their dwellings (1).” He also recited:
“Then indeed their place of midday repose will be in Hellfire” (2).
This is how it appears in his recitation.
For this reason, the fact that the week has seven days is known (3) only to communities that (4) possess a revealed Book. A community without a revealed Book knows this only through those among its members who have learned it from the communities of the prophets. For there is no (5) perceptible sign by which one can know that the week has seven days, unlike the month, the year, and its seasons. When Allah, mighty and majestic, created the heavens, the earth, and all that lies between them in six days, and made this known to His servants through His messengers, He prescribed for them one day each week to remind them (6) of this, of the wisdom behind creation and the purpose for which they were created, of the appointed end of the world and the folding up of the heavens and the earth, and of His restoring creation as He began it—glorified be He—a promise binding upon Him and a declaration of truth.
For this reason, at the Friday dawn prayer (7), the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, would recite the two surahs, “Alif Lām Mīm. The Revelation” (the Surah of Prostration (8))
(1) “Wa-ahl al-nār fī manāzilihim” (and the inhabitants of Hell in their dwellings) is omitted in Kāf and supplied in ‘Ayn. The al-Risāla edition adds after it: “He recited: ‘Ashāb al-janna yawma’idhin khayrun mustaqarran wa-ahsanu maqīlan’ (The inhabitants of Paradise that day will have a better dwelling and a more pleasant place of repose).”
(2) Reported by al-Husayn al-Marwazī in his additions to Ibn al-Mubārak’s al-Zuhd (p. 463), Ibn Abī Hātim in his Tafsīr (8:2680, al-jam‘), al-Hākim (2:402), and al-Baghawī in Sharh al-Sunna (no. 4369), through Sufyān, from Maysara ibn Habīb, from al-Minhāl ibn ‘Amr, from Abū ‘Ubayda, from ‘Abd Allāh ibn Mas‘ūd, with this wording. Abū ‘Ubayda did not hear directly from his father, ‘Abd Allāh ibn Mas‘ūd.
(3) ‘Ayn reads: “ta‘rifuhu” (knows it). The imperfect-tense prefix is undotted in Sād and Kāf.
(4) Sād and Jīm read: “alladhī” (which).
(5) Sād reads: “al-anbiyā’ fa-laysa” (the prophets; there is no…).
(6) The printed editions read: “yudhakkiruhum fīhi” (reminds them therein). Some mistakenly took the Lawgiver to be the subject of “yudhakkir” (reminds), and therefore added “fīhi” (therein).
(7) All manuscripts except Qāf and Mīm read “fajr al-jumu‘a” (Friday dawn prayer), both here and below.
(8) This is the reading in Qāf, Mīm, Mīm-Bā, Nūn, and the older printed editions. The others read: “Alif Lām Mīm al-Sajda” (Alif Lām Mīm, Prostration).