for them, and they said, “Which of us is capable of that, O Messenger of Allah?” He replied, “‘Allah, the One, the Eternal Refuge’ is one-third of the Quran.”1

Scholars have discussed why this surah is equivalent to one-third of the Quran and have offered numerous explanations. The best of these, as Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyya—may Allah have mercy on him—notes, is the explanation related from Abū al-Abbās ibn Surayj, who said: “It means that the Quran was revealed in three sections: one-third consists of legal rulings, one-third of promises and warnings, and one-third of the divine names and attributes. This surah encompasses the names and attributes.”2

Shaykh al-Islam said: “Even though ‘Say: He is Allah, the One’ is equivalent to one-third of the Quran, it does not follow that it is superior to al-Fātiha, nor that reciting it three times suffices in place of reciting the Quran. Rather, the early generations disapproved of reciting it more than once when the entire Quran was recited, in accordance with the way it appears in the mushaf (written copy of the Quran). The Quran is to be recited as it is written in the mushaf, without adding anything to it or omitting anything from it.… However, when ‘Say: He is Allah, the One’ is recited on its own, it may be recited three times or even more. Whoever recites it will receive a reward equivalent to that of reciting one-third of the Quran. Yet something may have an equivalent that is not of the same kind.”3 End quote.

The hadiths mentioning the virtues of the surahs and the rewards of those who recite them are numerous. A number of them are not free of weakness; indeed, some of them are lies