because the latter is dispelled by knowledge and proof, and the person concerned cannot truly know a thing as other than what it actually is. By contrast, someone who commits shirk in will and intention does what knowledge shows him to be false and harmful, because his desires overpower him and his soul falls under the authority (1) of passion and anger. Thus, the surah beginning “Say: O disbelievers,” which addresses the elimination of shirk in action, contains emphasis (2) and repetition unparalleled in the surah beginning “Say: He is Allah, the One.”

Since the Quran comprises two halves—one concerning this world, its rulings, its related matters, and what occurs within it, including the actions of those accountable under religious law and other events; and the other concerning the Hereafter and what occurs there—and since the surah beginning “When the earth is shaken” is devoted entirely, from beginning to end, to the latter half, mentioning only the Hereafter and the conditions of the earth and its inhabitants at that time, it is equivalent to half the Quran. How likely (3), then, this hadith is to be authentic! And Allah knows best.

For this reason, he would recite these two surahs in the two units of prayer following circumambulation (4), for they are the two surahs of sincerity and Allah’s oneness. He would (5) begin his day’s deeds with them and conclude those deeds (6) with them