Al-Mu'minun · Makki · ayah 116 of 118

Al-Mu'minun 23:116

فَتَعَـٰلَى ٱللَّهُ ٱلْمَلِكُ ٱلْحَقُّ ۖ لَآ إِلَـٰهَ إِلَّا هُوَ رَبُّ ٱلْعَرْشِ ٱلْكَرِيمِ

“So exalted is Allāh, the Sovereign,[969] the Truth;[970] there is no deity except Him, Lord of the Noble Throne.”

Saheeh International

Essence

High above doing anything in vain is Allah, the King who truly owns the kingship; no god but Him, Lord of the noble Throne.

A reflection

Higher than every height we build

On the fortieth floor of a city tower, a chief executive's office looks down on everything. Rooftops, roads and people are small below the glass. Then a window cleaner's cradle drifts past, a little higher. Above it a gull turns. Above the gull, the sky goes on.

Fa-taʿālā Allāh: so exalted, high above, is Allah. The lexicons say the root means height, and that nothing in it strays from that. Al-ʿalyāʾ is a mountain's summit. The day taʿālā when the sun climbed high. Even the everyday word taʿāla, come, first meant come up to me. In time, the lexicon notes, even a man down in a valley said it to someone standing above him.

One classical commentator explains the word here as a declaration of awe. Allah is high, he says, above any likeness to His creatures in His being, attributes and acts. He is high above acting without wisdom. The plain explanations read it the same way: exalted above creating anything in vain, the very thing the previous ayah denied.

Human beings love height. We build towers, claim titles, sit at the head of tables. The ego measures itself by how many people are below it. This ayah quietly takes every height we build and sets it under another. There is a taʿālā that belongs to Allah alone, and every human summit is a step on its lower slopes.

That should humble anyone who enjoys looking down on others. Your floor is never the top floor. The window cleaner is above you, the gull above him, and above every creature is the One who is exalted.

And yet the same root carries an invitation. Taʿāla, come up. The One who is highest calls people upward, towards Him. Pride climbs to look down. Worship rises to come near. Choose the second kind of height.

The full entry has 6 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.