‘Uqba b. ‘Āmir said that when he asked God’s messenger whether he should recite sūra Hūd (Qur’ān, 11) or sūra Yūsuf (Qur’ān, 12), he told him he could recite nothing more effective with God than “Say, I seek refuge in the Lord of the dawn.”
We went out one rainy and intensely dark night to look for God’s messenger, and when we caught up on him he said to me, “Say.” I asked him what I was to say, and he replied, “If you recite ‘Say, He is God, One’ and al-Mu'awidhatān (The last 3 sūras of the Qur’ān) three times morning and evening, they will serve you for every purpose.”
Abū Huraira reported God’s messenger as saying, “Expound the Qur’ān and take as guide its unusual expressions, they being the things made obligatory in it and the limits set in it.”
While I was travelling with God's messenger between *al-Juhfa and al-Abwa’ a wind and intense darkness enveloped us, whereupon God’s messenger began to seek refuge in God, reciting “I seek refuge in the Lord of the dawn” and “I seek refuge in the Lord of men.”(Qur’ān, 113 &114) He then said, “Use them, ‘Uqba, when seeking refuge in God, for no one can use anything to compare with them for the purpose.”
*Al Juhfa- a village about 82 miles from Mecca. Al Abwa’- a village between twenty and thirty miles nearer Medina than al-Juhfa.
