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wa-min ʾāyātihī manāmukum bi-l-layli wa-n-nahāri wa-btighāʾukum min faḍlihī ʾinna fī dhālika la-ʾāyātin li-qawmin yasmaʿūna
And of His signs is your sleep by night and day, and your pursuit of His bounty. There are indeed signs in that for a people who listen.
— Ali Quli Qarai
Surah Ar-Room – Verse 23
23. “And of His signs is your sleeping by night and day and your seeking after His grace; verily there are signs in this for a people who hear.”
This holy verse refers to another part of these great signs. At first, the verse attracts the attentions to the phenomenon of ‘sleep’ as an important phenomenon of creation and a design from the wise system of its creator, and says:
Then, at the end of the verse, the Qur’an adds:
This fact is not concealed for any one that all ‘living creatures’ are in need of rest in order to renew their strength and obtain necessary preparation for continuation of work and activity. It is a kind of rest that necessarily comes to them, and it forces the studious and greedy ones to have it. For gaining this aim what can be considered better than sleep which compulsorily comes to man and forces him to sleep when he stops many bodily activities and an important part of his mental reactions? In sleep only some organs of body such as heart, the two lungs, and a part of mind, which are necessary for the continuation of life, go on their job very quietly and calmly.
This great merit of Allah causes man’s body and spirit to be cleaned, and by the occurrence of the state of sleep, which is a kind of pause in the work of the body, a rest will be obtained, and man finds a sort of liveliness, mirth, and new strength in him. Admittedly, if sleep did not exist, the man’s spirit would become faded and worn out very soon and before long senility and infirmity would meet him. That is why a suitable and calm sleep is usually the cause of health, prolongation of lifetime and duration of the youth cheerfulness.
It is noteworthy that, firstly, the word ‘sleeping’ has been stated before the Qur’anic phrase ‘seeking after His grace’ which in the verses of the Qur’an means: struggle for sustenance. This indicates that sleeping is considered as a foundation for it, since without having enough sleeping ‘seeking after His grace’ is difficult. Secondly: it is true that sleeping usually happens at night, and struggle for ways of making a living is done during the day, but it is not so that man can not change this program when it is necessary.
Allah has created man in a way that he can change his sleeping program and adapts it with his own necessities and needs. The application of ‘your sleeping by night and day’ seems to be a hint to this very point. No doubt the main program of sleeping relates to night, and for the sake of the rest emerged from darkness, night consists of a special precedence in this respect. But sometimes there may appear some circumstances in man’s life that, for example, he has to travel by night and sleeps and rests during the day. What kind of difficulties would there happen if the program of arranging the time of sleeping were not at the disposal of man?
In our age, in particular, when many of the manufacturing, healing and medical institutes have to ceaselessly work during day and night and their cessation is impossible and, therefore, the employees and workers are busy working in three shifts, the importance of the above subject is more manifest than any other time. The need of both body and spirit of man to sleeping is so much so that man can rarely bear not to sleep for a long time, and this length of time is not more than a few nights and days.
That is why hindrance from sleeping has always been known as the most painful tortures by the tyrant and the arrogant. And also it is for this very reason that one of the effective ways of treating many human diseases is that the patience is made sleep deeply, and by this way they increase the might and ability of the patience. Of course, no one can define a proper amount of sleeping as ‘the necessary amount of sleeping’ for all people. This matter depends on the age, and conditions of persons and also on their spiritual and bodily state. What is important is that ‘enough sleeping’ is that amount after which man feels that he is satiated from this point of view, just like when he feels he has been satiated by water and food.
This is also notable that besides the ‘length’ of the time of sleeping, its depth has also a special importance. It happens that one hour of a deep sleeping has the effect of several hours of superficial sleeping in reconstruction of man’s spirit and body. Of course, where a deep sleeping is not possible for a person, a ‘slumber’ is also among the bounties of Allah, as Surah Al-’Anfal, No. 8, verse 11, concerning the strivers of the Battle of Badr, mentions it, because in battlefield sleeping is often neither possible nor useful.
However, the bounty of sleeping and rest and tranquillity resulted from it, and also the strength and the mirth which appear after sleeping, are among the divine bounties that are describable by no statement.