Surah Al-Baqarah is the longest surah in the Quran: 286 ayat over 48 pages of the Madani mushaf (pages 2 to 49), covering almost two and a half juz. Memorizing it is a major milestone, and for many people it’s the first big step beyond the short surahs.
It’s also a surah with special virtue. The Prophet ﷺ said not to make our houses like graveyards, because Shaytan flees from a house in which Al-Baqarah is recited (Sahih Muslim 780). He described Al-Baqarah and Al Imran as “the two bright ones” that will come on the Day of Resurrection like two clouds or shades, pleading for those who recited them, and said that taking Al-Baqarah is a blessing and leaving it a loss (Sahih Muslim 804a).
Surah Al-Baqarah at a glance
- Surah
- 2
- Juz
- 1 and 3
- Mushaf
- Pages 2 to 49
- Ayat
- 286
- Length
- About 47.4 pages
- Recited in
- about 2 hours 1 minutes
How many days will it take?
| New lines a day | Days |
|---|---|
| 3 (a few lines) | 237 days |
| 5 (a third of a page) | 143 days |
| 7 (half a page) | 102 days |
| 10 (two thirds of a page) | 72 days |
| 15 (a full page) | 48 days |
Counts days of new memorization on the 711 lines of Surah Al-Baqarah. Add revision on top. Make a day-by-day plan.
Test yourself
Memorized Surah Al-Baqarah? Find the ayat you’re not sure of.
Quran Memorizer asks you what comes next, which ayah is missing and which look-alike ayah goes where, on the same Madani mushaf pages you learned from. With Premium, Daily Review brings your weakest ayat back first, so you can revise Surah Al-Baqarah a little every day.
Free to start, no card needed. On the web or iPhone, choose Surah Al-Baqarah as what you want to be tested on.
More on Surah Al-Baqarah: How long it takes to memorize · How long it takes to recite · All surah guides
Before you start
A few things that make Al-Baqarah much more manageable:
- Know the shape. It’s long but well organized. Spend an hour reading a summary of its sections before you memorize a single ayah.
- Read the translation as you go. Al-Baqarah moves between stories, laws and reminders. Knowing which you’re in helps hugely.
- Expect it to take months. That’s normal. Plan for steady progress with lots of revision.
The main sections
| Ayat | Theme |
|---|---|
| 1 to 20 | Three kinds of people: believers, disbelievers and hypocrites |
| 21 to 39 | The call to worship Allah, and the story of Adam |
| 40 to 123 | The Children of Israel: favors, covenants and their response |
| 124 to 141 | Ibrahim, Isma’il and the building of the Ka’bah |
| 142 to 152 | The change of the qiblah |
| 153 to 177 | Patience, tests, and the meaning of true righteousness |
| 178 to 203 | Laws: retribution, wills, fasting in Ramadan, Hajj |
| 204 to 242 | Laws of family life, marriage and divorce, with reminders |
| 243 to 253 | Talut, Jalut and Dawud |
| 254 to 260 | Ayat al-Kursi, and stories of death and resurrection |
| 261 to 274 | Spending in charity |
| 275 to 283 | Riba, and the ayah of debt |
| 284 to 286 | The closing ayat and dua |
How long will it take?
| Daily lesson | Time to finish Al-Baqarah |
|---|---|
| Quarter of a page | 7 to 9 months |
| Half a page | about 4 months |
| One page | 2 to 2.5 months |
These assume five or six days a week of new memorization plus revision days.
Free tool
Get a day-by-day plan for Al-Baqarah at your pace, with exact pages and revision days built in. Open the hifz plan generator →
Memorizing by section
Treat each section as its own small project. For each one:
- Read the translation of the whole section.
- Listen to it two or three times from your chosen reciter.
- Memorize at your normal daily pace, ayah by ayah, joining each to the last.
- When the section is finished, recite it as a whole three times before moving on.
Finishing sections gives you milestones, which helps a lot in a surah this long.
Long ayat and legal passages
Al-Baqarah has many long ayat, including the longest ayah in the Quran, the ayah about recording debts (Al-Baqarah 2:282), which fills most of a page by itself.
For long ayat:
- Split them at natural pauses into three to five pieces.
- Memorize each piece, then join them.
- Learn the meaning of each piece, so you know the logic of what follows what. In 2:282 the sequence is: write the debt down, who writes, who dictates, the witnesses, then exceptions.
Legal passages, like the rules of divorce in ayat 228 to 237, have lots of similar phrases. Go slowly, compare the conditions in each ayah, and write down the differences.
Similar passages elsewhere
Many phrases in Al-Baqarah appear again in Al Imran, Al-A’raf and other surahs, with small changes. For example, the command to Adam and his wife in 2:35 is worded slightly differently in 7:19. The story of the Children of Israel in ayat 40 to 123 also has parallels in Al-A’raf.
If you’ve already memorized those surahs, note each overlap as you meet it. If you haven’t, you’ll meet them later from the other side. Memorizing Similar Verses Without Mixing Them Up walks through two examples from Al-Baqarah.
Revision for a long surah
The biggest risk with Al-Baqarah is that you start forgetting the beginning while you’re working on the end. Protect against it:
- Recite the last 10 pages you memorized every day.
- Revise the rest of what you’ve done in rotation, 5 to 10 pages a day.
- Once you finish, recite the whole surah over a week, about 7 pages a day, before starting anything new.
Sabaq, Sabqi and Manzil Explained explains the system behind this.
Milestones worth celebrating
- Ayah 5: the opening description of the believers.
- Ayah 20: the end of the first section, about two and a half pages in.
- Ayah 141: the end of juz 1.
- Ayah 252: the end of juz 2.
- Ayah 255: Ayat al-Kursi.
- Ayah 286: the whole surah, with its closing dua.
The last two ayat are worth memorizing early, even before you reach them in order. The Prophet ﷺ said that whoever recites them at night, they will suffice him (Sahih al-Bukhari 5009).
Recite it at home
Once you know Al-Baqarah, recite it at home regularly, in parts if not all at once.
