Surah Al-Mulk takes about 7 minutes to recite at a steady pace, and anywhere from 4½ to 11 minutes depending on the reciter. It’s 30 ayat, a little over two pages of the Madani mushaf (pages 562 to 564).
We got those numbers by timing complete recordings by eight well-known reciters, and we counted every line the surah fills on the page. Read it once tonight and you’ll know roughly what to expect. If you plan to read it every night, the weekly and monthly totals are further down.
At a glance
- Time to recite: about 7 minutes steady, 4½ quick, 11 slow.
- Ayat: 30, about 330 words.
- Where it sits: surah 67, pages 562 to 564 of the 604-page Madani mushaf.
- Length on the page: 33 lines of text, about 2.2 pages.
- Juz: the first surah of juz 29 (Juz Tabarak).
- Revealed: in Makkah.
How long does it take to read Surah Al-Mulk?
These are our own timings of complete recordings of the whole surah, one per reciter. The middle of the eight is 7.1 minutes and the average is 7.5.
| Reciter | Minutes |
|---|---|
| Saud Ash-Shuraym | 4.5 |
| Abdur-Rahman As-Sudais | 5.9 |
| Yasser Ad-Dossari | 6.4 |
| Muhammad Siddiq Al-Minshawi | 6.9 |
| Mishary Alafasy | 7.4 |
| Abdul Basit Abdus-Samad | 8.1 |
| Mahmoud Khalil Al-Husary (teaching) | 10.0 |
| Mahmoud Khalil Al-Husary (murattal) | 11.0 |
Shuraym’s recording is clear but brisk, roughly 8 seconds a line. Husary sits at the other end, close to 20 seconds a line, with long, unhurried elongations and clear stops. Oddly, his murattal recording of Al-Mulk runs a minute longer than his teaching one. We report it as measured.
Reading on your own at a comfortable pace, expect something between 6 and 8 minutes, which is where five of the eight recordings fall. If you’re still building fluency in Arabic, plan on 10 to 12 the first few times; it shortens quickly once the words are familiar. We’ve timed every surah and juz the same way if you want to compare Al-Mulk with the surahs around it.
How many pages is Surah Al-Mulk?
A little over two. You’ll see “three pages” on some sites, and that’s the span, since the surah touches three page numbers. The text itself fills 33 of the mushaf’s 15-line rows:
- Page 562: ayat 1 to 12, on lines 3 to 15. The first two lines hold the surah heading and the Bismillah.
- Page 563: ayat 13 to 26, the whole page.
- Page 564: ayat 27 to 30, just the top 5 lines. Surah Al-Qalam begins a little further down.
Thirty-three lines works out to about 2.2 pages. For a sense of scale, Ar-Rahman is 45 lines, Ya-Sin 84 and Al-Kahf 169. Al-Mulk is a good deal shorter than the other surahs people often read on a fixed day or night.
Those page numbers apply to the 604-page Madani mushaf. A 13-line South Asian print breaks the pages differently, so the surah will start and end on other page numbers there, even though the recitation time doesn’t change.
How long does it take at a slow tartil pace?
Plan on 10 to 11 minutes. That’s Husary’s pace, and it’s a sensible speed while you’re still learning the rules of tajweed, because you have time to hear each one. Allah instructs the Prophet ﷺ in Surah Al-Muzzammil:
“Or add to it, and recite the Qur’ān with measured recitation.”
Al-Muzzammil 73:4, Saheeh International translation. Compare translations on quran.com
The Arabic word there is tartil: unhurried, measured recitation that gives each letter its due, with pauses that respect the meaning. Our hifz vocabulary guide explains it with the other terms you’ll hear in a hifz class.
Which pace should you use? If you’re reading Al-Mulk for its meaning before bed, go slower than feels natural. The surah moves quickly from the heavens, to the people of the Fire admitting they didn’t listen, to the birds held aloft with their wings spread, to the closing question about water sinking into the earth, and a 7-minute pace barely leaves room to notice those shifts. Speed is fine once you know it well. Rushing a surah you’re still learning, though, tends to fix small tajweed mistakes in place.
How long does reading it every night add up to?
About 7 minutes a night comes to around 49 minutes a week and 3½ hours over a 30-day month. At Husary’s pace it’s closer to 5½ hours a month.
Something you’ll notice after a few months of nightly reading: you start finishing ayat before your eyes reach them. That’s a real head start, though recognizing the words on the page is still different from recalling them with the mushaf closed. Our section-by-section plan for Al-Mulk turns that familiarity into a surah you can recite without the page in about ten days.
If you’d like to see how much you already know, open Al-Mulk in the Quran Memorizer mushaf, hide part of the page and recite the hidden lines from memory. It works in any browser and on iPhone and iPad, and the higher hide levels are part of Premium.
Why do people read Al-Mulk at night?
Many Muslims read it before sleeping, and two narrations sit behind the habit. The first describes a surah of thirty ayat that “intercedes for a man until he is forgiven” (Jami’ at-Tirmidhi 2891, graded hasan; also Sunan Abi Dawud 1400). It doesn’t name a time of day.
The second is the one about night. Jabir reported that the Prophet ﷺ wouldn’t sleep until he’d recited As-Sajdah and Al-Mulk. Its grading is disputed: al-Albani graded it sahih, while Zubair Ali Za’i graded its chain weak (Jami’ at-Tirmidhi 2892).
You may also meet the story of a companion who pitched his tent over a grave and heard Al-Mulk being recited from inside it (Jami’ at-Tirmidhi 2890). At-Tirmidhi called it hasan gharib, but al-Albani and Zubair Ali Za’i graded its chain weak, so it’s best not to quote it as established.
Questions people ask
How long is Surah Al-Mulk in minutes?
About 7 minutes at a steady pace. Across the eight reciters we timed, it ranges from 4½ minutes (Shuraym) to 11 (Husary’s murattal).
How many pages is Surah Al-Mulk?
A little over two pages of the 604-page Madani mushaf: 33 lines across pages 562 to 564. It touches three page numbers, which is why some sites say three pages.
How many ayat are in Surah Al-Mulk?
Thirty. The first is “Blessed is He in whose hand is dominion” (67:1, Saheeh International) and the last asks who could bring you flowing water if yours sank into the earth (67:30).
Which juz is Surah Al-Mulk in?
Juz 29. Al-Mulk is the first surah of that juz, and its opening word, Tabarak, gives the juz its common name.
How long does it take to memorize Surah Al-Mulk?
About a week at five lines a day, or three days at a page a day. Our guide on how long it takes to memorize Al-Mulk breaks it down by pace.
Revising Al-Mulk
If you read it every night, you’re revising it already. What nightly reading won’t show you is whether you can start in the middle. Once a week, close the mushaf and begin cold at 67:13, the first ayah on page 563, or at 67:27 at the top of page 564. Page turns are a common place to stall when you recite from memory, because the picture of the page changes.
Seven minutes tonight is enough to begin. When you want to check the joins without someone listening, try the free hifz test on the web, or get Quran Memorizer for iPhone and iPad.
