Rukūʿ (‫ ُ)ر ع‬is the act of belt-low bowing in standardized prayers, where the

backbone should be in rest.

Muslims in rukūʿ
In prayer, it refers to the bowing at the waist from standing (qiyām) on the
completion of recitation (qiraʾat) of a portion of the Qur'an in Islamic formal
prayers (salah). There is a consensus on the obligatory nature of the rukūʿ. The
position of rukūʿ is established by bending over till the hands are on the knees and
remaining in that position until one attains a relaxed state while glorifying God
َ
(‫ ُس ْ َحان َر ﱢ َ ال َع ِظ م‬subḥāna rabbiya l-ʿaẓīm, "Glory be to my Lord, the Most
Magnificent!") thrice or more in odd number of times.

Function of Ruku ‫ ع‬in the Holy Qur’an:

The term ruku — roughly translated to "passage", "pericope" or "stanza" — is also

used to denote a group of thematically related ayaat in the Qur'an. Longer suras
in the Qur'an are usually divided into several rukus.

Basic purpose of Ruku is to mark specific portions of ayaat when topics change so
that Muslims can easily decide that after how many ayaat they should perform
Ruku(bowing the body until the palms are on the knees.)

Probably this is why it is called Ruku i.e Ruku can be performed at these points.

Ruku is basically a mark put at the end of thematic shifts (as understood by those
who have put these marks). This is called ruku because usually the Muslims recite
this much of the Qur'an in each Raka'at of prayer (before going into to ruku).

The Rukus of The Holy Quran were not to be found in the time of Nabi
Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam, nor in the time of the Sahaaba
radhiyallahu anhum. These divisions were made later in the time of Hajjaj ibn
Yusuf hence Ruku mark can only be seen in the Scripts published here in Asia like
verses 1-7 of Al-baqarah(2) is the 1st Ruku of That Surah.. Signs of Ruku' are
usually found in those texts of Qur'an that are Published in Indo-Pak & it is
marked with a ‫ ع‬sign.
Analysis of Ruku Division by M. Amir Ali in his article "Organization of the
Quran" :

Ruku’ (bowing or section): Some Muslims prefer to do 20 raka’ah every night for
Salat At-Taraweeh during the month of Ramadan, that is, recite a section and go
to ruku’ (bowing). They had to find markers to recite a portion of the Qur’an in
each Raka’ah while completing a topic. In South Asia the tradition is to complete
recitation of the whole Qur’an in 27 nights. This required partitioning of the
Qur’an in 27 x 20 = 540 sections excepting the Surah al-Fatiha. When such
partitioning was done they ended up with 556 (+1 for Surat al-Fatiha) sections.
Evidently, they did not go back to redo the partitioning to come with 540 sections.
The Qur’an copies printed in South Asia have Ruku’ or Section markings showing
number of the ruku’ within the Surah, within the Juz and ayah number within the
ruku’. Traditionally, South Asian Muslims may give reference of a ayahs from the
Qur’an by referring to the ruku’ number and Juz number but such system is
unscientific and it is not universally acceptable. Qur’an copies printed in the Arab
world do not include ruku’ markings.

Analysis of Ruku Division by Hamid-ud-din Farahiin his Muqaddimah of Tafsir

Nizam-ul-Quran – Structure of the Qur’ān :

Division of the Qur’ān in rukū‘ as well as in 30 distinct parts is a post-Prophetic

innovation. A little deliberation shows that the basic purpose of the rukū‘ division
is to mark a thematic shift.

Those who marked the rukū‘s have indeed intended to highlight the thematic
shifts in the text and have tried to mark such thematic shifts by putting the sign ‫ع‬.
These people intended to guide the reader that, while reciting the Qur’ān, they
should not pause at a place where the text should be read jointly. They were
indeed right in trying to determine such shifts.

However, the need to highlight the knowledge of the arrangement is still

demanding because the above mentioned division only helps the reader to
ascertain a thematic shift. But we know that such shifts are not permanent in a
single discourse: there has to be something that unifies the parts divided by the
rukū‘.
In some cases the rukū‘ division brings entire parts of the sūrah to a parallel status
in terms of discourse. Whereas we know that sometimes a unit, apparently
standing apart from the preceding one, is indeed dependent on it and builds upon
it. This is the reason people divide their books in parts, then in chapters, then in
sections and then in paragraphs. These subcategories are never supposed to be
disjointed, independent, pieces of writing.

Therefore, the role of rukū‘ is limited to highlighting the break and the division of
rukū‘ has, by highlighting these thematic breaks, created the need to discover the
interconnection between the divided parts. Hence, this interconnection has to be
made visible before one marks the shifts. This I stress because before being
divided in rukū‘, the text looked interconnected. In that shape it was easy to
discover the coherence in the parts of the sūrahs for those who ponder over the
text analytically. Contrarily, once the rukū‘ division has been marked, the divisions
and breaks have been highlighted in the minds of the readers. This necessitates
that such a division is carried out afresh, dividing the parts in one respect and
highlighting their interconnection in another.

The division in 30 parts, on the other hand, has been done purely on quantitative
basis. Sometimes it breaks off the discussion completely. I, therefore, prefer
disregarding it. I believe that, for the purposes of quantitative division, the
concept of manāzil (singular manzil, literally: station) is sufficient. Plus, it does not
rend asunder the sūrahs as well.

When I say that those who divided the sūrahs in rukū‘s were right in determining
the thematic shifts I do not mean that they have always got it right. Many of their
judgments are obviously wrong. See, for example, their work on Sūrah Qamar
(54). They have divided the sūrah into three rukū‘s without considering the style
of expression or the quantity of discourse. They should have divided it in six parts:

The Hour has approached…..(1-7)

Before them, people of Noah rejected….(8-17)
‘Ād rejected (their Messenger). Then how (strict) has been our recompense and
warnings…. (18:22)
Thamūd rejected the warnings…. (23-32)
People of Lot rejected the warnings….ِ (33-40)
And warnings did come to the People of the Pharoah…. (41-55)
The Qur’ānic text itself is the most reliable guide in this regard. It contains both
explicit and implicit indications towards this coherent ordering. Examples of
explicit textual indicators are the expressions adopted in the beginnings of sūrahs
like yā ayyuha ladhīna (O those who), yā ayyuha an-nāsu (O people), ’alam tara
(have you not seen), ’ara’ayta (have you seen) and qul (declare, say) etc. The
scholars who have introduced the rukū‘ division have also made use of these kind
of indicators.
Other examples of explicit textual indicators include change in rhyme, length of
the verses, similarity in style of expression, and kinship of meanings in different
pieces of the text….