Musnad Ahmad

Sayyiduna Aws bin Huzayfah narrates that we came to the service of the Prophet (peace be upon him) with the delegation of Thaqeef. The Prophet (peace be upon him) accommodated us, Banu Malik, in one of his tents. Every night after ‘Isha, the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) would come to us and converse with us, and he would mostly tell us about the attitude of the Quraysh towards him. He would say: “We and they were not equal, for we were weak and under apparent pressure. When we came to Madinah, the struggle between us and them began; sometimes we would prevail over them, and sometimes they would prevail over us.” One night, he came a little later than usual, so I said: “O Messenger of Allah, you have come later tonight.” He replied: “A portion of my recitation of the Qur’an was left, and I did not like to come out until I had completed it.” Sayyiduna Aws says: We asked the companions of the Prophet (peace be upon him) how they divided the recitation of the Qur’an. They told us: Three surahs (after Al-Fatihah: Al-Baqarah, Aal-e-Imran, and An-Nisa’), then five surahs (from Al-Ma’idah to the end of At-Tawbah), then seven (from Yunus to An-Nahl), then nine (from Bani Isra’il to Al-Furqan), then eleven surahs (from Ash-Shu’ara to Ya-Sin), then thirteen surahs (from As-Saffat to Al-Hujurat), and the last portion of Al-Mufassal (from Qaf to the end).