As-Saffat · Makki · ayah 5 of 182

As-Saffat 37:5

رَّبُّ ٱلسَّمَـٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ وَمَا بَيْنَهُمَا وَرَبُّ ٱلْمَشَـٰرِقِ

“Lord of the heavens and the earth and that between them and Lord of the sunrises.[1287]”

Saheeh International

Essence

The One God is Lord of the heavens, the earth and all between them, and Lord of the sunrises: a new one every morning.

A reflection

Lord of the strip between the gardens

Two neighbours share a hedge. For six years they have argued about thirty centimetres of ground beneath it. There have been letters, a surveyor, a solicitor's bill larger than the land is worth. Each man walks past the hedge as if he were guarding a border.

Now read the ayah slowly. Rabbu al-samāwāti wa-l-arḍi wa-mā baynahumā: Lord of the heavens and the earth, and whatever is between them. The commentators explain rabb here as Creator, Owner and the One who maintains it all. Everything we fight over lies in that 'between'. The house, the car park space, the inheritance, the strip under the hedge.

The root of bayn is interesting. It means the gap that parts two things. The lexicons note that it also means the bond that joins them: a word with opposite senses. The space between two neighbours can divide them, or hold them together. Either way, the ayah says it belongs to Someone else.

That is a quiet blow to the ego. We speak of 'my land', 'my side', 'my rights', and sometimes we are right to. But the ownership is borrowed. We are tenants of a few square metres in a creation whose Lord holds the heavens too. The surveyor's line will outlast both neighbours.

Someone may ask: isn't it boastful to keep announcing that you own everything? A man who listed his properties at every dinner would be insufferable. But he would be claiming what is only briefly his, to be admired. Allah is stating what is simply true, and He needs no admiration (35:15). The listing is for us. It reminds us whose ground we are standing on.

Next time you find yourself guarding a border, look up at the sky above it. It has the same Lord as the hedge.

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.