Al-Anbya · Makki · ayah 56 of 112

Al-Anbya 21:56

قَالَ بَل رَّبُّكُمْ رَبُّ ٱلسَّمَـٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ ٱلَّذِى فَطَرَهُنَّ وَأَنَا۠ عَلَىٰ ذَٰلِكُم مِّنَ ٱلشَّـٰهِدِينَ

“He said, "[No], rather, your Lord is the Lord of the heavens and the earth who created them, and I, to that, am of those who testify.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Ibrahim's answer to 'are you joking?' was the whole sky: your Lord split the heavens and the earth into being, and I stand witness to it.

A reflection

The only Maker who copied nothing

Rabbu al-samāwāti wa al-arḍi alladhī faṭarahunna: Lord of the heavens and the earth, who originated them. One concise commentary adds three words that change everything: He created them without any previous model. Another commentary says He brought them into being with all they contain: you, your fathers and what you worship. He had no pattern to copy and no rule to follow.

Set that beside the word Ibrahim used two ayat earlier: tamāthīl, likenesses. The statues were copies by definition, carved to resemble something Allah had already made. Their makers were imitators of the Originator. And they bowed to their own imitation.

Picture a celebrated furniture designer at the launch of her new chair. The press calls it wholly original. Privately she knows where it came from. On a woodland walk two years ago she studied a young fern frond, still curled, for an hour. The curve of the backrest is that frond. Her chair is beautiful. It is also, like every human creation, a reworking of something already made.

That is not a flaw in human creativity. It is its nature. Our best ideas are arrangements of what we were given. Only One brings into being from nothing, without a model to follow.

This is where the ego shrinks to size. We are proud of our originality, our designs, our names on things. The ayah puts every human achievement in its place: skilled copying of the work of the One who copied nothing. Humility is not pretending our work is worthless. It is knowing whose pattern we are tracing, and thanking Him for the pattern.

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.