وَكُلَّ شَيءٍ أَحصَيناهُ كِتابًا
And We have figured everything in a book.
EXEGESIS
This verse serves as a side note (iʿtirāḍ, muʿtariḍah). The implied meaning is: … This is while We have figured everything in a book.
The verb aḥṣā means to measure, calculate, enumerate. The verse means: We have recorded all of your acts; We have a complete list and record of what you did.
There are many verses in the Quran that talk about the recording of deeds by God and His angels (4:81, 10:21, 43:80, 45:29, 50:18, 82:10-12).
EXPOSITION
This verse is in an absolute form and thus it can include a wide range of meanings and applications. However, given the context, there are two more relevant meanings for it:
- We record all of your actions, beliefs, and intentions in your book of deeds, and you will see this book on the Day of Resurrection. This is a repeatedly emphasised Quranic principle: The book will be set up. Then you will see the guilty apprehensive of what is in it. They will say: ‘Woe to us! What a book is this! It omits nothing, big or small, without enumerating it.’ They will find present whatever they had done, and your Lord does not wrong anyone (18:49). Therefore, you will have no excuse on that day as there is nothing to hide or deny. Every nation will be summoned to its book: ‘Today you will be requited for what you used to do. This is Our book, which speaks truly against you. Indeed We used to record what you used to do’ (45:28-29). People forget many of their deeds during their life and especially at old age. This oblivion is only intensified as one goes through the difficult stages of death, the grave, and the resurrection. The day when Allah will raise them all together, He will inform them about what they have done. Allah has kept account of it, while they forgot it, and Allah is witness to all things (58:6). This justifies the previous claim that their punishment will be A fitting requital (verse 26). We task no soul except according to its capacity, and with Us is a book that speaks the truth, and they will not be wronged (23:62).
- We had thoroughly outlined the true path and described the right course of action for you in Our scripture. It included everything that you needed to know, and all the required directions to achieve salvation: We have sent down the book to you as a clarification of all things (16:89); He has figured all things (72:28).
The Quranic usage of the term aḥṣā is more favourable to the first meaning. Indeed it is We who revive the dead and write what they have sent ahead and their effects [which they left behind], and We have figured everything in a manifest imam [i.e. book] (36:12).
INSIGHTS FROM HADITH
- In one of his supplications, Imam Ali (a) praised God as follows: ‘O God … Thou art the one who hast enumerated all actions …’
- Imam al-Sajjād (a) supplicated to God: ‘It is Thou who hast counted everything in numbers.’
Note: The first supplication confirms the first meaning discussed in Exposition, which complies with the context of these verses. The second supplication is about God’s encompassing and eternal knowledge of everything, and it apparently does not concern this verse in particular.
REVIEW OF TAFSĪR LITERATURE
One controversy among Muslim philosophers is God’s knowledge of particulars. Some exegetes have drawn on this verse to prove that God indeed knows the particulars. The verse is confirmed by numerous other verses that emphasise, God has knowledge of all things.
It should be noted, however, that apparently there is no controversy over God’s omniscience. The disagreement is on how God’s knowledge applies to particulars, given that they are changing while God is unchanging, and whether that is a direct and immediate knowledge or an indirect one. Therefore, it is unlikely that one can use the Quran as a decisive proof for either side of this argument. Such detailed and technical discussions should be addressed in their own place in philosophy.
[1] Tabrisi.J, 4/431.
[2] Razi, 31/20.
[3] Nahj, sermon 160.
[4] Sahifah, supplication 47, translated by William Chittick (with minor edition).
[5] Razi, 31/20.