Uqba said, "I was leading the Messenger of Allah ﷺ on his she camel, and he said to me, 'Shall I not teach you two surahs the like of which has never been recited?'I said, 'Certainly.'So he taught me "Say, I seek refuge in the Lord of mankind" [Nas 114:1] and "Say, I seek refuge in the Lord of the daybreak" [Falaq 113:1]. But he could see that I was not particularly impressed by them. Then, when he dismounted for the morning prayer, he recited them both in it, and afterwards he said to me, 'What do you think now, Uqba?'"
كنت أقود برسول الله ﷺ ناقته. قال: فقال لي: ألا أعلمك سورتين لم يقرأ بمثلهما؟ قلت: بلى. فعلمني: {قل أعوذ برب الناس} و{قل أعوذ برب الفلق}، فلم يرني أعجبت بهما، فلما نزل الصبح فقرأ بهما، ثم قال لي: كيف رأيت يا عقبة؟
It was narrated by Abu Dawud (1462), Nasai (5436), Ahmad (17350), and Ibn Khuzayma (535), all of them through Muawiya bin Salih, who said, Ala bin Harith narrated to us, from Qasim bin Abdul-Rahman, the freed slave of Muawiya bin Abu Sufyan, from Uqba bin Amir, and he related it.These are some of the chains of transmission from Uqba bin Amir. I have left out the rest for fear of excessive length. It becomes clear from this that the two protective surahs are indeed part of the Quran, and this is the position held by the majority of the Companions of the Prophet ﷺ and the Followers. Perhaps Abdullah bin Masud did not hear this from the Prophet ﷺ, or he forgot it if he had heard it, and then relied on the master copy of the Quran that Uthman bin Affan ordered to be prepared, burning his own copy by order of the Commander of the Faithful, as I explained in the introduction to the tafsir.His saying, "Falaq" [Falaq 113:1], refers to daybreak. The true meaning of falaq is the bursting forth from within something, so daybreak comes after the darkness of night has been split open. "By the Lord of daybreak" refers to Allah, Most High, for He is the One who turns night into day and day into night.His saying, "from the evil of what He created", means from the evil of all created things, especially from Iblis and his offspring.His saying, "and from the evil of darkness when it settles", ghasiq describes the night when its darkness becomes intense. It is said, the night ghasaqa, yaghsiqu, when it grows dark, and from this comes His saying, "until the darkness of night" [Isra 17:78]. His saying, "when it settles" means when it disappears, and from this comes the expression "the sun waqabat" when it sets. What is meant by this is the increasing intensity of the darkness of night. The seeking of protection was specified for the most intense times of night because of the abundance of crawling creatures, ghouls, and the offspring of devils that spread during it.