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Say:1 "I take refuge with the Lord of the dawning, From the evil of that which He has created, And from the evil of the dusk of night when it overspreads 2, And from the evil of the females who blow upon the knots,3, And from the evil of the envier when he envies."4
Say: "I take refuge with the Lord of men, The King of men, The God of men, From the evil of the lurking whispers,5, Who whispers into the breasts of men, From the jinn and from men." 6
1 In these two Suras, as in the Opening Sura, it is man addressing Allah, and not Allah addressing man, the "Say" having been inserted to keep up the illusion that these are all words of Allah. It is not impossible to think that they were composed by the Prophet himself, but they were not included in some of the early Codices, and their present position is certainly due to the compilers.
2 Some think that this refers not to the dusk, which fall each night, but to the duskiness caused by an eclipse. Others, on the ground that ghasaqa means "to come down like fine rain," suggest that the reference is to nocturnal emissions.
3 This is said to mean the magic practices of the "wise women" who worked spells of binding by tying knots in a string and blowing thereon. Those who see a sexual meaning in the previous verse see one also here, and think that the reference is to the "knotting" of the male that reduces him to impotence.
4 The eye of envy, the "green eye," is of course the Evil Eye, so that is the evil against which protection is here sought.
5 khanasa is "to hide oneself," and this "lurking whisperer" is usually taken to mean Satan, so that al-Khannas is listed as one of Satan's names.
6 as-nas is "men," but also "the people," as in the title of the Sura.