The Ocean of the Quran

A verse by verse explanation of The Ultimate Scripture

Al-Ḥadīd – Verse 1

سَبَّحَ لِلَّهِ ما فِي السَّماواتِ وَالأَرضِ ۖ وَهُوَ العَزيزُ الحَكيمُ

Whatever there is in the heavens glorifies Allah and [whatever there is on] the earth, and He is the all-mighty, the all-wise.

EXEGESIS

The last verse of the previous surah (al-Wāqiʿah) ended with, So glorify (sabbiḥ) the name of your Lord, the all-supreme! (56:96), and so the first verse of this surah, as if in compliance, starts with: Whatever there is in the heavens glorifies (sabbaḥa) Allah.

This act of tasbīḥ (glorification) is a declaration of God being untouched by evil[1] and negating every shortcoming and lack in His essence, such as the attributes of change, multiplying, or being comprehensible. The purpose and aim of the tasbīḥ is, therefore, to express God’s transcendence (tanzīh), as a contrast to His immanence (tashbīh), usually expressed as God’s praise (ḥamd).

In Islamic theology, God’s transcendence and immanence co-exist simultaneously and both are true at once, eternally juxtaposed, and hence the Quran often speaks of the tasbīḥ and ḥamd of God together: yusabbiḥu bi-ḥamdihi (13:13, 17:44), nusabbiḥu bi-ḥamdika (2:30), sabbiḥ bi-ḥamdihi (25:58), and sabbiḥ bi-ḥamdi rabbika (15:98, 20:130, 40:55, 50:39, 52:48), all offering the meaning of ‘glorifying His praise’. The righteous continue to acknowledge this even in paradise where they abide eternally: Their call therein will be: ‘O Allah! Immaculate are You! (subḥānaka)’ … and their concluding call: ‘All praise (al-ḥamd) belongs to Allah, the Lord of all the worlds’ (10:10).

In glorifying God, there is also an affirming of His unlimited power and wisdom in creating and regulating the affairs of His creation, hence the concluding dyad, and He is the all-mighty, the all-wise. His being the all-mighty (al-ʿazīz) reveals that there is no limitation in what He can create. And His being the all-wise (al-ḥakīm) shows that nothing He created in the heavens and the earth is without purpose or an act of frivolity.

See 69:52 for more on the tasbīḥ (glorification) of God. For more on the etymology of ḥamd (the praise) of God, see 1:2 and verse 24. And see the next verse for the meaning of samāwāt (the heavens) in the words, the heavens and the earth.

EXPOSITION

The first six verses of this surah extol God, announcing many of His attributes, to emphasise His absolute dominion, omnipotence, and omniscience. They serve as an introduction and prelude, setting the stage for what will come after, when the faithful are addressed in verse 7.

God’s glorification occurs in several different forms in the Quran: past, present, imperative, and verbal noun, as if indicating that from the moment existents come into being, they continuously glorify God through speech and deeds, willingly or unwillingly, consciously and even by their mere existence: There is not a thing but celebrates His praise, but you do not understand their glorification (17:44).[2]

The glorification of God is also a means of salvation from trials and afflictions: And had he [Jonah] not been one of those who celebrate Allah’s glory (musabbiḥīn), he would have surely remained in its belly till the day they will be resurrected (37:143-144).

Whatever (mā) and not whoever (man) is given, to show that everything in existence, including the sentient (humans, jinn, angels) and the non-sentient (animals, plants, and minerals), all glorify God. The proof that rational beings are also included, argues Tabatabai, lies in verses 2-6 that mention qualities generally attributed only to intelligent and sentient beings, such as His knowledge of the innermost thoughts of the hearts.[3] Only in some cases does the Quran speak of everyone (man) instead of everything (mā) glorifying God (for example 17:44 and 24:41) and that is because the context warrants it.

For more on the debate of whether the glorification of the non-sentient is literal or metaphorical, see the Review of Tafsīr Literature.

INSIGHTS FROM HADITH

  1. When Ṭalḥah ibn ʿUbayd-Allāh asked the Prophet about the meaning of ‘glory be to God’ (subḥān allāh), he replied: ‘It is the transcending (tanzīh) of God above every blemish.’[4] The same meaning is reported from Imam Ali (a) and Imam al-Ṣādiq (a).[5]
  2. From the Prophet: ‘One who recites bismillāh al-raḥmān al-raḥīm with conviction, the mountains glorify [God] with him except that he is not made to hear that from them.’[6]
  3. From the Prophet: ‘If God would have made understandable the glorification of the beasts and the birds and the wild animals and the mountains, the hearts would rejoice in ecstasy; but that is hidden from you.’[7]
  4. From Imam Ali (a): ‘So He is such that all signs of existence stand witness for Him until the denying minds also believe in Him.’[8]
  5. From Imam al-Bāqir (a): ‘When any of you takes a pebble out of the mosque then let him return it to its place or to another mosque, for it glorifies God.’[9]

REVIEW OF TAFSĪR LITERATURE

Exegetes have understood the glorification of Whatever there is in the heavens … and [whatever there is on] the earth in various ways. To some, the glorification of other than man and jinn is merely instinctive, by virtue of their existence and state of being, and standing witness to His power, wisdom, majesty, and beauty, just like the prostration to God of the angels, the sun, the moon, the stars, the mountains, the trees, and the animals (16:49, 22:18). Most, however, have asserted that the glorification of the non-sentient is literal, but you do not understand their glorification (17:44).

Rāzī opposes this view. He first quotes Zajjāj’s[10] two reasons to support a literal glorification by the non-sentient. First, the argument that There is not a thing but celebrates His praise, but you do not understand their glorification (17:44). If this glorification was metaphorical then people would understand that form of ‘speech’ and the words, but you do not understand their glorification, would not make any sense. And second, because God says: And We disposed the mountains and the birds to glorify [Us] with David (21:79); if the glorification was symbolic, then why the need to mention it specifically for Prophet David (a)?

Rāzī then refutes these two arguments as weak for the following reasons: firstly, but you do not understand their glorification (17:44) could mean you ignore realising that their existence proves God’s existence. As for the case of Prophet David (a), it is possible that God created speech in the mountains for him as an exception and a miracle. But this does not prove that all mountains do this as a norm. Rāzī then adds: ‘The truth is: tasbīḥ in speech can only emanate from an intelligent, conscious being who knows God and who glorifies Him, to distance any notion of imperfection from Him, meaning, it expresses His transcendence (tanzīh).’ Otherwise, there would be no difference between the tasbīḥ of a human and a rock.[11]

But this is not necessarily true, that if a rock were to glorify God in the literal sense, albeit in its own way, it would be no different from the glorification of man. The Quran is very clear that while all in the heavens and the earth – including the birds – glorify God, Each knows his prayer and glorification (24:41). This suggests that each creation has its unique way of glorifying God, an idea that would be negated if we suppose the tasbīḥ to be metaphoric and common to all non-sentient beings. Furthermore, there are other verses as well that support a form of consciousness in all things, including: They [the skins of people] will say: ‘We were given speech by Allah, who gave speech to all things’ (41:21), and, On that day she [the earth] will relate her chronicles (99:4). See also 41:11.

Besides the Quran, numerous traditions speak of the glorification of the inanimate. Mulla Sadra, for example, tells us that solid materials and plants have a soul, but their life is not usually perceptible to people except for the enlightened (ahl al-kashf). ‘Not usually perceptible’ he says because even people who are veiled may on some occasions experience and perceive this incessant glorification via the intercession of the light of prophethood (nūr al-nubuwwah), as, for example, the hearing of the tasbīḥ of pebbles in the Apostle’s palm by his companions – a miracle widely quoted by Muslim historians and hadith scholars.[12]

In other words, unlike Rāzī who believes God may have given speech to the mountains to sing His praise along with Prophet David (a) as a one-off miracle, Mulla Sadra believes the glorification is perpetual and that the miracle lies only in the lifting of the veil for man to hear the incessant glorification all around him.

In the exegesis attributed to Imam al-Ṣādiq (a), this verse is explained as follows: ‘Everything – in totality – praises God while He has no need for their praise. How should that [totality or the praise of Him] attain to Him when He is the one who brings it [totality and the praise of the totality] forth and is responsible for its manifestation?’[13] See also Insights from Hadith.

INSIGHTS FROM OTHER TRADITIONS

The following Biblical passages also speak of how all that is in the heavens and the earth glorifies God:

  1. Sing, O ye heavens; for the LORD hath done it: shout, ye lower parts of the earth: break forth into singing, ye mountains, O forest, and every tree therein: for the LORD hath redeemed Jacob, and glorified himself in Israel.[14]
  2. Sing, O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains: for the LORD hath comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted.[15]
  3. Let the heaven and earth praise him, the seas, and every thing that moveth therein.[16]
  4. Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD.[17]
[1] Nasr, p. 1331.
[2] Nasr, p. 1331; Alusi, 14/165.
[3] Mizan, 19/144.
[4] Suyuti, 1/269.
[5] Maani, 10/3 and 9/2.
[6] Suyuti, 1/26.
[7] Al-Firdaws, 3/369, h. 5120.
[8] Nahj, sermon 49.
[9] Tahdhib, 3/256, h. 711; Ilal, p. 320, h. 1; Faqih, 1/237, h. 717, from Imam al-Ṣādiq (a).
[10] This is the Basran grammarian Zajjāj (d. 922 ce). One of his works is the Kitāb Maʿānī al-Qurʾān, an exegesis of ambiguities, metaphors, and figurative expressions.
[11] Razi, 29/442.
[12] Sadra, 6/148.
[13] Farhana Mayer, Spiritual Gems (Louiseville, KY: Fons Vitae, 2011), p. 161. An exegesis attributed to Imam al-Ṣādiq (a) as contained in al-Sulamī’s Ḥaqāʾiq al-Tafsīr.
[14] Isaiah 44:23.
[15] Isaiah 49:13.
[16] Psalms 69:34.
[17] Psalms 150:6.