Ar-Ra'd · Madani · ayah 2 of 43

Ar-Ra'd 13:2

ٱللَّهُ ٱلَّذِى رَفَعَ ٱلسَّمَـٰوَٰتِ بِغَيْرِ عَمَدٍ تَرَوْنَهَا ۖ ثُمَّ ٱسْتَوَىٰ عَلَى ٱلْعَرْشِ ۖ وَسَخَّرَ ٱلشَّمْسَ وَٱلْقَمَرَ ۖ كُلٌّ يَجْرِى لِأَجَلٍ مُّسَمًّى ۚ يُدَبِّرُ ٱلْأَمْرَ يُفَصِّلُ ٱلْـَٔايَـٰتِ لَعَلَّكُم بِلِقَآءِ رَبِّكُمْ تُوقِنُونَ

“It is Allāh who erected the heavens without pillars that you [can] see; then He established Himself above the Throne[623] and made subject[624] the sun and the moon, each running [its course] for a specified term. He arranges [each] matter; He details the signs that you may, of the meeting with your Lord, be certain.”

Saheeh International

Essence

The sky stands on no pillar you can see, sun and moon keep named dates, and their Manager explains it all: you will meet Him.

A reflection

A house with taller pillars

A famous poet of the early Islamic period once boasted of his tribe in a line still quoted. 'The One who raised the sky,' it begins, 'has built for us a house whose pillars are mightier and taller'. A linguistic commentary cites the line beside this ayah. Notice the move. To praise his own people, the poet reached for the largest thing he knew: the sky, and its Maker. Then he gave his tribe the pillars.

That is what pride does with greatness. It borrows it. We measure ourselves by our supports: the job title, the postcode, the follower count, the surname that opens doors. We like them to be seen. A house with tall pillars is a house people notice.

A couple restoring an old villa strip the paint from the grand porch columns they have admired for years. Under the paint is not stone but timber. The timber is hollow. The porch had been standing on a show of strength.

Now read the ayah. Allāh, the Name itself, opens the sentence: Allah is the One who raised the heavens without pillars that you see. The greatest structure in your sight has nothing propping it that you could point to. It needs no show of support, because nothing holds it but Him. The lexicons picture the ʿamūd as a tent pole, and a people's ʿamīd as the one they lean on in trouble. The heavens lean on no one you can name.

The ego shrinks here, not because it is mocked, but because it is outscaled. The more pillars we need to be seen with, the further we stand from the One who needs none.

Why describe all this, then? Is He seeking admiration? The ayah ends by saying what it is for: so that you may be certain of the meeting with your Lord. A grandmother teaching her granddaughter to swim first stands in the water and says, look, I'm standing. She is not boasting of her height. She is giving the child grounds to let go of the side.

The full entry has 5 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.