Al-Qamar · Makki · ayah 50 of 55

Al-Qamar 54:50

وَمَآ أَمْرُنَآ إِلَّا وَٰحِدَةٌ كَلَمْحٍۭ بِٱلْبَصَرِ

“And Our command is but one, like a glance of the eye.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Everything was measured; and when Allah wills a thing, His command is a single word, done in the time it takes an eye to glance.

A reflection

The same single word for the Throne and the ant

A project manager sends the same request five times: an email, a reminder, a meeting, a phone call, a stern message copied to his boss. Only then is the job done. Most human authority works like this. It repeats, chases, checks and repeats again.

Wa-mā amrunā illā wāḥidatun: and Our command is but one. The commentaries explain it as one word, kun, be, and the thing is (36:82). One early commentator adds: with no reviewing and no back-and-forth. One classical commentator draws two things out of wāḥida. First, there is no need to repeat the command; it is carried out at once. Second, there is no difference between one task and another. His command when creating the immense Throne is the same as His command when creating a tiny ant.

The word wāḥid carries a lovely picture in the lexicons. The Arabs praised a rare person as nasīj waḥdihi, woven by itself: a precious cloth on the loom with nothing else on its warp. Single, without equal. This picture is established.

This is majesty, and it humbles the ego quietly. We are proud of what we manage to get done through persistence. We count the emails. The One who made galaxies and ants did each with a single, unrepeated word, and found neither harder than the other.

Is Allah boasting? He needs nothing from our admiration. The ayah tells us this so that we stop measuring what is possible by our own effort. What is hard for us is not hard for Him.

Think of the thing in your life that seems the heaviest to shift. Bring it to Him tonight, plainly. For Him, it is the same single word as the smallest thing you ever asked for.

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.