Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Craig Baxter, Bangladesh: From a 

Nation to a State (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 

1997); Charles P. O’Donnell, Bangladesh: Biography of a 

Muslim Nation (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1984).

aya

Aya is the Arabic word for a verse in the q

Uran

or more generally a “sign” or “wonder.” In both 

senses, Muslims believe that an aya contains a 

message from God for human beings to heed. 

The verses, or phrases and sentences of different 

lengths and styles, are grouped into chapters in 

the Quran, called suras. Of the more than 6,000 

verses in the Quran, the shorter ones tend to 

be poetic and occur in chapters in the second 

half of the book, most of which are associated 

with  m

Uhammad

’s years as a prophet in m

ecca

(610–622). Verses in the first half, which date to 

the years Muhammad lived in m

edina

 (622–632), 

tend to be longer and lack both rhyme and rhythm. 

In handwritten copies of the Quran, a floret or 

some other decorative marking is often inserted 

at the end of each verse to facilitate reading, since 

punctuation such as periods and question marks 

is not used in old Arabic script. In modern printed 

copies, the decorative inserts usually contain the 

verse number, thus reflecting the influence of 

printed Bibles in the West. Muslim commentators 

distinguish between two kinds of verses: those 

that are clear and unambiguous (muhkamat) and 

those that are obscure or mysterious (mutashabi-

hat). The former are generally those to which the 

Ulama

 turn when making religious law (

fiqh

), 

while the latter, including the mysterious letters 

that begin a number of chapters, have attracted 

the attention of speculative thinkers and mystics.

In addition to denoting verses of scripture, 

the Quran uses the word aya to denote “signs” 

and “wonders” revealed by God in nature and in 

narratives of sacred history associated with the 

lives of prophets who lived before Muhammad’s 

time. The signs in nature include the 

creation

of heaven and Earth, the alternation of day and 

night, rainfall, sea wind, the beginning and end-

ing of life, the growth of plants, and the benefits 

animals

 provide to humans (for examples, see Q 

36:33–45; 41:37–39; 42:29, 33). In sacred history, 

the destruction of unbelievers and the rescue of 

believers from peril are included among God’s 

signs, as exemplified by the story of Noah’s ark (Q 

54:9–15). Other prophets who performed signs 

and wonders according to the Quran are m

oses

(Q 20:17–24) and J

esUs

 (Q 3:49). Muhammad’s 

opponents in Mecca challenged him to produce 

similar signs (Q 6:37), for which his response was 

the recitation of Quranic verse (Q 31:7; 45:6), 

which brings the two meanings of aya together, 

both as a verse and a miraculous sign.

See also a

llah

; 

basmala

; 

tafsir

.