Abū Huraira reported God’s messenger as saying, “Do not make your houses graveyards*. The devil flies from the house in which sūra al-Baqara is recited.”
*A house in which there is no prayer or recitation of the Qur'ān is here intended. The dead cannot engage in these practices, so such a house is likened to a graveyard.
Muslim transmitted it.
When I was praying in the mosque the Prophet called me and I did not answer him, but I went to him afterwards and explained that I had been praying, whereupon he asked me whether God had not said, “Respond to God and to the messenger when He calls you,” (Qur’ān, 8:24) adding, “Let me teach you the greatest sūra in the Qur’ān before you leave the mosque.” He then took me by the hand, and when we were about to go out I reminded him of saying he would teach me the greatest sūra in the Qur’ān. He said, “It is, ‘Praise be to God, the Lord of the universe’, (Qur'ān,1) which is the seven oft-repeated verses and the mighty Qur’ān’ (Qur’ān, 15:87) which has been brought to me.”
Abū Umāma said he heard God’s messenger say, “Recite the Qur’ān, for on the day of resurrection it will come as an intercessor for those who recite it. Recite the two shining ones, Baqara and sūra Āl Imrān (Qur’ān, 2 and 3). for on the day of resurrection they will come as two clouds or two shades, or two flocks of birds in ranks* pleading for those who recite them. Recite sūra al-Baqara, for using it produces blessing and abandoning it produces regret, and the slothful are unable to recite it.”
*The alternative may indicate that the transmitter was not sure which word was used, “clouds” or "shades”.
Al-Barā said that when a man was reciting sūra al-Kahf (Qur’ān,18) with a horse tied with two ropes at his side a cloud overshadowed him, and as it began to come nearer and nearer his horse began to take fright. He went and mentioned that to the Prophet in the morning and he said, “That was the Shechina* which came down by reason of the Qur’ān.”
*The word in Arabic is as-sakīna which may be translated calmness; but here it has the article which indicates something more precise. It may therefore here refer to the Jewish idea of the Shechina which indicates a divine visitation,
