Al-Ma'idah · Madani · ayah 120 of 120

Al-Ma'idah 5:120

لِلَّهِ مُلْكُ ٱلسَّمَـٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ وَمَا فِيهِنَّ ۚ وَهُوَ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَىْءٍ قَدِيرٌۢ

“To Allāh belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth and whatever is within them. And He is over all things competent.”

Saheeh International

Essence

The surah that opened with 'fulfil your contracts' ends on ownership, placing Isa and his mother among 'what is in them'.

A reflection

Whose name is on it

A seven-year-old gets a set of felt pens for her birthday. By evening she has written her name on every toy she owns, the bedroom door and, faintly, the cat's basket. Hers, all of it. Her parents smile, and quietly remember who paid.

We never quite grow out of the felt pen. My house, my career, my children, my time. The words are not wrong in their place. But they slowly build a picture in which we are the owners of our lives, and Allah is somewhere in the background.

The surah's last ayah corrects the picture in one sentence. Lillāhi mulku al-samāwāti wa al-arḍi wa mā fīhinna. To Allah belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth and whatever is in them.

The word order carries the point. To Allah comes first. One commentary notes that putting it first restricts it: to Allah, and to no one else. The root of mulk is having a thing in your grip, to keep, use or give away. Ownership and rule together. Both are His.

One early commentary describes the moment simply. After promising the truthful their gardens, then He magnified Himself. Why would He? He needs nothing, and our praise adds nothing to Him. The sentence is for us. It rubs out the felt-pen names we have written over His world, and the pride that wrote them.

That is humbling, and it is also a release. If everything in the heavens and earth is His, then nothing we lose was ever finally ours. And nothing we hold is outside His care.

The girl's name stays on the toys. The parents let it. They know whose house it 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.