Ayat-e-Karima (Quran 21:87)
Ayat-e-Karima is a popular name — especially across South Asia — for verse 87 of Surah Al-Anbya (The Prophets), the 21st chapter of the Quran. It records the supplication rendered by Abdel Haleem as “There is no God but You, glory be to You, I was wrong,” spoken by the Prophet Yunus (Jonah). The verse sits in Juz 17 of the Meccan surah and is widely recited.
And remember the man with the whale,when he went off angrily, thinking We could not restrict him, but then he cried out in the deep darkness, ‘There is no God but You, glory be to You, I was wrong.’
English translation by M. A. S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur’an (Oxford University Press).
Context
Surah Al-Anbya (“The Prophets”) recounts a sequence of prophets, and verse 87 belongs to that sequence — Haleem's rendering opens it “And remember the man with the whale,” the Prophet Yunus (Jonah), and records his cry “in the deep darkness.” The next verse (21:88) gives the answer: “We answered him and saved him from distress: this is how We save the faithful.” Verse 89 then turns to Zachariah. The passage sits in Juz 17 of the 112-verse Meccan surah.
Reference
- Surah
- 21. Al-Anbya
- Ayah
- 87
- Juz
- Juz 17
- Revelation
- Meccan (Mecca)
From the tafsir
“Yunus bin Matta, upon him be peace, was sent by Allah to the people of Nineveh, which was a town in the area of Mawsil in northern Iraq. He called them to Allah, but they rejected him and persisted in their disbelief. So he left them in anger, threatening them with punishment after three days.”
English tafsir abridged from Tafsir Ibn Kathir (Hafiz Ibn Kathir), abridgement by Shaykh Safi-ur-Rahman al-Mubarakpuri (Darussalam), via Quran.com.
Read the full tafsir of Surah Al-Anbya
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