Al-A'la · Makki · ayah 2 of 19

Al-A'la 87:2

ٱلَّذِى خَلَقَ فَسَوَّىٰ

“Who created and proportioned”

Saheeh International

Essence

You were measured before you were made, then levelled and balanced until every part fitted, and none of that was your own design.

A reflection

Ten years to copy a toddler's hand

An engineering team spends ten years building a robotic hand. The milestone they finally celebrate is simple: it can lift an egg without cracking it. The press release calls it a breakthrough. That same morning, a two-year-old in a high chair picks up a boiled egg, drops it, picks it up again and eats it.

Alladhī khalaqa fa-sawwā: who created, then proportioned. For the first hearers, khalq had a craftsman in it. A leatherworker spread a hide in front of him and measured it before a single cut. This much was for a water-skin, this much for a boot. Measuring came first, then making.

Sawwā is the finishing. The lexicons agree that the root means straightness and balance. Rough ground was sawwā when it was levelled. A young man had istawā when he reached his full height and strength. And the commentaries, early and late, read the ayah the same way. He made what He created even, every part fitted to every other, with nothing lopsided. One says simply that there was no jumble in His making. Another says its parts were matched, not mismatched. A third hears the echo of another surah: you see no inconsistency in the creation of the Most Merciful (67:3).

Another reading hears praise that He gives Himself. Elsewhere He says: We created the human being in the finest form (95:4). After describing the stages of the embryo, He says: so blessed is Allah, the best of creators (23:14).

Why would He praise His own making? Not because He needs the compliment. It is because we keep stealing it. We are proud of long legs, quick minds, a good eye, a steady hand. We polish what we were given and quietly take the credit. The team in the laboratory are rightly pleased with their ten years. But they spent those years copying a small part of something none of them designed.

The ego lives on the story that we made ourselves. This ayah hands the credit back, and there is relief in that. You do not have to be the author of your own hands. You only have to use them well.

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.