Al-Mulk · Makki · ayah 3 of 30

Al-Mulk 67:3

ٱلَّذِى خَلَقَ سَبْعَ سَمَـٰوَٰتٍ طِبَاقًا ۖ مَّا تَرَىٰ فِى خَلْقِ ٱلرَّحْمَـٰنِ مِن تَفَـٰوُتٍ ۖ فَٱرْجِعِ ٱلْبَصَرَ هَلْ تَرَىٰ مِن فُطُورٍ

“[And] who created seven heavens in layers.[1712] You do not see in the creation of the Most Merciful any inconsistency. So return [your] vision [to the sky]; do you see any breaks?”

Saheeh International

Essence

He makes a claim about His own work and then orders you to go and look for the flaw yourself.

A reflection

The maker who turns the piece round

Walk into a cabinetmaker's showroom and look at how the pieces are placed. The chest stands with its back against the wall. The wardrobe is in the alcove. There is usually a reason. The back panel is thinner stock, the pins are coarser, and the inside of the carcass was never finished to the standard of the front. The maker is not a liar. He simply knows which side gets looked at.

All of us arrange our work this way. We present the face. We keep the back panel against the wall, and we have a quiet dread of the person who walks round.

This ayah does the opposite. It states that in His making you will find no disparity, and then tells you to go and inspect it. No craftsman on earth volunteers that sentence.

The commentaries lay out what the seven layered heavens show. They hang in the open with no pillar and no chain. Each was given one determinate size when larger or smaller was equally possible. Each was given its own motion, at its own measured speed, in its own direction. And each was brought into being from nothing. A work that is firm and exact, the reasoning runs, proves a maker who knows.

Then notice which name is used. Not the Powerful, which is what the subject matter would suggest. The ayah says khalq al-Raḥmān, the making of the Most Merciful. The commentators read the switch as deliberate, both to magnify the work and to name the reason it has no flaw in it. Mercy made it.

There is a humbling in that which has nothing to do with being told off. Vanity needs an audience that does not look too closely. He invites the closest possible look, because the back panel is finished too. You have never once made anything you could say that about.

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.