Taha · Makki · ayah 6 of 135

Taha 20:6

لَهُۥ مَا فِى ٱلسَّمَـٰوَٰتِ وَمَا فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ وَمَا بَيْنَهُمَا وَمَا تَحْتَ ٱلثَّرَىٰ

“To Him belongs what is in the heavens and what is on the earth and what is between them and what is under the soil.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Everything above, everything around, everything in the air between, and everything hidden in the damp earth beneath belongs to Him alone.

A reflection

Names on the deed

A man in his thirties brings the title deeds of his first house to his father's kitchen table. He is proud, and he has every right to be. Fifteen years of saving. His father reads the paper slowly. Then he goes to a drawer and brings out the deeds of the family's old farm. On them is his own father's name. Beneath it, crossed through, a name nobody at the table can remember.

The ayah begins with one short word: lahu, to Him. In Arabic it is placed first, before the list of what is owned. One commentator explains the effect: to Him alone, and to no one else, with no partner and no independent share. In ownership, control, giving life and death, bringing into being and ending.

Then the list. All that is in the heavens. All that is on the earth. All that is between them. And all that lies beneath the soil.

This is a quiet blow to the ego. We spend our lives drawing lines around things and writing our names in them. My house. My land. My company. My time. The deeds are real, and in human law they matter. But the ayah reads every deed with a crossed-out name on it, sooner or later. Ours is only the most recent.

Someone might ask why Allah needs to declare His ownership at all. Is it a demand for recognition? Nothing in the ayah asks for anything. It simply states the truth so that we stop clutching. The one who knows that the house belongs to Allah can lose it without losing himself.

Look at whatever you own most proudly today. Say quietly: lahu. Not as a renunciation, but as a correction. You hold it. He owns it.

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.