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Surah Al-Adiyat Meaning, Word by Word

3 September 2026 · Surah meanings

Surah Al-Adiyat is the 100th surah of the Quran, eleven verses and forty words long, and it opens with something none of the shorter surahs prepares you for: five consecutive lines of oath, each two or three words, running one into the next before the surah says what it is swearing about. It takes its name from the first of them, وَٱلْعَـٰدِيَـٰتِ (wal-ʿādiyāti, "By the racers").

In the SurahKids learning order it is the fifteenth surah, immediately after Al-Qariah, and the second in the sequence to reach eleven verses. Forty words across thirty-five distinct forms leaves little internal repetition to lean on — only five words in the surah are repeats — so this is the longer and slightly harder of the two eleven-verse surahs. What it has instead is rhyme, in tight runs: verses 1 to 3 all end -ḥan, verses 4 and 5 both end -ʿan, verses 6 to 8 all end -dun, verses 9 and 10 both end -ūri. Almost every verse is anchored by the sound of the one before it.

The word-by-word breakdown below uses the Arabic exactly as it appears in the mushaf. The English is a plain rendering, one among many. Translations are interpretations, and the opening five verses in particular are handled differently by different translators.

Surah Al-Adiyat word by word

Verse 1

wal-ʿādiyāti ḍabḥan — By the racers, panting.

Verse 2

fal-mūriyāti qadḥan — And the producers of sparks, striking.

Verse 3

fal-mughīrāti ṣub'ḥan — And the chargers at dawn.

Verse 4

fa-atharna bihi naqʿan — Then raise thereby dust.

Verse 5

fawasaṭna bihi jamʿan — Then penetrate into the centre thereby, collectively.

Verse 6

inna l-insāna lirabbihi lakanūdun — Indeed, mankind is surely ungrateful to his Lord.

Verse 7

wa-innahu ʿalā dhālika lashahīdun — And indeed, he is surely a witness to that.

Verse 8

wa-innahu liḥubbi l-khayri lashadīdun — And indeed, he is surely intense in the love of wealth.

Verse 9

afalā yaʿlamu idhā buʿ'thira mā fī l-qubūri — But does he not know, when what is in the graves will be scattered.

Verse 10

waḥuṣṣila mā fī l-ṣudūri — And what is in the breasts is made apparent.

Verse 11

inna rabbahum bihim yawma-idhin lakhabīrun — Indeed, their Lord about them that Day is surely All-Aware.

The surah in plain English

By the racers, panting; and the producers of sparks, striking; and the chargers at dawn; then raise thereby dust; then penetrate into the centre thereby, collectively. Indeed, mankind is surely ungrateful to his Lord, and indeed he is surely a witness to that, and indeed he is surely intense in the love of wealth. But does he not know, when what is in the graves will be scattered and what is in the breasts is made apparent? Indeed, their Lord about them that Day is surely All-Aware.

What the words tell you

The first five verses are one sentence with four fa- joints. Verse 1 opens with the wa- of an oath: وَٱلْعَـٰدِيَـٰتِ (wal-ʿādiyāti, "By the racers"). Verses 2, 3, 4 and 5 then each begin with fa- — فَٱلْمُورِيَـٰتِ, فَٱلْمُغِيرَٰتِ, فَأَثَرْنَ, فَوَسَطْنَ — chaining them into one running sequence rather than five separate statements. That helps when memorising: the first word of verse 2 gives you the shape of verses 3, 4 and 5.

Verses 1 to 3 are the same two-word pattern three times. Each is a plural describing word followed by a single bare noun: "racers / panting", "producers of sparks / striking", "chargers / (at) dawn". And each second word ends in the same sound — ḍabḥan, qadḥan, ṣubḥan. Three verses, six words, one pattern.

What the oaths are about is not spelled out in the surah. The words describe something that runs and pants, strikes sparks, charges at dawn, raises dust and drives into the middle of a gathering. The surah itself never names the subject, and the traditional commentaries do not all read it the same way — the common reading is of horses on a raid at dawn, and other readings exist. Because the Arabic gives descriptions rather than a name, this is a place to be honest with a child: what the words say is clear, what they are pointing at is a question interpreters answer differently.

Verse 6 is the same frame as Al-Asr's second verse. إِنَّ ٱلْإِنسَـٰنَ ... لَكَنُودٌۭ (inna l-insāna … lakanūdun, "Indeed, mankind is surely ungrateful") is inna + ٱلْإِنسَـٰنَ (l-insāna, "mankind") + a word carrying an emphatic la- — exactly the shape of inna l-insāna lafī khusrin in Surah Al-Asr, where that la- sits on fī. Two surahs, one construction, the same universal subject: not some people, mankind.

**Four verses end in a word beginning with la-.** لَكَنُودٌۭ (lakanūdun, "surely ungrateful"), لَشَهِيدٌۭ (lashahīdun, "surely a witness"), لَشَدِيدٌ (lashadīdun, "surely intense") and لَّخَبِيرٌۢ (lakhabīrun, "surely All-Aware"). Each of those la- prefixes is the emphasis that the English glosses render as "surely", and each sits on the rhyming word at the end of its verse. Note also how close lashahīdun and lashadīdun are — one consonant apart, at the end of two consecutive verses. That is the single most likely place to trip in this surah, and it is worth drilling the pair deliberately rather than hoping.

Verses 7 and 8 open identically. وَإِنَّهُۥ (wa-innahu, "And indeed, he") begins both, so the three claims of verses 6 to 8 stack: ungrateful, a witness to that, intense in the love of wealth — each emphasised twice over, by inna at the front and la- at the back.

Verses 9 and 10 are a matched pair with two words shared. مَا فِى (mā fī, "what is in") appears in both, once with ٱلْقُبُورِ (l-qubūri, "the graves") and once with ٱلصُّدُورِ (l-ṣudūri, "the breasts"). The two nouns rhyme, and the parallel is what carries the sense: what is buried out of sight, and what is held out of sight. Verse 9 is the longest verse in the surah at seven words; verse 10 is four, two of which it takes from verse 9.

The close comes back to where the second half started. أَفَلَا يَعْلَمُ (afalā yaʿlamu, "But does not / he know") in verse 9 is a question put to the person described in verses 6 to 8, and the surah does not answer it with a yes or a no; verse 11 instead states رَبَّهُم بِهِمْ يَوْمَئِذٍۢ لَّخَبِيرٌۢ (rabbahum bihim yawma-idhin lakhabīrun, "their Lord about them that Day is surely All-Aware"). إِنَّ (inna) opens the claim at verse 6 and opens the close at verse 11 — the same word at both ends of the second half.

Words you already know

Al-Adiyat sits fifteenth in the learning order, and 7 of its 35 distinct word forms — 20 per cent — have already appeared in a surah before it. Two of those are worth naming: ٱلْإِنسَـٰنَ (l-insāna, "mankind") comes straight from Al-Asr, and يَوْمَئِذٍۢ (yawma-idhin, "that Day") from At-Takathur, two surahs earlier. مَا, فِى, إِنَّ, إِذَا and عَلَىٰ have all turned up several times by now.

Across the 37 surahs of Juz Amma, these forms from Al-Adiyat appear in three or more of them:

• مَا (mā, "what") — in 23 surahs
• فِى (fī, "(is) in") — in 21 surahs
• إِنَّ (inna, "Indeed") — in 21 surahs
• إِذَا (idhā, "when") — in 15 surahs
• ٱلْإِنسَـٰنَ (l-insāna, "mankind") — in 12 surahs
• عَلَىٰ (ʿalā, "on") — in 9 surahs
• يَوْمَئِذٍۢ (yawma-idhin, "that Day") — in 9 surahs
• ذَٰلِكَ (dhālika, "that") — in 7 surahs

Seven of those eight are grammar rather than content: a particle of emphasis, two prepositions, a conditional, a pointing word, a time word. Only "mankind" is a noun with a picture attached, and it appears in twelve of the thirty-seven surahs — which tells you something about what Juz Amma is mostly talking about. This is the pattern behind the most common words in the Quran: the vocabulary that repeats is the connective tissue, and the cheapest place to learn it is inside a surah you are memorising anyway.

The flip side is everything not on that list. Words like ضَبْحًۭا (ḍabḥan, "panting"), قَدْحًۭا (qadḥan, "striking") and نَقْعًۭا (naqʿan, "dust") appear in this surah and in no other surah of Juz Amma at all. That is the honest reason Al-Adiyat costs more per verse than Al-Qariah did.

How long it takes to learn

Al-Adiyat is a genuine step up, and more of one than its neighbour. Eleven verses and forty words is roughly three times Al-Asr, and unlike Al-Asr — three verses, fourteen words, learnable in a day — this one will not go in over a single sitting. Thirty-five of its forty words are distinct forms, so there is very little repetition doing the work for you.

Ten days to a fortnight for the sound is realistic, in short daily sittings, and it helps to treat the surah as three blocks rather than eleven verses: verses 1 to 5 as one chained sequence, verses 6 to 8 as the stacked claims, verses 9 to 11 as the question and its answer. Drill lashahīdun against lashadīdun on their own at some point. The meaning will lag the sound by a week or two here, which is normal at this length. Then come back after a week and again after a month, which is what spaced repetition for Quran memorisation is for.

In the learning order Al-Adiyat comes straight after Surah Al-Qariah, the other eleven-verse surah, and straight before Surah Az-Zalzalah, which is eight verses and a return to shorter lines. The order to learn the short surahs sets out the sequence and the reasoning, and how to learn the Quran word by word covers the method that makes a surah this length manageable. SurahKids has Al-Adiyat with per-word audio, flashcards and quizzes on the words themselves, alongside the other 36 surahs of Juz Amma.

FAQ

What is the meaning of Surah Al-Adiyat?

Surah Al-Adiyat swears by racers that pant, strike sparks and charge at dawn, raising dust and driving into the middle of a gathering, and then makes its claim: mankind is ungrateful to his Lord, is himself a witness to that, and is intense in the love of wealth. It closes by asking whether he knows about the day when what is in the graves is scattered and what is in the breasts is made apparent, and states that his Lord is fully aware of them that Day.

What are the oaths at the start of Surah Al-Adiyat about?

The surah describes rather than names them: racers that pant, producers of sparks, chargers at dawn that raise dust and penetrate into the centre. The traditional commentaries do not all read it the same way; the common reading is of horses on a raid at dawn, and other readings exist. What the words say is clear; what they point to is something interpreters differ over, so it is best presented as such.

How many verses does Surah Al-Adiyat have?

Eleven, made up of forty words in total, thirty-five of which are distinct forms. It is the 100th surah of the Quran and sits in the last section, Juz Amma, among the short surahs that are usually learned first.

What does "al-Adiyat" mean in English?

It is rendered here as "the racers", from the first word of verse 1, وَٱلْعَـٰدِيَـٰتِ (wal-ʿādiyāti, "By the racers"). You will also see it translated as "the chargers", "the coursers" or "the runners". The word is a plural describing something that runs, without naming what runs, which is why English versions vary.

Is Surah Al-Adiyat hard to memorise?

It is one of the harder surahs at this stage of the learning order, though still short in absolute terms. Almost every one of its forty words differs from every other, and several — ḍabḥan, qadḥan, naqʿan — appear in no other surah of Juz Amma. Working in its favour: verses 1 to 3 share one two-word pattern, verses 2 to 5 are chained by fa-, verses 7 and 8 open identically, and the rhyme is strong throughout. Expect a week and a half or so, and drill lashahīdun against lashadīdun separately.