Ash-Shuraa · Makki · ayah 29 of 53

Ash-Shuraa 42:29

وَمِنْ ءَايَـٰتِهِۦ خَلْقُ ٱلسَّمَـٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ وَمَا بَثَّ فِيهِمَا مِن دَآبَّةٍ ۚ وَهُوَ عَلَىٰ جَمْعِهِمْ إِذَا يَشَآءُ قَدِيرٌ

“And of His signs is the creation of the heavens and earth and what He has dispersed throughout them of creatures. And He, for gathering them when He wills, is competent.”

Saheeh International

Essence

The One who scattered every living thing across the heavens and the earth loses none of them, and can gather them all whenever He wills.

A reflection

The tag that went silent

A marine biologist has fitted satellite tags to three hundred sea turtles. On her screen they are dots crossing an ocean. She is quietly proud of it: years of work, a map no one had before. Then one tag goes silent. For a month she checks it every morning, and cannot find the animal.

The ayah sets her map beside a larger one. Wa-mā baththa fīhimā min dābbatin: and whatever living creature He has scattered through them both. Not three hundred. Every creature, in the heavens and the earth. One commentator lists what the word holds: angels, jinn, humans and every animal. They come in all their shapes, colours, languages and natures, spread through every region.

Then the ayah adds the part that shrinks us most. Wa-huwa ʿalā jamʿihim idhā yashāʾu qadīr: and He is able to gather them whenever He wills. He did not only scatter them. He has never lost track of a single one.

Human pride lives in our maps and our tracking, and they are real achievements. Yet the biologist's silent tag is the honest edge of every human system. Something always drops off the screen. Nothing ever drops off His.

A sceptic might ask why Allah keeps pointing to His creation. Is it the boast of a ruler showing off his estate? The ayah's first words answer it: wa-min āyātihi, among His signs. A sign does not exist to be admired for itself. It points the traveller somewhere. The point is not His glory gaining something. It is our arrogance losing something, so that we can see straight.

The biologist's month of worry is a small mercy. It shows her the size of her knowledge. The humble response is not to stop tracking turtles. It is to remember, each morning at the screen, Who already knows where the silent one is swimming.

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.