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Al-Mufaṣṣal — the closing portion

المفصَّل

The last stretch of the muṣḥaf, divided into long, middle and short.

Mufaṣṣal means 'frequently separated': from around Qāf onwards the sūrahs are short, so the Bismillāh comes often and the divisions are close together. Scholars split it into three bands by length, and the Prophet's ﷺ own prayer recitation tracks those bands. Most people memorise from here first.

Scholars differ over where the mufaṣṣal begins — al-Ḥujurāt (49) and Qāf (50) are the two best-known positions, and other openings are reported. The three bands are a scholarly convention for organising recitation, not a division revealed with the text.

How it is divided

  • Ṭiwāl al-mufaṣṣal — the long ones

    Qāf (50) to al-Mursalāt (77)

    What the Prophet ﷺ tended to recite in Fajr.

  • Awsāṭ al-mufaṣṣal — the middle ones

    An-Nabaʾ (78) to aḍ-Ḍuḥā (93)

    What he tended to recite in ʿIshāʾ.

  • Qiṣār al-mufaṣṣal — the short ones

    Aḍ-Ḍuḥā (93) to an-Nās (114)

    What he tended to recite in Maghrib.

What runs through all of them

  • Short, direct, mostly Makkan

    Oaths, the Hour, the reckoning, and the two roads. The argument is compressed rather than extended.

  • Built for the prayer

    The bands map onto the prayers: longer at Fajr when there is time, shortest at Maghrib.

  • The first thing most people memorise

    Ibn ʿAbbās رضي الله عنهما learnt this portion as a child in the Prophet's ﷺ lifetime, and it is still where memorisation usually starts.

Words that keep returning

  • مُفَصَّل

    mufaṣṣal · root ف ص ل

    separated into many parts, jointed

  • قِصَار

    qiṣār · root ق ص ر

    the short ones

  • أَوْسَاط

    awsāṭ · root و س ط

    the middle ones

Take this with you

  • If you are choosing what to read in prayer, the three bands give you a sourced starting point.
  • Start memorising at the short end and work upward — that is how it was taught.
  • The name describes the text itself: many separations, close together.
  • Where it begins is disputed; nothing depends on settling it.

Check what stayed with you

Answer from memory. That one moment of recall is what makes it stay.

Why is this portion called al-mufaṣṣal?

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