Prisons, prisoners, imprisonment, and captivity is a crucial and harsh subject in several scriptures closely related to Qurʾān, first and foremost the Biblical scriptures. In many Biblical texts, this subject – concurrent with notions of bondage and freedom, crime and punishment, suffering and liberation – constitutes an important narrative, metaphorical, and homiletic feature. The captivity, bondage of Israel in Egypt and its liberating exodus is central for Judaism. The role of imprisonment for Jesus and Paul is central to Christian theology and imagery. Prisons and imprisonment are ‘good to think with’, as the late Claude Lèvi-Strauss put it. It is indeed hard to overestimate the complex and defining role of captivity and imprisonment for the social and mental history, theology, and culture of these religions. Fortunately, the field of pre-modern carceral studies has developed considerably in recent years. Regarding early Islam, the most significant studies seem to devote themselves to post-Qurʾānic traditions and practices as attested in hadith, sira, fiqh, administrative records, and archaeological findings (Schneider 1995, Anthony 2009, Sijpesteijn 2018, Tillier 2008, Gould 2012). In Qurʾānic studies, the subject of the prison and imprisonment in the Qurʾān has, however, only been noticed in passing. Hence, a focused study of its wider semantic, thematic and literary configurations in the Qurʾān is a desideratum. The lack of monographies and the relatively brief entries in Encyclopaedia of Islam/the Qurʾān on “Sid̲j̲n” and “Prisoners” attest to this state of affairs. In this paper, I attempt to outline the different semantic, grammatical and rhetorical valorizations and functions of relevant roots (especially s-j-n, ʾ-s-r, ḥ-ṣ-r, but also roots like gh-l-l, s-j-r, ṣ-f-d, n-k-l, q-r-n, w-q-f, z-b-n) and their implementations in lemmata directly or indirectly connected to what could be called the Qurʾān’s complex carceral whole. This complex carceral whole exhibits an ambivalent attitude to incarceration. On the one hand, the carceral is associated with humiliation, weakness, suffering, injustice, even Hell; on the other, with triumph, strength, truth, just punishment and release. Carceral themes and motifs are related to both God and Pharao, to both prophets and unbelievers, to past, present and future (eschatological) narratives. Furthermore, the complex carceral whole seems to be rooted in deeply embodied and spatial language associated with physical force, bodily strength but also confinement, binding and crammed space. Finally, I will attempt to show how the theme of the carceral is central to late antique notions of slavery, empire, pact and obligation and ultimately the notion of islām.