Al-Hajj · Madani · ayah 6 of 78

Al-Hajj 22:6

ذَٰلِكَ بِأَنَّ ٱللَّهَ هُوَ ٱلْحَقُّ وَأَنَّهُۥ يُحْىِ ٱلْمَوْتَىٰ وَأَنَّهُۥ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَىْءٍ قَدِيرٌ

“That is because Allāh is the True Reality and because He gives life to the dead and because He is over all things competent”

Saheeh International

Essence

Births and greening fields happen because Allah alone is the Real, who keeps giving life to the dead and is able over everything.

A reflection

Real by Himself, and everything else by Him

Dhālika bi-anna Allāha huwa al-ḥaqq: that is because Allah, He is the Real. The sentence is built to exclude. Not merely 'Allah is real', but 'Allah, He and none else, is al-ḥaqq'.

We usually hear ḥaqq as 'truth', meaning a correct statement. The word is larger than that. One classical commentator explains it this way. Everything other than Allah does exist, truly. But none of it has any reality from itself, because it is held, directed and kept in being. The real Real is the One whose existence depends on nothing, and on whom every other existence depends.

Picture a new glass hotel tower at night. It glows gold against the sky, and people photograph it from the bridge. At two in the morning the district loses power. The tower turns to a grey slab within a second. The glow was never the glass. It was being sent into it, every moment, from somewhere else.

That is what the ayah does to the ego. We carry ourselves as if we stood up by ourselves. My talent, my health, my life, my achievements. Yet every heartbeat is sent into us. Our existence is not a possession but a continuous gift. The moment it is withdrawn, the self we were so proud of is grey glass.

Does Allah need to be acknowledged as the Real? No. Saying it is not boasting. A map that marks 'you are here' is not vain; it is simply accurate, and it helps you. The ayah tells you where you stand, so you can stop pretending to be a source of light.

The same surah later names the alternative. 'What they call upon besides Him is falsehood' (22:62), al-bāṭil, the empty thing that vanishes. Between those two words, the Real and the empty, every human life chooses what to lean on.

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.