat” or “recite” rather than “inform”. And it is not followed by the word to, which was normal in poetry before Islam.
I seek protection (أعوذ)
This verb appears 332 times in the Quran, but only 7 times in all the pre-Islamic poetry we know. It is part of a reply to a question or a condition that is not said but understood. What applies to this word in Surah al-Nas applies here too.
Daybreak (الفلق)
This word is not known in the language before Islam with this meaning. The oldest poem that includes it is by Aws ibn Hajar, who lived just before the Prophet. But in that poem it means a peaceful piece of land between two hills. In the Quran, it means the first break of light in the morning, or anything that splits open to bring out life: light, people, animals, or plants. The word is not used in the sayings of the Prophet except when someone is quoting the verse. It only appears in this chapter.
Darkness (غاسق)
This is another word that the Quran brought with a new meaning. It does not appear in early Arabic poetry. It comes from a word that means the first darkness of night. The only poem that uses the word is by Majnun Layla, long after the Quran was revealed. It is not used in the Prophet’s sayings unless someone is quoting this verse.
Creeping in (وقب)
The original meaning refers to the hollow part of the eye. But the Quran uses the word in a new way. We do not find it in pre-Islamic poetry or in hadith, unless someone is explaining this verse. One report describes the hollow of a fish’s eye with the noun waqab. If we connect the idea of darkness falling strongly with the shape of an eye socket, the Quran is giving a new and strong image of night that covers and surrounds.
The women who blow into knots (النفاثات)
The first time this word appears in Arabic literature after the Quran is in the eighth century. A masculine form appears even earlier. The word in this chapter refers to female magicians who blow into knots to cast spells. Some scholars said the chapter was revealed because the daughters of a man named Labid tried to cast magic on the Prophet. The word only appears here and not in the sayings of the Prophet except when someone is quoting the verse.
This chapter alone includes seven words that do not appear in any other chapter of the Quran: al-falaq, ghasiq, waqab, hasid, hasad, al-naffathat, and al-uqad. Four of these are found only in the Quran: al-falaq, ghasiq, waqab, al-naffathat.
Structures and relationships between the words
Say I seek protection (قل أعوذ)
This phrase was explained already in the discussion of Surah al-Nas. It was completely new to the Arabic language.
Daybreak (الفلق)
This word, with its new meaning, carries a full image. It describes everything that splits open to bring out life, whether in the sky or on earth, or in humans, animals, or plants. It shows how all living things are born from something that splits open, and this unity of creation points to the unity of the one who created it all.
Lord of daybreak (رب الفلق)
This phrase is like Lord of people and King of people in the previous chapter. Since the word daybreak was unknown before Islam, this phrase also did not exist. It is a new and unfamiliar way to describe the Lord. It does not appear in the Prophet’s sayings or in early Arabic poetry, except for one poet in the second century who said: “He whispered secretly to the Lord of daybreak.”
From the evil of what He created (من شر ما خلق)
At first, or even after a few times, we might not notice how unusual this verse is. It is asking us to seek protection from something that the one we are praying to has made. It is like saying to your child, “I’ll teach you how to protect yourself from the snake I put under your pillow.” In this chapter, we are saying: “Protect me from the evil You created.” The Prophet used to say: “I seek protection with You from You,” and: “There is no escape from You except by turning to You.”
Darkness when it creeps in (غاسق إذا وقب)
This phrase gives a new picture of the night. It shows the night as something that pours down from the sky and surrounds the land like an eye socket surrounds the eye. It adds a new kind of image to Arabic. Even though the one creeping in is something Allah created, we are told to ask Him for protection from it.
From the evil of darkness / From the evil of the envier (شر غاسق / شر حاسد)
In Arabic, when different phrases are joined together, they usually follow the same pattern. For example, in the Prophet’s sayings, when he spoke about people going to Friday prayer, every line followed the same pattern. If one line suddenly changed, it would sound strange. In this chapter, the first verse adds the word evil to a known word: what He created. The next verse adds it to an unknown word: darkness. Then it goes back to a known word: those who blow into knots, and then again to an unknown word: envier. This kind of change is called iltifat. Even though it breaks the pattern, the rhythm of the verses makes it feel natural.
All four verses begin with ‘from the evil of’ (من شر)
All four of the last verses begin with the phrase from the evil of, and all of them go back to the verb I seek protection at the start of the chapter. Starting a sentence with a phrase that depends on a verb earlier in the chapter is not normal in traditional Arabic. That it happens four times in a short chapter like this makes it even more special.
I seek protection from evil (أعوذ من شر)
This phrase appears four times in this chapter and nowhere else in the Quran. It is also not found in early Arabic poetry. Each one is a new phrase.
The women who blow into knots (النفاثات في العقد)
The idea of a woman blowing into a knot while doing magic was not known in Arabic before the Quran. Even if the words existed, this exact phrase did not. It only appears in this chapter.
Darkness when it comes / Envier when he envies (غاسق إذا وقب / حاسد إذا حسد)
The word when (idha) appears many times in the Quran. Sometimes it shows time, sometimes condition, sometimes surprise. Here it shows time: “when the darkness comes” and “when the envier envies”. If we replaced when with simpler words, like “the coming darkness” or “the one who envies”, it would still make sense, but it would lose the force of the original structure. In these two verses, when also depends on the same verb I seek protection. So now the sentence has seven parts connected to that one verb: with the Lord, from the evil, four times, and when, twice. The whole sentence can be imagined as: I seek protection… from this… and this… and this… when this happens… and when this happens… This kind of structure is extremely rare in Arabic grammar.
Try now to find a replacement for “when” in the following pre-Islamic lines of poetry (لتحاول الآن إيجاد بديل لـ “إذا” في الأبيات الجاهلية التالية)
A strong, sharp-toothed figure with pride
Like a daisy when its blossom shines
(وواضح أشنب الأنياب ذي أشر
كالأقحوان إذا ما نوره لمع – لقيط بن يعمر)
People cannot be left as a disordered crowd without leaders
Nor are they leaders when the ignorant take control
(لا يصلح الناس فوضى لا سراة لهم
ولا سراة إذا جهالهم سادوا – الأقرع الأودي)
He travels endlessly at night
And travels when the cricket chirps
(بلغَه دلج دائم
وسير إذا صدح الجندب – المسيب بن مالك)
In the first line, we could say: like a shining daisy or like a daisy whose blossom shines. That would make the phrase a descriptive word (shining) or a full sentence (whose blossom shines)—both replacing the word when.
We should also remember the grammar rule: a sentence after a known noun is usually a description; a sentence after an unknown noun is usually a full statement. In the poem, the word daisy is known, so the sentence when it shines is extra and not like the Quran’s style. That makes it completely different from the structure of the verses in the chapter.
The second line does not match either, because the word when here shows a condition: if the ignorant take control, the people will not have leaders. That’s a meaning of if, not when, and the verses are not conditional sentences.
In the third line, the word when shows time. It comes after an unknown word (travel) and tells us when the travel happens, just like in the verses. But we cannot replace when with a description like chirping cricket or say a travel with a cricket chirping, because the chirping belongs to the cricket, not to the travel. So this line also does not match the Quran’s structure.
This shows that the use of when in those two verses in the chapter is unique. It creates a structure that no known Arabic text had ever used. It also explains why it took so much effort and searching through grammar books, Quran explanations, and hadith to find a rule that could explain how the word works in this sentence.
And even after all that searching, it still stands out on its own as something brand new—just like many other parts of the Quran. It adds one more to the thirty-eight new and unique features in this chapter.
As for the two verses in Surah al-ʿAlaq (أما آيتا سورة العلق)
“Do you see the one who forbids a servant when he prays?”
These verses fit better with the conditions of the two verses in Surah al-Falaq.
First, the word when here is preceded by an unknown noun (a servant).
Second, we could replace when he prays with a description and say a praying servant.
But a very fine difference sets them apart from the two verses in al-Falaq. What is that difference?
The word when here shows time, not condition. But don’t you feel a hint of condition in it?
We can stop at the word darkness in the first verse or envier in the second without losing the meaning. But can we stop at a servant in the verse from Surah al-ʿAlaq without breaking the meaning?
The forbidding here is connected to prayer, not to any other time. So we cannot leave out the verb when he prays, unlike in the verses from al-Falaq.
Only one verse in the whole Quran matches this unique pattern. It is verse 46 of Surah al-Najm:
“And that He created the two kinds, male and female, from a drop when it is released.”
It is easy to change when it is released into a phrase and say a released drop. That makes three verses in the Quran which share this form, and we don’t find it anywhere else in all of Arabic writing.
Quran’s expression patterns
We still remember what we meant by this new term, and some examples we used to show it. Each era has its own language structures that spread in its writing, especially in poetry. These forms appear again and again in the work of writers and poets.
For example, the pattern that follows the measure of ʿamila al-ʿamala (he did the deed) appears in many poems, from Imruʾ al-Qays (and a night like the waves of the sea) to al-Shanfara (a wound like a shield) to Hatim al-Ta’i (a wound like a sword blade). Another common form is Ala ayyuhā… (“O you who…”) which was used from Tarafa ibn al-ʿAbd (O you who blame me) to al-Aʿsha (O you who ask) to al-Akhtal (O you who promised me…).
If studies were done on this, we could group most of the poetic language into families of expressions. These forms took over the poets, and most could not break away from them.
Those few who could break out of the old forms were the great poets of Arabic, especially al-Mutanabbi. But even the greatest poets only managed to introduce a few new forms here and there. Their new phrases covered no more than five to ten percent of their poetry.
But the Quran came all at once, with a language that had no more than a small percent—if any—of those familiar poetic forms. It came with a language that broke through the sound barrier of their speech—or even the light barrier.
The Arabs were struck with deep confusion as they tried to explain the shock they felt when they heard this new language.
But their critical tools—though their critical sense was alive—were not developed enough to let them write a full, deep analysis of what this Quran had done to their language. So the best they could say about it was what al-Walid ibn al-Mughira said, even though he stayed a polytheist until the end:
“It has a sweetness, and it is full of light. Its top is fruitful and its bottom pours forth. It rises and nothing rises above it. It crushes what is beneath it.”
Let us now look at some of the new Quran’s expression patterns in this chapter.
Say I seek protection with the Lord of daybreak (قل أعوذ برب الفلق)
This is the same form as the one that opens Surah al-Nas: Say I seek protection with the Lord of the people. There is no need to repeat the grammar again here.
From the evil of darkness when it comes / From the evil of the envier when he envies (من شر غاسق إذا وقب / من شر حاسد إذا حسد)
This is another example of the many unique forms that the Quran brought into Arabic. These two forms appear back to back in a chapter that has only five verses.
They both begin with a prepositional phrase from the evil, followed by an unknown noun (darkness and envier), then a past verb (came and envied), each one introduced by when. The structure fits the pattern: from doer when he does.
This form does not appear in any other chapter. The closest we find is in these verses:
“From a drop when it is released” (al-Najm: 46)
“Eat from its fruit when it ripens” (al-Anʿam: 141)
These are similar in tone but not exactly the same.
From the evil… from the evil (من شر.. ومن شر)
The repetition of from the evil at the beginning of each of the last four verses creates what we can call a combined expression pattern. It ties the verses together with rhythm and balance, making them flow as one connected whole.
The way from the evil is repeated at the start of each verse in this chapter matches the repeated ending people in Surah al-Nas. It’s like a new kind of rhyme, a beginning rhyme instead of an end rhyme. It gives the chapter a musical structure that is not found in any earlier Arabic writing.
Expanding language
Say (قل)
This word has the same deep effect it had in Surah al-Nas. It made the first Arab listeners imagine many possibilities about:
Who the speaker really is.
And who the one being addressed really is.
Daybreak (الفلق)
The wide meaning of the verb to split open gives this noun a strong and shining force. It goes beyond its basic meaning in the dictionaries. It gathers all the different meanings into one word that creates new images and feelings.
The word refers to anything that splits open to bring life: light, humans, animals, plants. Some said al-falaq could also mean a deep pit in Hell, based on some hadith. The richness of the word is part of its power.
From the evil of what He created (شر ما خلق)
The word evil carries both the meaning of something bad and the meaning of more evil. The word what adds more openness, since it could mean anything or whatever. The verb created is wide and includes all creation. All of this gives the phrase a powerful open meaning that is not limited by people, actions, place, or time.
From the evil of darkness when it comes (شر غاسق إذا وقب)
The word darkness is full of layered meanings. Some said it means the night when it spreads, or the cold night, or the biting wind, or the moon when it is eclipsed, or when it disappears at the end of the month. Some said it means the stars when they fall, bringing disease. The Prophet ﷺ once looked at the moon and said: “Seek protection with Allah from its evil, for it is the darkness when it comes.”
The Quran takes the word waqab, which originally described the hollow of the eye, and uses it to give a new picture of the night wrapping around the earth the way an eye socket surrounds the eye. This points to the roundness of the earth—something people had no way of knowing back then.
The words darkness and when it comes are each rich in meaning. But putting them together creates even more deep thoughts and images, full of surprise and originality.
Few words, many meanings
Say I seek protection with the Lord of daybreak (قل أعوذ برب الفلق)
Just like the first verse in Surah al-Nas, this verse became a quick prayer Muslims say when they feel afraid or unsettled. It also became another name for this chapter.
The women who blow into knots (النفاثات في العقد)
This phrase became a term used for magicians—whether men or women—no matter how they perform their magic, even if they don’t blow into knots. The Quran gave this phrase a meaning that stuck in people’s speech.
The chapter as a whole
Just like Surah al-Nas became a daily prayer for Muslims in all parts of life, Surah al-Falaq became its twin. Many hadiths bring the two together, like this one:
Abu Saʿid al-Khudri said: The Prophet ﷺ used to seek protection from the jinn and from the evil eye, until the two chapters of protection were revealed. After that, he held on to them and left everything else.
Ar-Razi noticed something important in the two chapters. He said: “In Surah al-Falaq, the one we seek protection with is described with one attribute—He is the Lord of daybreak. But what we seek protection from are three things: the darkness, the magicians, and the envier.
In Surah al-Nas, the one we seek protection with is described with three names: Lord, King, and God. But what we seek protection from is only one thing: whispering.” He explained that when the danger is worldly, the praise is short. But when the danger is about religion, the praise is much greater.
So there are 38 new and unique signs of the Quran’s greatness in this short chapter of only 23 words. And who knows—maybe someone in the future will discover even more of its secrets.
