Al-Qamar · Makki · ayah 53 of 55

Al-Qamar 54:53

وَكُلُّ صَغِيرٍ وَكَبِيرٍ مُّسْتَطَرٌ

“And every small and great [thing] is inscribed.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Every deed, small and great, is set down in lines like palms in a row, none too slight and none too large to be written.

A reflection

Small and great are only words for us

A man is proud of the extension he has built on his house. It is the biggest thing he has ever done. Then he flies over his town for the first time and looks down. He cannot find his street, let alone the extension. From up there, his great work is a speck.

The lexicons notice something about the two words in this ayah. Ṣaghīr, small, has one origin: fewness and slightness. Its picture is a sound. A she-camel has two cries: the low one is her iṣghār, the high one her ikbār. Another lexicon makes the key point. Small and big are names said only in relation to each other. A thing can be small beside one thing and large beside another. This picture is established.

And kabīr, great, began as plain size: a thing too big to fit. In Allah, the lexicons note, greatness is simply true. In us, it can become a self swollen past its real size.

This is where the ego is humbled. We call our achievements great and our faults small. But the ayah lists both together, under one record, measured by One whose scale is not ours. Our great things are great only beside our small things. Before Him, they are both deeds, written in the same lines.

Is Allah belittling human effort by saying this? No. He records it all, which is the opposite of belittling. What He removes is our right to decide, by our own scale, which deeds matter.

Every prayer begins with Allāhu akbar: Allah is greater. Say it at your next prayer as a correction of scale. Your biggest worry and your proudest success both shrink to their true size, and both are in His hands.

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.