Al-Anbya · Makki · ayah 4 of 112

Al-Anbya 21:4

قَالَ رَبِّى يَعْلَمُ ٱلْقَوْلَ فِى ٱلسَّمَآءِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ ۖ وَهُوَ ٱلسَّمِيعُ ٱلْعَلِيمُ

“He [the Prophet (ﷺ)] said, "My Lord knows whatever is said throughout the heaven and earth, and He is the Hearing, the Knowing."”

Saheeh International

Essence

Answering a whispered campaign, the Prophet simply named his Lord: the One who knows every word spoken anywhere, the Hearing, the Knowing.

A reflection

The curated word and the careless one

My Lord knows what is said in the heaven and the earth. Not some of it. Not the important speeches. Every word, in every place, by every speaker: the angels above, the council whispering in a Makkan alley, a child talking to a toy.

A commentator adds a detail that is easy to miss. His knowledge of what is whispered and what is shouted is on one level. There is no difference in clarity between them for Him, as there is for us. We hear the loud thing clearly and the quiet thing dimly. For Him the quiet thing is not quieter.

That should unsettle the ego in a particular way. Most of us manage two kinds of speech. Picture a woman who spends forty minutes drafting a public post about a friend's achievement. She deletes a word, softens a phrase, checks how it will look. That evening in the kitchen she says something cutting about the same friend without a second thought. To her, the post was her real voice and the kitchen remark did not count. In the ayah's terms, both reached the same Hearing at the same volume.

Pride lives in the gap between the curated word and the careless one. We build an image out of what we say in public and hope the rest evaporates. This ayah closes the gap from His side. Nothing evaporates.

A sceptic may ask why God would emphasise this at all. Is it a need to be seen as all-powerful, or a warning that sounds like surveillance? The context answers. The ayah is spoken by a man being slandered in secret, to men who thought their secret was safe. It is a protection for the wronged before it is a threat to anyone. The One who hears gains nothing by hearing; He loses nothing when people deny it. He says it so that the whisperer stops, and the one whispered about can rest. That is not vanity. Vanity needs an audience. He is the audience.

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.