Al-Fath · Madani · ayah 14 of 29

Al-Fath 48:14

وَلِلَّهِ مُلْكُ ٱلسَّمَـٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ ۚ يَغْفِرُ لِمَن يَشَآءُ وَيُعَذِّبُ مَن يَشَآءُ ۚ وَكَانَ ٱللَّهُ غَفُورًا رَّحِيمًا

“And to Allāh belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth. He forgives whom He wills and punishes whom He wills. And ever is Allāh Forgiving and Merciful.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Straight after the warning, Allah names His dominion over everything, and the last words He chooses for Himself are Forgiving and Merciful.

A reflection

Guarding a parking space on a rented street

Three ayat earlier, the stayers explained themselves: our property and our families kept us busy (48:11). They had a little herd, a little ground, a little household. To guard that small holding they let the Messenger ﷺ walk on without them.

This ayah answers with one sentence of scale. To Allah belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth. Not their herds only. Not Arabia only. Everything above and everything below.

Picture a man who rents a flat on a busy street. Every evening he puts two traffic cones in the road outside, to save "his" parking space. He argues with neighbours about it. He has never owned the street, the kerb or even the flat. He will hand back the keys one day, and the cones will go in a skip.

That is the ego's posture towards what it holds. We guard our corner with great seriousness and forget whose world it sits in. The stayers' pride in their own arrangements was not wicked in itself. It was simply far too small. They measured the risk to their property, and never measured it against the Owner of all property.

One classical commentator draws a further point from the scale. Because His dominion is so vast, His reward is vast, and His punishment is vast too. Nothing He gives or withholds is small.

Does Allah need to announce this? Another commentator answers in a line: He is free of any need of His servants. He tests them only so as to reward those who believe. The statement is not for His benefit. It is for ours, so that we stop measuring our lives by the size of our cones. Humility here is not self-hatred. It is accuracy about whose street this is.

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.