Al-Jumu'ah · Madani · ayah 1 of 11

Al-Jumu'ah 62:1

يُسَبِّحُ لِلَّهِ مَا فِى ٱلسَّمَـٰوَٰتِ وَمَا فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ ٱلْمَلِكِ ٱلْقُدُّوسِ ٱلْعَزِيزِ ٱلْحَكِيمِ

“Whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth is exalting Allāh,[1685] the Sovereign, the Pure, the Exalted in Might, the Wise.[1686]”

Saheeh International

Essence

Before the Friday surah mentions prayer or trade, it shows you a congregation already at worship: everything in the heavens and the earth.

A reflection

The word once used to puncture a boaster

A managing director drafts the press release announcing his own retirement. Before it goes out, he asks for two more adjectives about himself. Most of us are gentler versions of him. We want to be spoken of well, and we notice when we are not.

Now hear the ayah's first word. Yusabbiḥu comes from the same root as subḥān, and its oldest sense is distance: declaring something far removed. The lexicons preserve a line by a pre-Islamic poet about a rival named ʿAlqama. 'Subḥān ʿAlqama the boaster,' he says: how far the man is from what he claims. Some read it as astonishment at his nerve. Either way, the word was used to let the air out of a swollen ego.

The Quran takes that word and turns it round. Everything in the heavens and the earth is declaring Allah far above every flaw. It is not flattery, because nothing said of Him is inflated. He is al-Malik, the King. Human rulers have always kept people near them to sing them larger than they were. Here the praise is unpaid, unceasing and exactly true.

So does He need it? Not at all. Mūsā (as) told his people that if they and everyone on earth disbelieved, Allah is free of need and praiseworthy (14:8). Praise of Him is not a top-up to His glory. It is a reading taken correctly, like a weathervane swinging round to show where the wind is coming from. The vane gains nothing by being right. The sailor who reads it does.

The ego dislikes this ayah at first, because it removes the stage. If the whole universe is already turned towards Him, my small campaign to be admired looks like what it is. Then the relief arrives. I do not have to be the subject of the sentence. I can be one of its voices.

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.