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A Formula for Closing a Gathering

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A Formula for Closing a Gathering

As-Saffat's final three verses, 'glory be to your Lord, the Lord of might, above what they describe; and peace be upon the messengers; and praise be to God, Lord of the worlds' (37:180-182), are recited in many Muslim communities as a closing formula at the end of religious gatherings, study circles and lessons, known in this devotional use as kaffarat al-majlis, an expiation for the gathering, cited in hadith as covering minor lapses of speech that may have occurred during the sitting. The custom detaches these closing verses from the surah's own narrative content and treats them as a self-contained liturgical unit, recited regardless of what was actually discussed in the gathering they close.

Classical commentary on the verses themselves, read within the surah, treats them as the fitting conclusion to a long recital of prophets and their trials, moving from denial of any resemblance between God and what disbelievers describe, to a blessing on the messengers as a class rather than any one of them individually, to a final act of praise, a three-part close some literary commentators compare to the structure of formal supplications more broadly, moving from negation of error to affirmation of truth to praise.

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