What does « East / Rising (sun) » mean in the Quran?
Discover the meaning of the word East / Rising (sun) (شرق) in the Quran, with 17 verses in which it appears, and a detailed explanation from Al-Raghib al-Asfahani's Mufradat fi gharib al-Qur'an.
شرق
East / Rising (sun)
Root: ش - ر - ق
Jurisprudence (fiqh) 17 verses
Updated on 29 May 2026 at 7:00 AM
📖 4 min read
Definition of East / Rising (sun)
Sharaqat ash-shams shuruqan: the sun rose.
One says: I will not do that as long as a sunrise shines.
The Almighty says: 'Lord of the East and the West' (Ash-Shu'ara 28).
Ash-sharq: the East. 'neither eastern nor western' (An-Nur 35) describing the blessed olive tree.
The foolish among the people will say, "What has turned them away from their qiblah, which they used to face?" Say, "To Allah belongs the east and the west. He guides whom He wills to a straight path."
Righteousness is not that you turn your faces toward the east or the west, but [true] righteousness is [in] one who believes in Allah, the Last Day, the angels, the Book, and the prophets and gives wealth, in spite of love for it, to relatives, orphans, the needy, the traveler, those who ask [for help], and for freeing slaves; [and who] establishes prayer and gives zakah; [those who] fulfill their promise when they promise; and [those who] are patient in poverty and hardship and during battle. Those are the ones who have been true, and it is those who are the righteous.
Have you not considered the one who argued with Abraham about his Lord [merely] because Allah had given him kingship? When Abraham said, "My Lord is the one who gives life and causes death," he said, "I give life and cause death." Abraham said, "Indeed, Allah brings up the sun from the east, so bring it up from the west." So the disbeliever was overwhelmed [by astonishment], and Allah does not guide the wrongdoing people.
And We caused the people who had been oppressed to inherit the eastern regions of the land and the western ones, which We had blessed. And the good word of your Lord was fulfilled for the Children of Israel because of what they had patiently endured. And We destroyed [all] that Pharaoh and his people were producing and what they had been building.
Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The example of His light is like a niche within which is a lamp, the lamp is within glass, the glass as if it were a pearly [white] star lit from [the oil of] a blessed olive tree, neither of the east nor of the west, whose oil would almost glow even if untouched by fire. Light upon light. Allah guides to His light whom He wills. And Allah presents examples for the people, and Allah is Knowing of all things.
And the earth will shine with the light of its Lord, and the record [of deeds] will be placed, and the prophets and the witnesses will be brought, and it will be judged between them in truth, and they will not be wronged.
Until, when he comes to Us [at Judgement], he says [to his companion], "Oh, I wish there was between me and you the distance between the east and west - how wretched a companion."
Surah Ar-Rahman : 17 Meccan
﴿رَبُّ ٱلْمَشْرِقَيْنِ وَرَبُّ ٱلْمَغْرِبَيْنِ﴾
[He is] Lord of the two sunrises and Lord of the two sunsets.