Verses 1–6
The aim of this chapter of the Qurʾan is to motivate and encourage the faithful to spend in the way of God, as illustrated by the repeated exhortations to do so:
Have faith in Allah and His Messenger, and spend out of that wherein He has made you successors … ()
Who is it that will lend Allah a good loan…? ()
Indeed the charitable men and charitable women, and those who lend Allah a good loan… ()
Note that in these verses, the Qurʾan refers to their spending in the way of God as a ‘loan’ (qarḍ) to God. This is because God is the utmost good that can be sought, and He does not break His promises. He has promised them that if they grant Him a loan, He will multiply it for them and grant them a noble and abundant reward.
These verses show that their spending is motivated by Godwariness and faith in the Messenger, and that it occasions forgiveness for their sins, a double share of God’s mercy, a light to guide them, and admittance to the truthful ones and the witnesses in the vicinity of God in the Hereafter.
These verses also contain many teachings about creation and resurrection, and they call on their audience to adopt Godwariness, dedication in faith, asceticism, and to take moral admonition.
Based on the tone and context of its verses, this chapter is evidently of Medinan provenance. Some have even claimed that there exists a consensus amongst commentators on the Qurʾan about this fact.
The chapter opens by exalting and glorifying God and invoking several of His Most-Beautiful Names. This is because, as we have already mentioned, the aim of this chapter is to encourage the faithful to spend in the way of God. Therefore, by praising God in this manner, the opening of the chapter dispels the notion that God is asking the faithful to spend in His way because of any need, lack, or want on His part. We can see a similar dynamic at work in all of the chapters that begin by glorifying God, such as Sūrah al-Ḥashr, al-Ṣaff, al-Jumuʿa, al-Taghābun.
Commentary
سَبَّحَ لِلَّهِ مَا فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ ۖ وَهُوَ الْعَزِيزُ الْحَكِيمُ ١
(57:1) Whatever (mā) there is in the heavens glorifies Allah (sabbaḥ lillāh) and the earth and He is the All-mighty, the All-wise.
Tasbīḥ (‘glorification’, from which the verb sabbaḥ is derived) means to exalt (tanzīh) God above any deficiency, need, or quality that does not accord with His utter perfection. The relative pronoun ‘whatever’ (mā) is used here to denote all rational beings in the heavens and the earth, such as the angels, humankind, and the jinn, as well as all non-rational beings, right down to inanimate entities. This is indicated by the fact that it is only in the following verse that divine attributes specific to rational beings—such as God being the giver of life or having knowledge of the contents of the breasts—are mentioned.
Therefore, the meaning of the verse is: ‘Whatever is in the heavens and the earth exalts God—may He be glorified!—and this is the entirety of the cosmos.’
Here, the term tasbīḥ is used in its truest and fullest meaning. Readers should not think that it is merely being used in the figurative sense that the existence of every entity in the heavens and the earth attests to God’s existence as the Ultimate Origin of all things and that, as the Ultimate Origin of all things, He is utterly without lack and is absolutely perfect in every way. It is also not used in the figurative sense that every existent being declares God’s transcendence either explicitly through words (lisān al-qāl), as is the case with rational beings, or implicitly through its state of existence (lisān al-ḥāl), as is the case with non-rational beings.
How do we know that these figurative interpretations fall short of the meaning of tasbīḥ in this verse? Because of the verse elsewhere in the Qurʾan that reads, The seven heavens glorify Him, and the earth, and whoever is in them. There is not a thing but celebrates His praise, but you do not understand their glorification (). After mentioning the fact that everything in the heavens and the earth glorifies God Almighty in this verse, the Qurʾan adds, but you do not understand their glorification. Now, had the verse been referring to the fact that their existence points to His existence, which would be an argument for God’s existence to humankind through their existence, or if what was meant that they praised and glorified God through their state of being, both of these are things that people do understand, which would render the addendum, but you do not understand their glorification, meaningless.
Therefore, the fullest meaning of everything in the heavens and the earth performing tasbīḥ of God and exalting Him is in speech, even if we do not comprehend it. See the verse, They will say, ‘We were given speech by Allah, who gave speech to all things…’ ()
… and He is the All-mighty, the All-wise—In other words, He overpowers all and cannot be overpowered, His actions are done perfectly such that nothing can undo them and none can object to them.
لَهُ مُلْكُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ ۖ يُحْيِي وَيُمِيتُ ۖ وَهُوَ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ قَدِيرٌ ٢
(57:2) To Him belongs the kingdom of the heavens and the earth: He gives life and brings death, and He has power over all things.
This statement indicates exclusivity; He is the sole sovereign in the heavens and the earth and rules them as He pleases because He is the originator of everything, and whatever is in the heavens and the earth subsists through His existence and its effects. Therefore, there is no rule except His, no sovereignty except His, and no authority except His.
He gives life and brings death refers to the divine names al-Muḥyī (‘The Giver of Life’) and al-Mumīt (‘The Bringer of Death’). He gives life and brings death is general, meaning that it encompasses all life and all death, such as making the angels living beings whose life is not preceded by death, or giving life to the fetus in its mother’s womb, and reviving the dead for the Resurrection. It also includes His making inanimate entities dead beings whose death is not preceded by life, causing the human being to die in this world, then causing him to die again in the Isthmus (Barzakh), which is what He refers to in the verse, They will say, ‘Our Lord! Twice did You make us die, and twice did You give us life…’ (). Moreover, He gives life and brings death, also signifies that He is continuously doing both of these.
… and He has power over all things: This calls attention to the divine attribute of power (qudra) and that God’s power is limitless and unconstrained by anything. The fact the verse’s coda references God’s power over all things, after having already highlighted His power over life and death, is because someone might imagine that God does not have the power to bring back a person who has died and of whom no trace remains.
هُوَ الْأَوَّلُ وَالْآخِرُ وَالظَّاهِرُ وَالْبَاطِنُ ۖ وَهُوَ بِكُلِّ شَيْءٍ عَلِيمٌ ٣
(57:3) He is the First and the Last, the Manifest and the Hidden, and He has knowledge of all things.
Insofar as God has power over all things, this means that His power encompasses all things from all angles. Therefore, whatever one supposes is first, He is before it. Therefore, He is the First before all things. And whatever one supposes is last, He is after it, because His power encompasses all things from all angles. Therefore, He is the Last after all things. Whatever one supposes is manifest, He is more manifest than it, because His power encompasses it from above, so He is the Most Manifest above all things. And whatever one supposes is hidden, He is more hidden than it, because His power encompasses it from behind it. Therefore He is the Most Hidden beyond all things. Hence, He is the First, the Last, the Manifest, and the Hidden, in absolute terms: Whatever else possesses these attributes, these are only relative.
Now, His being first, last, manifest, and hidden, are neither temporal nor spatial in the sense of these attributes being contained in time or space, as this would imply that He was neither prior to them or above them in His existence. On the contrary, He is the One that contains all things in every way and from every angle conceivable.
From the above, it is clear that these four divine names—the First, the Last, the Manifest, and the Hidden—are all subordinate to His name, the All encompassing (al-Muḥīṭ), which is itself subordinate to His omnipotence. Therefore, His power encompasses all things. These four names can also be understood as subordinate to the fact that His existence encompasses all things. He subsists before the origination of all things, and after the annihilation of all things. He is nearer to all things than everything that is manifest, and further beyond the comprehension of minds and imaginations than everything else that is hidden.
These four names are also subordinate to His all encompassing knowledge, which befits the coda of this verse, and He has knowledge of all things.
Some scholars have explained these four divine names as signifying that He is the First before all things, the Last after the annihilation of all things, the Manifest through proofs that point to Him, and the Hidden who cannot be apprehended by senses.
Others have said that it means He is the First before everything with no beginning; the Last after everything with no end; the Manifest, the All-triumphant, the Exalted above all things, such that everything is beneath Him; and the Hidden who has knowledge of all things, such that nothing knows more than Him.
Others still have said that it means He is the First without beginning, the Last without end, the Manifest without physical nearness, and the Hidden without physical concealment.
There are other interpretations of these names with similar meanings, which we have omitted for the sake of brevity and due to their lack of value.
هُوَ الَّذِي خَلَقَ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضَ فِي سِتَّةِ أَيَّامٍ ثُمَّ اسْتَوَىٰ عَلَى الْعَرْشِ ۚ يَعْلَمُ مَا يَلِجُ فِي الْأَرْضِ وَمَا يَخْرُجُ مِنْهَا وَمَا يَنْزِلُ مِنَ السَّمَاءِ وَمَا يَعْرُجُ فِيهَا ۖ وَهُوَ مَعَكُمْ أَيْنَ مَا كُنْتُمْ ۚ وَاللَّهُ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ بَصِيرٌ ٤
(57:4) It is He who created the heavens and the earth in six days; then settled on the Throne. He knows whatever enters the earth and whatever emerges from it and whatever descends from the sky and whatever ascends to it, and He is with you wherever you may be, and Allah sees best what you do.
We have already discussed the significance of the Divine Throne in our commentary on Sūrah al-Aʿrāf (), where we said that His settling on the Throne is a metaphor for Him exercising governance over His dominion. That is why this is followed by mention of His knowledge of the particulars and condition of everything in creation, because knowledge is a corollary of His divine governance.
He knows whatever enters (yaliju) the earth and whatever emerges from it and whatever descends from the sky and whatever ascends (yaʿruju) to it: According to al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī, wulūj (from whence the verb yaliju is derived) means to enter a narrow opening, while ʿurūj (the origin of the verb yaʿruju) means to go upwards. Hence, the meaning of the passage is: ‘God knows whatever penetrates the earth, such as rainwater, seeds, and the like; and He knows what emerges from it, such as various kinds of plants and animals and springs of water; He knows what comes down from the sky, such as water, sunlight, and angels; and He knows what ascends into it, such as vapors, angels, and the deeds of servants.
And He is with you wherever you may be …: He encompasses you fully, so you are never absent from Him, no matter where you go, no matter at what time you lived, and no matter what state you are in. The verse invokes the idea of place by saying ‘wherever you may be’ not to restrict the meaning of the verse to spatial locality alone, but because the most common way in which one thing becomes separate or absent from another or seeks to be close to another is through moving one from place to another. However, God’s relations to different times, places, and states of being are all equal to Him. Therefore, the verse applies to all of these and more.
Some have said that ‘He is with you’ means: ‘His knowledge encompasses you.’
… and Allah sees best what you do: This is almost like a conclusion drawn from the previous statements: He is with you wherever you may be and He has knowledge of all things, therefore, He sees best what you do. This is because He is always present with them, and they are never separated or hidden from Him, and because He is all-knowing, so He perceives not only the outward form of their deeds, but also perceives their internal states, such as the intentions and goals that lay behind their deeds.
لَهُ مُلْكُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ ۚ وَإِلَى اللَّهِ تُرْجَعُ الْأُمُورُ ٥
(57:5) To Him belongs the kingdom of the heavens and the earth, and to Allah all matters are returned.
The phrase, To Him belongs the kingdom of the heavens and the earth is repeated here (after already appearing in , above) to show that all things return to God because they ultimately belong to Him, while the first instance was to show that all things belong to Him because they originate with Him. Elsewhere, God says, The day when they will emerge from their graves, nothing about them will be hidden from Allah. ‘To whom does the sovereignty belong today?’ ‘To Allah, the One, the All-paramount!’ ().
… and to Allah all matters (al–umūr) are returned: Note that al-umūr (lit. ‘the matters’) is a plural noun with the definite article (al-). This signifies its absolute generality (that is, all the matters). This is akin to the verse, Look! To Allah do all matters return! (). This shows that there is nothing in existence save that it will return to God, and nothing returns to Him for any other reason than the fact that He alone has sovereignty over it. Therefore, all command and all authority belong to Him.
Note also that, in this verse, instead of saying ‘to Him all matters are returned’, the Qurʾan says to Allah all matters are returned. We see the same in the previous verse, where instead of ‘and He sees best what you do’, the Qurʾan says, and Allah sees best what you do. Perhaps this is because it gives these statements a more profound effect on the heart of the listener, and this device is repeated in the later verses in this chapter that discuss the Day of Resurrection and the great rewards that lie in store for those who spend in the way of God.
يُولِجُ اللَّيْلَ فِي النَّهَارِ وَيُولِجُ النَّهَارَ فِي اللَّيْلِ ۚ وَهُوَ عَلِيمٌ بِذَاتِ الصُّدُورِ٦
(57:6) He makes the night pass into the day and makes the day pass into the night, and He knows best what is in the breasts.
When God says that He makes the night pass into the day and makes the day pass into the night, this means that He causes their relative lengths to change throughout the year with the changing of the seasons, with one growing longer in the northern hemisphere and growing shorter in the southern hemisphere at the same time. He has called attention to this phenomenon more than once in the Qurʾan.
The phrase what is in the breasts means the thoughts and intentions that people keep to themselves and hide away in their breasts. This also extends to people’s hearts, as the heart is also in the breast. The sentence, and He knows best what is in the breasts expounds the fact that His knowledge encompasses even the most hidden parts of their hearts, just as the previous verse had indicated that His sight encompasses the outward appearance of their deeds with the phrase, and Allah sees best what you do ().
Examining Narrations
- In al-Durr al-manthūr, al-Suyūṭī cites Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, Abū Dāwud, al-Tirmidhī (who grades the tradition as ‘good’ or ḥasan), al-Nasāʾī, Ibn Mardawayh, and al-Bayhaqī in Shuʿub al-īmān, all of whom narrate from ʿIrbāḍ b. Sāriya that the Messenger of God would recite the chapters of the Qurʾan that begin with God’s glorification (or tasbīḥ) before he lay down to sleep. He used to say, ‘They contain a verse that is better than a thousand verses.’
Author’s comments: This is also narrated by Ibn al-Ḍurays from Yahya b. Abī Kathīr, from the Prophet.
- In al-Kāfī, al-Kulaynī narrates via his chain of narrators from ʿĀsim b. Ḥamīd: ‘I asked ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn about divine unity (tawḥīd). He said, “Surely God Almighty knew that in the End Times there would be people who delve deeply into matters, so He sent down the verse, Say: God is One, and the verses from the beginning of Sūrah al-Ḥadīd until the verse, … and He knows best what is in the breasts. And whoever delves into divine unity beyond these verses will surely have perished.”’
- In Tafsīr al-Qummī, we read: ‘Whatever there is in the heavens glorifies Allah and the earth and He is the All-mighty, the All-wise—this is the Prophet’s saying, “I have been given comprehensive speech” (jawāmiʿ al-kalām)—He is the First—before everything—and the Last—He subsists after everything—and He knows best what is in the breasts—in peoples’ minds.’
- In al-Kāfī, al-Kulaynī narrates that ʿAlī was asked, ‘Where was our Lord before He created the heavens and the earth?’ To which he replied: ‘How can one ask about place, when God existed before there was any place!’
- In al-Tawḥīd, Shaykh al-Ṣadūq narrates a sermon from Imām al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī, in which he says: ‘Praise belongs to God, for whom there is no “first” to be known, no “end” to limit, no “before” to apprehend, and no “after” to constrain. His description is not ascertained by minds or their estimations, nor thoughts and their derivations, nor intellects and their reflections, such that you can say of Him: “When?” for He did not begin from anything, nor “Upon what?” for He is not above anything, nor “In what?” for He is not contained by anything.’
Author’s comments: When he says ‘there is no “first” to be known’, this means that He has no beginning, as if He had a beginning, one could know this. Nor does He have an end, as this would limit Him. Nor does He have a before, as then it would be possible to apprehend this. Nor does He have an after, as this would constrain Him.
Equally, when he says ‘He did not begin from anything’ means that nothing originated Him, so there is no “first” for Him. Equally, He is not above anything in the sense of resting upon it like one body upon another, nor is He contained within something and hidden by it.
- In Nahj al-balāgha, Imām ʿAlī is quoted as saying: ‘Every apparent thing (ẓāhir) besides Him is not hidden (ghayr bāṭin), and every hidden thing (bāṭin) besides Him is not apparent (ghayr ẓāhir).’
Author’s comments: This means that the quality of being apparent in beings other than God cannot co-exist with the quality of being hidden, and vice versa. However, in the case of God, because He is absolutely one (aḥad) in His essence (dhāt), such that it cannot be divided or split into different parts or aspects, He is apparent while being hidden, and He is hidden while being apparent. Therefore, He is the most hidden of things while in being the most apparent of them, and the most apparent of things in being the most hidden of them.
- In the same source, we read: ‘Praise belongs to God, the First with nothing before Him and the Last with nothing after Him, the Apparent with nothing above Him, and the Hidden with nothing below Him.’
Author’s comments: The meaning of ‘before’ and ‘after’ here is not in the temporal sense of the words. We should not imagine an infinite span of time stretching into eternity in both past and future directions, where the existence of the cosmos occupies a finite stretch in the middle while God’s existence extends throughout this infinite span of time, including the stretches of time on either side of the cosmos’s existence, without any part of time being empty of Him. This is incorrect, however, because it means that God only precedes the cosmos’s existence in time, which would mean He exists within time and, as such, His essence would be subject to change and alteration with the passage of time, as His being “before” or “after” would be dependent on time. Therefore, in this conceptualization, it would be time (not God) that is the First and the Last, as time would contain Him.
Equally, being Apparent and Hidden should not be understood in reference to spatiality in the same way (insofar as the term ẓāhir signifies one thing being “above” another and bāṭin signifies it being “under” or “within” another). God’s very essence is transcendent above all things, it precedes all things and subsists after all things, it is beyond all things—beyond everything we can possibly conceptualise—and both time and space are creations of God, not containers of Him.
- In al-Durr al-manthūr, Abū al-Shaykh in al-ʿAẓama narrates from Ibn ʿUmar and Abū Saʿīd, from the Prophet: ‘People will not stop asking about things until they say, “This God who was before everything—what was before Him?” If they say this to you, tell them: “He is the First before everything and the Last, so there is nothing after Him. He is the Apparent above all things, and the Hidden beneath all things, and He has knowledge of all things.”’
- In al-Tawḥīd, Shaykh al-Ṣadūq narrates via his chain going back to Abū Baṣīr: ‘I heard Abū ʿAbd Allāh (al-Ṣādiq) say: “God was always our Lord and knowledge was part of His essence even when there was nothing else to know. It was when He brought things into being that His knowledge fell upon objects of knowledge.”’
Author’s comments: The meaning of knowledge (ʿilm) in this tradition is not like the mental image that we hold in our minds. It is not the case that God is like a builder who visualizes the image of a house and its shape before he starts construction, then constructs a house according to the image in his mind, such that the resulting physical structure corresponds to the mental image, and even if the house collapses, the mental image of it remains. This kind of knowledge is known as ‘general knowledge’ (al-ʿilm al-kullī), which cannot be ascribed to God Almighty. On the contrary, God’s essence is the knowledge of the object of knowledge, and when the object of knowledge enters objective reality, the essence of this object of knowledge is identical with God’s knowledge of it. The first kind of divine knowledge is known as ‘knowledge at the level of the divine essence’ (al-ʿilm al-dhātī), while the latter kind is known as ‘knowledge at the level of the divine acts’ (al-ʿilm al-fiʿlī).
- In the same source, there is a sermon of Imām ʿAlī, in which he says: ‘He knew it without any intermediary, His knowledge was only with it, and there is no knowledge other than Him between Him and between the object of knowledge.’
Author’s comments: This means that God’s essence is identical with His knowledge, and there is no additional image or form needed for Him to know anything.