Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
Scripture Portions

Hizb 30

The Quran

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The second half of Juz 15, one of the sixty hizb divisions used to pace recitation of the Quran across a month, most commonly in tarawih prayer during Ramadan. It runs from Al-Isra ayah 99 to Al-Kahf ayah 74.

Facts
Reckoning
Date Rule
Each of the thirty ajza is divided into two ahzab, and each hizb again into four rub al-hizb marked in the margin of the printed mushaf 1
Date Rule
One of the sixty ahzab into which the Quran is divided for the pacing of recitation rather than by theme 1
Date Rule
This is hizb 30, the second half of juz 15, running from Al-Isra 17:99 - Al-Kahf 18:74 1
Identity
Parent Work
The Quran 1
Position in the Canon
Hizb 30 1
Canonical Reference
Al-Isra 17:99 - Al-Kahf 18:74 1
Origins
Language
Classical Arabic 1
Learn More
Sleepers in a Cave, and a Servant Whose Actions Made No Sense Yet

Hizb 30 closes Al-Isra with a final argument for resurrection drawn from the fact of an original creation, and a renewed warning about Iblis's threats against humanity. It then opens Al-Kahf, the Cave, with the account of a group of young believers who take refuge from persecution inside a cave and are described as sleeping there for an unusually long span of years before waking, a story this atlas treats elsewhere as one of the Quran's best known narratives of preserved faith under threat.

A second parable follows, of two men, one given a flourishing garden who grows proud and dismissive of his companion's reliance on God, the other poorer but grateful, whose humility is vindicated when the proud man's garden is destroyed. The hizb then carries the story of Moses seeking out a righteous servant of God, often identified as Khidr, whose seemingly senseless actions, damaging a boat, causing a boy's death, rebuilding a wall without payment, are each explained only afterward as concealing a deeper protective purpose Moses could not have known in advance.

The hizb closes as the sura begins to introduce Dhul-Qarnayn, a righteous traveling ruler whose journeys to the far edges of the known world open the sura's final major narrative.

Closing Juz 15 on the Sura Read Every Friday

Hizb 30 closes Juz 15, crossing from Al-Isra into Al-Kahf within its first quarter and carrying three of that sura's four best known narratives, the sleepers, the two gardens, and Moses and Khidr, within a single hizb, leaving only the introduction to Dhul-Qarnayn for the next hizb to open with. In tarawih recitation this hizb typically closes the fifteenth night on some of the most widely recognized material anywhere in the thirty juz, since Al-Kahf itself is customarily recited in full outside of Ramadan as well, on Fridays in many communities' regular practice.

Because that separate weekly custom exists independently of the tarawih schedule, this hizb offers a clear example of how a portion's liturgical prominence and its position within the sixty-part recitation scheme are two entirely different things: a reciter pacing through Ramadan by juz meets this material once, on one particular night, while a congregation observing the Friday custom meets the whole of Al-Kahf, spanning parts of two separate hizb divisions, every single week of the year.

Huffaz reviewing this hizb by quarter often note the Khidr narrative as the section listeners most frequently ask to have explained, since its meaning depends entirely on information withheld until the story's own end.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Contained In

One of the two hizb subdividing this juz.

Originates in Language

Source The Study Quran: A New Translation and CommentarySeyyed Hossein Nasr (editor-in-chief)
Sources
1. The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary
Seyyed Hossein Nasr (editor-in-chief), HarperOne, 2015View the Source
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