Surah Al-Mulk 67:1-14 - Quran Translation Commentary

(67:3) He who created the seven heavens one over another.⁷ You will not see in the creation of the All-compassionate any inconsistency.⁸ So, return your gaze, do you see any fissure?⁹

(67:4) Then return your gaze again, and again, the sight returns to you humbled, and it is aweary.¹⁰

(67:5) We have indeed adorned thenearest heaven with lamps, and have made them missiles for the Shayateen;¹¹ and have prepared for them a blazing chastisement.

(67:6) As for those who have disbelieved in their Lord, for them is the chastisement of Jahannum; an evil homecoming.

(67:7) When they are cast therein, they will hear it drawing in its breath, while it boils.

(67:8) It would all but burst asunder in rage. Every time a group is cast into it, its keepers ask, ‘Had not come to you a warner?’

(67:9) They will reply, ‘Yes indeed, a warner had in fact come to us. But we cried lies and said, “Allah has not sent down anything. You are only in a great misguidance.”’

(67:10) They will also say, ‘If only we had listened and understood, we would not have been among the companions of the blaze.’¹²

(67:11) Thus they will confess their sin; so away with the people of the blaze.

(67:12) Surely those who feared their Lord in the Unseen,¹³ they shall have forgiveness and a great reward.

(67:13) And, whether you keep secret your word or say it aloud, He is indeed the Knower of what is in the breasts.

(67:14) Should He not know who created, while He is the All-subtle, the All-aware?

Commentary

2. “Tabaraka” has its root in “baraka.” In this form it means,

“Increase, growth, abundance, and expanse. That is, increase that can be earned and attained through His remembrance. (The meaning is also) stated as ‘He achieved greatness (by Himself),’ as well as, ‘consecrated,’ which is equivalent of saying ‘became (or is) holy.’”

Majid quotes: “Tabaraka Allah: God has made Himself (is become of and through Himself) blessed, perfect, above all (WGAL. I. p. 39).”

3. Sometimes a question is asked: If God has power over all things, has He the power to destroy Himself? The questioners do not understand that God is a Necessary Being. That is, the world cannot be explained without Him. If there was no God, there would be no world. The question about who created this world, and then, who created its creator, will go on in a vicious circle. To break that circle, one has to stop at one point and say, “this One” created all. If it is suggested that “this one” could have been created by “that One” then “this one” is automatically a created being, and “that One” becomes the Creator. And, without “that Creator” there would be no created world.

We might quote from our own writing in the Educational Encyclopedia of Islam:

“... To the question concerning matter, as to where it came from, and, indeed, why it came into existence at all, since it could as well have not existed, those who deny God, have no answer. Muslim scholars have offered an answer which appeals to reason. We may quote here from a recent work, The Non-existence of God, by Nicholas Everitt, (Routledge, London and New York, 2004):

“Craig continues that we may plausibly argue that the cause of the universe is a ‘personal being’ (by which he means a being capable of free choice) (ibid. p.64). For we need an explanation of why the universe began to exist when it did, rather than earlier or later. The ‘plausible argument’ which he in fact invokes for saying that the cause must be a personal one is ‘an Islamic principle of determination’, according to which ‘when two different states of affairs are equally possible and one results, this realization of one rather than the other must be the result of a personal agent who freely chooses one rather than the other.’” (Sandage and Tammam, quoted in Craig and Smith 1995: 43).

God being the Necessary Being also implies that God did not create Himself. This in turn implies that God cannot be destroyed. Terms like “created” and “creations” are for human reference. When it is asked, e.g., what are human beings, or trees, or stars, the answer will be “created beings” - Allah being their Creator. The meanings and implications behind these terms cannot be applied to Allah, except to say that, with reference to the creations, He is the Creator. This Quality of His, is above the act of creation, and a part of His Being. That is, He remains a Creator, even if He did not create.

From another perspective, what is created (by an agency), cannot destroy itself. E.g. matter cannot destroy itself. Why? because it did not create itself. Another matter cannot destroy it; because that other matter did not create it. Matter can be forced into another form, because Allah ruled it that such a thing should be possible; but it cannot be given non-existence. No one but its creator can destroy it. He knows how He brought it into existence, and, therefore, He knows how to reduce it to non-existence.

Now, God is a Necessary Being. He was always there. He was not created by another. In fact, logically, He could not have been created by another. (He did not give birth, nor was given birth: Surah 112). If He had been created by another, He could be destroyed by that creating agency. But God was not given birth, nor can He die. To be Living is His Necessity Quality, which cannot be separated from Him. He is eternal, and His Qualities are eternal (Au.).

4. Majid comments: “This corrects and contradicts the Jewish view, ‘God created man to be immortal … nevertheless through envy of the devil came death into the world. For God made no death.’ (JE. IV p. 483).”

Discussing old age and death, a scientist writes in desperation, “It would be pleasant to eliminate the pains and discomforts of old age, but ought we to create a species consisting of the old, the tired, the bored, the same, and never allow for the new and better?”

“Perhaps the prospect of immortality is worse than the prospect of death.” (Asimov’s New Guide to Science, p. 695).

Thus, death is a created being (Ibn Kathir). Imam Razi adds that its annihilation on the Judgment Day, brought on in the form of a fat ram and slaughtered, will be merely to impress upon the people that neither will they die in Hell, nor in Heaven; in short, shall remain immortal.

Noticeably, death has been mentioned before life perhaps because lifelessness precedes the cycle of life and death (Au).

5. Majid writes: “In the words of a distinguished scientist, ‘death came that life may be worth living.’”

6. Note the words “best in deed” and not “more in deed” (Mufti Shaf`). It is the correctness of a deed that gives it an intrinsic value which is multiplied by the quantity. If the intrinsic value is zero, the sum of large quantities of good deeds is zero (Au.).

7. They are seven heavens, one upon another, but separate, with the distance of 500 years between them, as stated in a hadith (Ibn Kathir).

The seven heavens concept is entirely Qur’anic. The Torah and the Gospels do not mention the number of heavens. The Gospel of Barnabas speaks of nine heavens. But curiously the concept of 500 years distance between one firmament and another is mentioned in this Gospel: “Verily I say unto thee that the heavens are nine, among which are set the planets, that are distant one from another five hundred years’ journey for a man; and the earth in like manner is distant from the first heaven five hundred years’ journey” (Section 178) – Au.

8. Majid quotes: “But the more it (reason) knows, the more grounds it finds for confidence that the appearance of capriciousness is due only to its ignorance. Nature, it grows to believe, is, in this sense, rational through and through, that it corresponds to this fundamental demand of reason for law and order in all things. This faith in a universal order – a faith continually more and more fully justified – is what makes science possible.”

9. The scientists refer to this phenomenon of non-inconsistency or lack of a detectable fissure, as the “problem of homogeneity.” That is, at the super-cluster level, the universe seems to be homogenous; no matter where you look, the image is the same. And this homogeneity is a problem. If the big bang theory is correct, matter should be scattered in an odd manner. But it is not so. Why? There is no satisfactory answer yet (Au.).

10. That is, any defect. Science in the meanwhile, seems to have lost its moorings. It is in no position to say anything in definite about time, space, or even the physical universe. While the Qur’an gave us the concept of seven firmaments, science is now asking us to believe in infinite universes. Today’s high-profile scientific language is weirder than that of the Sufis of the past. A recent book from a prize-winning scientist should give some idea of the ideas floating among the scientists about the realities of existence. He is considered to be moderate. Other scientists discuss ideas that he too would consider weird. We present key points picked up from his work The Goldilocks Enigma, Paul Davies, Allen Lane Publications, 2006:

(a) The universe began with a hot big bang 13.7 billion years ago, and is still expanding. The expansion is best envisaged as the stretching of space between the galaxies. (p.55)

(b) The universe has no discernible centre or edge. (p.55)

(c) Even though space is warped locally, by stars and galaxies, overall the geometry of the universe seems to be flat (Euclidean). Einstein’s general theory of relativity then predicts that the universe should have zero mass: the positive mass-energy of matter is exactly cancelled by the negative mass-energy of the gravitational field of all the matter in the universe. (p.55). [We might remind that so far, in the observable world, billions of galaxies have been sighted containing 1080 atoms: Au.].

(d) There may be additional dimensions of space over and above the three we perceive. Some theories of physics require this. Extra dimension can be concealed from view, for example by rolling them up to a tiny size. (p.55)

(e) The big bang may or may not have been the ultimate origin of the universe. If it was, then time and space did not exist before the big bang. Cosmologists have attempted to explain scientifically the origin of the universe from nothing (no time, no space, no matter) by appealing to quantum mechanics. The resulting subject of quantum cosmology is exciting, but not rigorous. (p.97). [By saying, “not rigorous” he means, the theory is not scientifically satisfactory].

(f) If the big bang was not the ultimate origin of the universe, the question arises of what came before it. In a currently popular theory known as eternal inflation, our universe is just one ‘bubble’ of expanding space among many, and big bangs occur throughout time in the wider ‘superstructure’. Taking a god’s-eye view, most of space is inflating at a fantastic rate, and the ‘bubbles’ or pocket universes, emerge spontaneously from this as a result of quantum processes. (p.97)

(g) Eternal inflation is one mechanism for generating a multiplicity, or ensemble, of universes. Known collectively as a multiverse. Individual universes within the multiverse could be very different from one another. Only a small fraction might be fit for life. (p.97-98)

(h) Most of the universe is made of something that is still not identified. Ordinary matter (billions of galaxies: Au.) makes up just a few percent. (p.145)

(i) Dark matter is probably made of heavy, weakly interacting particles coughed out of the big bang in profusion. (p.145)

(j) Our universe may be a fragment of a vast (probably infinite) and heterogeneous system called the multiverse. The other ‘universes’, or cosmic regions, may be observationally inaccessible to us. Their existence would be inferred from theory plus some direct evidence. (p. 215)

(k) The laws of physics and the initial state of the universe could vary from one ‘universe’ to another. What we have taken to be absolute laws might be more akin to local by-laws, with key features, including those relevant to life, which ‘froze’ out of the big bang in the first split-second. (p.215-216)

(l) Some (science: Au.) philosophers argue that simulated universes (e.g. virtual reality run on gigantic computers) may be possible. Multiverses might then include simulated as well as real universes. Some simplistic calculations hint that the fakes may greatly outnumber the real ones, so we could be living in a simulation. (p. 216)

How befitting then the words, “Then return your gaze again, and again, the sight returns to you humbled, and it is aweary” (Au.)

11. Zamakhsari of the 12th Christian century writes: That is, the Devils (who try to fly beyond the limits set for them) are struck with meteorites that are drawn from the stars. It is not the stars themselves that are cast at them. These stars are bodies by themselves.

The word meteorite might or might not be the right term. All that the Qur’an is saying is that when the devils try to cross a certain boundary drawn for them in space, in order to gain a hearing of what goes on in the first firmament, they are pelted with heavenly burning bodies. The nature of the burning bodies has not been described (Au.).

12. Asad writes: “Reason, properly used, must lead man to a cognition of God’s existence and, thus, of the fact that a definite plan underlies all His creation. A logical concomitant of that cognition is the realization that certain aspects of the divine plan touching upon human life – in particular, the distinction between right and wrong – are continuously disclosed to man through the medium of the revelation which God bestows on His chosen message-bearers, the prophets. This innate “bond with God” (referred to in 2: 27 and explained in the corresponding note 19) may be broken only at the expense of man’s spiritual future, with suffering in life to come as the inevitable alternative.”

13. The words, “in the Unseen” have two connotations: (i) They have not seen Allah, but they fear Him out of awe and, influenced by it, restrain themselves from sin. (ii) They fear Him in their private, and remember Him with hopes and fears (Shabbir).