Al-Hadid · Madani · ayah 3 of 29

Al-Hadid 57:3

هُوَ ٱلْأَوَّلُ وَٱلْـَٔاخِرُ وَٱلظَّـٰهِرُ وَٱلْبَاطِنُ ۖ وَهُوَ بِكُلِّ شَىْءٍ عَلِيمٌ

“He is the First[1623] and the Last,[1624] the Ascendant[1625] and the Intimate,[1626] and He is, of all things, Knowing.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Four names hold all of time and all of existence: before every beginning, after every ending, above everything, and nearer than anything.

A reflection

Before your first, after your last

The Prophet ﷺ explained these words himself, in a prayer he taught for bedtime, recorded in Sahih Muslim. You are the First, and there is nothing before You. You are the Last, and there is nothing after You. No commentary is needed beyond that, and the commentators say so.

Now notice how much of human pride is built on being first. Picture a man who camps two nights on a pavement to be the first in his city to own a new phone. He photographs the box, posts the picture, and is congratulated. By the spring the model has been replaced, and nobody remembers who held it first. Firsts are how we rank ourselves: the first in the family to graduate, the founder, the one who knew before anyone else.

The ayah does not insult any of that. It simply places it. A later scholar of the heart observes that you too have a first and a last, an outer and an inner. So does everything: a passing thought, a glance, a single breath. Each has a moment it began and a moment it ends. His firstness comes before every first, and His lastness remains after every last. Every beginning you are proud of was itself preceded by Him, and every legacy you hope to leave will be outlasted by Him.

That is humbling, but not crushing. It is a relief to the ego that is tired of keeping score. You were never meant to be the beginning of anything in an absolute sense. You are a parenthesis inside a sentence He began and He will finish. The Prophet ﷺ said that among the glorifying surahs is one ayah better than a thousand. One commentator holds that this is the ayah he meant. Al-Tirmidhi grades that report ḥasan gharīb. Whether or not this is that ayah, it is easy to see why it was thought so. Four words hold all of time and all of existence, and leave no room at the centre for anyone's vanity.

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.