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qul law kāna l-baḥru midādan li-kalimāti rabbī la-nafida l-baḥru qabla ʾan tanfada kalimātu rabbī wa-law jiʾnā bi-mithlihī madadan
Say, ‘If the sea were ink for the words of my Lord, the sea would be spent before the words of my Lord are finished, though We replenish it with another like it.’
— Ali Quli Qarai
Surah Al-Kahf – Verse 109
109. “Say: ‘If the sea became ink for (writing) the Words of my Lord, the sea would certainly be exhausted before the Words of my Lord were exhausted, even though We brought the like of it to help’.”
The Arabic term /midad/ is applied for the ink which is poured into an inkpot and is used as a means of drawing the pen on the paper. The objective meaning of the Qur’anic phrase /kalimat-i-rabb/ is either the divine promises and the created things, or the godly philosophies and conceptions, or Divine revelations and whatever has a sign from Allah. Thus, every particle, every atom, and every cell is one of the Words of Allah. However, in the occasions of revelation of this verse it is said that when the Jews heard this sentence from the Prophet of Islam (S) saying:
They said how such a matter could be right while the Jews were given the Turah, and whoever has been given the Turah indeed has been given abundant good. Then the abovementioned verse was revealed and illustrated the infinite knowledge of Allah and that man’s little knowledge is aught before it. Some other commentators believe that the Jews told the Prophet (S) that Allah had given him wisdom and
but when they asked him (S) about the spirit, he replied them an ambiguous answer. Then the abovementioned verse was revealed and declared that however much a man may be learned his knowledge is aught before the knowledge of Allah.6 Therefore, this verse and the verse after it are concerned to the whole subjects of this Surah. As if the Qur’an intends to say that the information of the events of the Companions of the Cave, Moses, Khidr, and Zul-Qarnayn are not so important when the infinite knowledge of Allah is considered.
The holy Qur’an, addressing the holy Prophet of Islam (S), says:
In this verse, indeed, the Qur’an attracts the attentions to this fact that you should not think that the world of existence is confined to what you see, or to what you know, or to what you feel. But it is so great and vast that if the water of the seas became ink for writing the names, qualities, specialties, secrets and mysteries of it, the seas would be used up before the whole of the creatures of the existing world could be counted.
It is noteworthy that the abovementioned verse, not only illustrates the infinite vastness of the world of existence in the past, present, and future, but also it is an illustration of the infinite knowledge of Allah, because we know that Allah has encompassed in His knowledge whatever exists, and whatever will come into being, in the expanse of existence. Even more, His knowledge is not separate from the existence of these creatures. Then, in other words, it can be said that if all the oceans throughout of the world became ink and all the trees became pens they are never sufficiently able to record the number of whatever exists in the knowledge of Allah.
At the end, there is a tradition cited in the commentary book of Ali-ibn-Ibrahim Qummi, and in the commentary book of Al-Burhan, narrated from Abi-Basir, from Imam Sadiq (as) who, concerning the commentary of this verse, said:
“I inform you that the Word of Allah has neither an end, nor has it finite, nor does it cause to eternity.” 7
Footnotes