Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
Scripture Portions

Hizb 48

The Quran

Citation Formats

General Reference

APA Style

BibTeX

The second half of Juz 24, 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 Ghafir ayah 41 to Fussilat ayah 46.

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 48, the second half of juz 24, running from Ghafir 40:41 - Fussilat 41:46 1
Identity
Parent Work
The Quran 1
Position in the Canon
Hizb 48 1
Canonical Reference
Ghafir 40:41 - Fussilat 41:46 1
Origins
Language
Classical Arabic 1
Learn More
A Believer's Appeal Finished, and a Body's Own Testimony

Hizb 48 closes Ghafir with the conclusion of the believing courtier's appeal, warning his people against the fleeting comfort of this world weighed against what follows it, before the sura moves to Pharaoh's own destruction and closes affirming that the ruins of past nations left visible across the land stand as evidence for anyone willing to consider them, and that patience and eventual vindication belong to those who trust in God's promise.

The hizb then opens Fussilat, also called Ha-Mim Sajdah for its opening letters and a verse of prostration within it, describing itself as a Book whose verses have been explained in detail, an Arabic recitation meant for a people who understand, and rebuking those who turn away from a message this thoroughly clarified. It describes the earth and its mountains established in due measure and proportion, offered as evidence of deliberate order in creation rather than accident.

The hizb closes with one of the Quran's more unsettling images of judgment: disbelievers' own skin and hearing testifying against them on the Day of Judgment for what those faculties helped them do in life, a passage that has prompted extensive later reflection on the nature of bodily testimony and accountability.

The Second Half of Juz 24, Closing an Appeal and Opening a Warning

Hizb 48 closes Juz 24, crossing from the conclusion of Ghafir's courtier narrative into Fussilat's opening declaration about its own clarity, a hizb that moves from a specific historical appeal delivered by a named individual into a broader, timeless statement about the nature of the revelation itself.

In tarawih recitation this hizb typically closes the twenty fourth night, and the testifying skin and hearing passage near its close is frequently cited in later devotional and theological writing well beyond its immediate place in Fussilat, making it, alongside the despair verse two hizb earlier, one of the more independently famous single images carried in this stretch of the thirty juz.

Huffaz reviewing this hizb by quarter typically treat the shift from Ghafir into Fussilat as a clean marker roughly at the hizb's midpoint, and the testimony passage's vivid, unsettling imagery makes it one of the more reliably memorable closing sections in this entire batch, easier to hold than the more abstract material on creation's proportion that precedes it.

Because Fussilat frames its own clarity so directly, teachers sometimes use this hizb to introduce students to the idea that the Quran describes and defends its own transmission and comprehensibility at several points across its length, this passage being one of the clearest single statements of that self-description anywhere in the text.

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
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.

View At A Past Year

The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.