Juz 5

A juz (plural ajza), also called a para in South Asia, is one of thirty roughly equal divisions of the written Quran. The division is made by length rather than by meaning, so a juz usually begins and ends in the middle of a surah; each is further split into two hizb and each hizb into quarters. Reciting one juz a night completes the whole Quran across a lunar month, a rhythm tied above all to Ramadan, when the entire text is recited in the nightly tarawih prayers. This portion spans An-Nisa 4:24 through 4:147. A legislative stretch of An-Nisa on marriage, the just treatment of women and dependents, arbitration in disputes, the shortened prayer in times of danger, and repeated warnings against the hypocrites of Medina.

An-Nisa's legislative material in this portion, on marriage, the treatment of orphans and the shortened prayer during travel or danger (4:101), is traditionally read against the backdrop of Medina's fragile early years, when military expeditions and an uneasy relationship with the so-called hypocrites, Medinan residents who outwardly professed Islam while working against the community, made both physical safety and social cohesion urgent concerns; classical exegetes accordingly treat much of this juz as occasion-specific legislation whose underlying principles are then generalised in later jurisprudence.

Like Juz 2, Juz 5 falls entirely within a single surah: its full span, 4:24 to 4:147, belongs to An-Nisa, which at one hundred and seventy-six verses is long enough to hold an entire juz inside its middle section alone, with substantial material from the same surah still carried in the neighbouring divisions on either side of it.

In communities that pace the nightly tarawih prayers of Ramadan at one juz per night, this is customarily the fifth night's portion, though many mosques recite faster to finish early in the month or slower to spread the reading further, and some congregations instead divide the whole Quran among thirty reciters for a single collective khatm. Huffaz reviewing memorised portions often pace themselves by a juz's two hizb and four quarter-hizb divisions rather than by surah, since these evenly sized units make a consistent daily review schedule possible regardless of where a surah boundary falls. Printed Mushafs typically mark each juz's opening in the margin with a small medallion inscribed with its number, a page-level convention distinct from the finer hizb and quarter-hizb marks placed within the text itself to guide reciters mid-portion. Some Mushaf editions additionally shade or border the margin differently for each hizb, so a reciter can judge progress through the juz at a glance without counting verses.