Al-Isrāʾ opens with glorification of God and the honor He grants His servant: سُبْحَانَ الَّذ۪ٓي اَسْرٰى بِعَبْدِه۪ لَيْلًا. Transcendence belongs to the One who carries; the traveler is named by servanthood. God takes him by night from the Sacred Mosque to the Farthest Mosque, whose surroundings He has blessed. The journey has a declared purpose: لِنُرِيَهُ مِنْ اٰيَاتِنَاۜ, that We might show him some of Our signs. The verse closes with God as the Hearing, the Seeing: the One who grants the journey knows His servant fully. Later the sūrah will say that God honors the children of Adam and carries them on land and sea; elsewhere the Prophet sees some of his Lord’s greatest signs. Honor and dependence are not opposites here. The servant is honored by what his Lord grants him.

Then the direction of power is reversed again: ثُمَّ رَدَدْنَا لَكُمُ الْكَرَّةَ عَلَيْهِمْ. After their return to obedience, God restores their ascendancy over their enemies, strengthens them with wealth and sons, and makes them more numerous. Restoration opens a renewed opportunity to do good: اِنْ اَحْسَنْتُمْ اَحْسَنْتُمْ لِاَنْفُسِكُمْ وَاِنْ اَسَأْتُمْ فَلَهَاۜ. If you do good, you do good for your own selves; if you do evil, it is against them. The Qur’an elsewhere repeats the same principle: whoever acts righteously does so for himself, and whoever does evil does so against himself. The restored people are not trapped in the ruin of their earlier conduct. They are given strength again and addressed as responsible for what they now do with it.

At the second promised punishment, grief shows on their faces, the mosque is entered again, and what the invaders conquer is devastated. Even the sacred place cannot shelter renewed corruption from judgment. Yet after the devastation comes an invitation to hope: عَسٰى رَبُّكُمْ اَنْ يَرْحَمَكُمْۚ, perhaps your Lord will have mercy on you. Repentance remains possible. Beside it stands the warning وَاِنْ عُدْتُمْ عُدْنَاۢ: if you return to corruption, We return to punishment. The sūrah later names God لِلْاَوَّاب۪ينَ غَفُورًا, forgiving toward those who repeatedly return to Him. Two contrary returns stand before the reader: return to wrongdoing and return to the Lord. Here too the horizon extends beyond historical defeat: Hell is made an enclosing prison for the rejecters.

Human haste can turn even prayer toward harm: a person calls for evil as he calls for good, because وَكَانَ الْاِنْسَانُ عَجُولًا. In anger he may ask for what he would otherwise fear. Yūnus shows what would follow if God hastened evil for people as they seek to hasten good: their term would be brought to an end. The urgency of a request does not make its object good or oblige God to grant it.

Beside human haste, the sūrah sets the measured alternation of night and day. God makes them two signs: the night dark and the day light by which people can see, seek His bounty, and know the number of years and the reckoning of time—وَلِتَعْلَمُوا عَدَدَ السِّن۪ينَ وَالْحِسَابَۜ. Creation provides both the means of livelihood and the means of counting its days; revelation sets out what people need for guidance. The language of reckoning will shortly take a different object: not the years a person has counted, but the deeds for which that person must answer.

Every human being is then brought before his own record. God fastens each person’s deeds to his neck, in the image طَٓائِرَهُ, “his bird”: what he has done remains attached to him. On the Day of Resurrection God brings out a book that he finds spread open. اِقْرَأْ كِتَابَكَۜ: read your book. The Book of guidance has shown the reader how to live; the book of deeds will show how he lived. كَفٰى بِنَفْسِكَ الْيَوْمَ عَلَيْكَ حَس۪يبًاۜ: your own self is sufficient today to reckon against you. Guidance benefits the guided; straying harms the one who strays; وَلَا تَزِرُ وَازِرَةٌ وِزْرَ اُخْرٰىۜ. No bearer bears another’s burden. This principle also appears among the teachings of the scrolls of Moses and Abraham, followed by the declaration that the human being has only what he strives for and that his striving will be seen. Ancestral honor cannot be inherited as exemption, and ancestral guilt cannot be transferred as personal guilt. God does not punish before sending a messenger: the warning precedes the reckoning.

The passage now names the desire that shuts out the Hereafter: مَنْ كَانَ يُر۪يدُ الْعَاجِلَةَ, whoever desires the immediate life. Even this seeker does not possess the world he seeks. God hastens within it only what He wills, for whom He wills; for the one who rejects the Hereafter and seeks only this life, Hell follows. The alternative joins desire, effort, and faith. Whoever desires the Hereafter must وَسَعٰى لَهَا سَعْيَهَا—strive for it with the striving due to it—while believing. Such striving is مَشْكُورًا: accepted and rewarded by God. Al-Insān gives this promise the form of a welcome: after describing the Garden’s delights, it tells its people that these are their reward and that their striving has been accepted.

The commands begin and end with the same prohibition: لَا تَجْعَلْ مَعَ اللّٰهِ اِلٰهًا اٰخَرَ. Do not set up another god with God. Between its two occurrences stands the lived substance of exclusive worship: the household, the hand, the market, the body, and the tongue. Earlier, God announced in the Book what the children of Israel would do and undergo. Now وَقَضٰى رَبُّكَ introduces His binding command: worship none but Him and treat parents with kindness. The covenant once addressed to the children of Israel joined exclusive worship with parents, kin, orphans, the poor, and good speech. The commands in al-Anʿām likewise join worship of God alone with duties concerning parents, children, protected life, orphan wealth, measure, and covenant. Al-Isrāʾ does not leave the present hearer outside the demands an earlier people violated. Their history becomes the threshold of the reader’s own obedience.

Kindness to parents reaches the smallest audible sign of irritation. If one or both reach old age in your care, فَلَا تَقُلْ لَهُمَٓا اُفٍّ: do not utter even a sigh of annoyance to them. Do not rebuke them; speak to them with respect; وَاخْفِضْ لَهُمَا جَنَاحَ الذُّلِّ مِنَ الرَّحْمَةِ, lower for them the wing of humility out of mercy; and ask the Lord to have mercy upon them as they raised you when small. Elsewhere the Prophet is commanded to lower his wing to believers and to those who follow him. Here the same image enters the care of aging parents. The child who once needed their care now tends those whose strength has declined. Yet failure need not close the way back. God knows what is within your selves; where there is a sincere intention to do right, He forgives the lapses of those who turn back to Him in repentance. His knowledge reaches both the hurtful word and the return that seeks forgiveness for it.

The circle of responsibility widens from parents to kin, the poor, and the traveler. وَاٰتِ ذَا الْقُرْبٰى حَقَّهُ: give the relative his right. Kinship calls for care as well as material support, and the needs of the poor and the stranded traveler make claims upon what a person holds. The command to give is followed by a prohibition against squandering: spending in ways that are wrong, not generosity condemned merely for its abundance. The squanderers are اِخْوَانَ الشَّيَاط۪ينِۜ, brothers of the devils, while Satan is deeply ungrateful to his Lord. To use God’s gifts in disobedience is to share that ingratitude. Even inability to give leaves room for kindness: while awaiting provision from the Lord, speak قَوْلًا مَيْسُورًا, a gentle word, to those whose needs you cannot yet meet. Elsewhere a good word and forgiveness are declared better than charity followed by injury. A person unable to offer money can still refuse to add hurt to need.

The fear of poverty is then denied authority over life: وَلَا تَقْتُلُٓوا اَوْلَادَكُمْ خَشْيَةَ اِمْلَاقٍۜ. Do not kill your children from fear of poverty. God answers the fear directly: نَحْنُ نَرْزُقُهُمْ وَاِيَّاكُمْۜ. We provide for them and for you. Elsewhere the Qur’an forbids killing children from poverty and says that God provides for the parents and the children; together, present scarcity and anticipated scarcity are both stripped of the right to decide who may live. The deeper struggle concerns which promise is trusted. Satan promises poverty, while God promises forgiveness and bounty. The child is not a rival claimant against God’s provision. The child and the parent are both its recipients.

The passage guards the approach to wrongdoing as well as the act: وَلَا تَقْرَبُوا الزِّنٰٓى. Do not approach unlawful sexual intercourse. It is a grave indecency and an evil way, and the prohibition reaches the steps that lead toward it. Then life itself is protected: do not kill a person whose life God has made inviolable except by right. When someone is killed wrongfully, God grants the victim’s heir a right to seek redress, but limits its exercise: فَلَا يُسْرِفْ فِي الْقَتْلِۜ. He must not exceed the bounds in killing—by killing someone other than the murderer or by mutilation. His claim is supported by God’s law; it does not require another wrong to establish it. Elsewhere the Qur’an joins lawful retaliation to preservation of life and calls the possibility of pardon and compensation an alleviation and mercy from the Lord. It also joins worship of other gods, murder, and unlawful intercourse within one severe warning while keeping repentance and righteous action open. The sacredness of life binds the aggressor, and God’s limits also bind those who seek justice for the victim.

The orphan’s wealth may not even be approached except بِالَّت۪ي هِيَ اَحْسَنُ, in the best manner: preserving and managing it for the orphan’s benefit until he can responsibly manage it himself. His vulnerability increases the guardian’s duty of care. Covenant must be fulfilled because اِنَّ الْعَهْدَ كَانَ مَسْؤُ۫لًا: one must answer for it. Measure must be filled, and weight given بِالْقِسْطَاسِ الْمُسْتَق۪يمِۜ, with the straight balance. These commands recur together elsewhere, joining protection of orphan wealth, covenant, measure, and truthful speech. Al-Shuʿarāʾ repeats the demand for full measure and the straight balance; al-Raḥmān places the balance beside the raised heaven and forbids transgression in weighing. A dishonest scale is not a commercial irregularity beneath the concern of worship. The person who acknowledges God’s order must give another person his due. Honest measure is better now and better in its final outcome.

The next command guards judgment and speech: وَلَا تَقْفُ مَا لَيْسَ لَكَ بِه۪ عِلْمٌۜ. Do not follow what you have no knowledge of. The prohibition reaches claims accepted without grounds, testimony to what was never seen or heard, and accusations made without knowledge. Hearing, sight, and heart will each be questioned about their use. This warning prepares the exposure of false claims about God and the angels in 17:40. Elsewhere the Qur’an identifies saying about God what one does not know as something Satan commands. Care in what one asserts is therefore part of obedience: neither another person’s honor nor the truth about God is at the disposal of an unchecked tongue.

Finally the body’s public bearing is judged: وَلَا تَمْشِ فِي الْاَرْضِ مَرَحًاۚ. Do not walk upon the earth arrogantly. The rebuke enlarges the scene until arrogance becomes absurd: you will not pierce the earth, and وَلَنْ تَبْلُغَ الْجِبَالَ طُولًا, you will not reach the mountains in height. Luqmān joins the same proud walk to turning one’s cheek from people and to an undisciplined voice. Al-Isrāʾ places the arrogant person against the scale of the world and shows him unable to master even the ground he treads. The evil practices forbidden throughout these commands are hateful to the Lord. The sequence is then named as part of the wisdom revealed by the Lord, and it closes as it began, with the prohibition against setting up another god with God. To place another god with God after this wisdom is to be thrown into Hell blamed and banished. Exclusive worship requires obedience in the ordinary actions of life.

The warning against speaking without knowledge is followed by a claim about God and the angels. Has their Lord favored them with sons while taking females from among the angels for Himself? The question exposes their own contempt: what they prize they reserve for themselves; what they despise they attribute to God. The answer is not to rearrange the imagined divine family, but to abandon the false attribution altogether. اِنَّكُمْ لَتَقُولُونَ قَوْلًا عَظ۪يمًا۟: you are indeed making a monstrous claim. The faculties for which they must answer have been used to invent what they have no knowledge of.

The Prophet is told to answer the claim of rival gods: if there were gods with Him as they say, they would seek a way against the Lord of the Throne. The imagined plurality opens a contest for sovereignty: rival rulers would seek to overcome Him. Elsewhere the Qur’an states the consequence of such rivalry—if there were other gods in heaven and earth, both would fall into ruin. Then comes the declaration سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالٰى عَمَّا يَقُولُونَ عُلُوًّا كَب۪يرًا: He is transcendent and greatly exalted above what they say.

The answer to these false human claims is the praise of everything: تُسَبِّحُ لَهُ السَّمٰوَاتُ السَّبْعُ وَالْاَرْضُ وَمَنْ ف۪يهِنَّۜ. The seven heavens, the earth, and those within them glorify Him. The claim then becomes absolute: وَاِنْ مِنْ شَيْءٍ اِلَّا يُسَبِّحُ بِحَمْدِه۪. There is no thing except that it glorifies Him with His praise. Human inability to understand this glorification does not make creation silent. Elsewhere the Qur’an says that the creatures and birds know their prayer and glorification, that created beings and their shadows prostrate without arrogance, and that even the mountains belong to the order of prostration. The arrogant walker is therefore not merely physically small beside earth and mountain; he is morally out of tune with them. Yet the verse closes not with immediate destruction but with God as Forbearing and Forgiving. The cosmos praises while humans fail to understand, and the One praised still grants time for return.

When the Prophet recites the Qur’an, God places between him and those who reject the Hereafter حِجَابًا مَسْتُورًاۙ, an unseen barrier: they do not recognize him for the messenger he is. He places coverings over their hearts that prevent comprehension of the Qur’an, and heaviness in their ears. They listen, but when their Lord alone is mentioned, they turn their backs in aversion. The same withdrawal has just appeared in 17:41. Parallel passages join these heart-coverings and heavy ears to listeners who argue despite seeing the signs, and to people who turn away after being reminded and forget what their own hands have done. The recitation reaches their ears without being received as guidance. God’s veiling and their refusal meet in the same scene: they turn away when He alone is named.

God knows the mockery with which they listen to the Prophet and what they say in their secret counsel. اِنْ تَتَّبِعُونَ اِلَّا رَجُلًا مَسْحُورًا: you follow only a bewitched man. Their description does not explain the Messenger; it exposes their failure to recognize him. فَضَلُّوا فَلَا يَسْتَط۪يعُونَ سَب۪يلًا: they have strayed and cannot find a way. The same accusation and verdict appear in al-Furqān. The Qur’an guides to the most upright way, but those who replace its messenger with an invented caricature lose the way before them.

The denial now moves from the Messenger to the resurrection itself: ءَاِذَا كُنَّا عِظَامًا وَرُفَاتًا ءَاِنَّا لَمَبْعُوثُونَ خَلْقًا جَد۪يدًا. When we are bones and fragments, will we truly be raised as a new creation? The answer is قُلْ كُونُوا حِجَارَةً اَوْ حَد۪يدًاۙ, say: be stones or iron—or some created thing you consider still less capable of life. Hardness cannot place creation outside the power of the Creator. They will ask, “Who will restore us?” The answer is الَّذ۪ي فَطَرَكُمْ اَوَّلَ مَرَّةٍۚ, the One who originated you the first time. Their question “When?” receives no concession to mockery: عَسٰٓى اَنْ يَكُونَ قَر۪يبًا. Perhaps it is near. Elsewhere the denier who presents decayed bones is likewise answered by the One who produced them the first time.

The passage closes with the call that their mockery cannot prevent: يَوْمَ يَدْعُوكُمْ فَتَسْتَج۪يبُونَ بِحَمْدِه۪. On the day He calls you, you will respond praising Him, and you will think you remained only a little while. Those who now deny His power to raise them will rise acknowledging that power. Earlier the hasty human being called for evil as he called for good; here God calls, and the human being responds. Earlier all creation glorified Him with praise while the rejecters failed to comprehend it; here praise comes from their own mouths. The life that seemed large enough to govern every desire will appear brief beside what follows. Elsewhere resurrection is likewise described as emergence at a single divine call, and earthly duration contracts when the gathered face the meeting they denied.