Al Rūm

وَلَهُ مَن فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالأَرْضِ كُلٌّ لَّهُ قَانِتُونَ

وَهُوَ الَّذِي يَبْدَأُ الْخَلْقَ ثُمَّ يُعِيدُهُ وَهُوَ أَهْوَنُ عَلَيْهِ وَلَهُ الْمَثَلُ الأَعْلَي فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالأَرْضِ وَهُوَ الْعَزِيزُ الْحَكِيمُ

26. “To Him belongs every being that is the heavens and the earth; all are subservient unto Him.”
27. “And He it is Who originates the creation, then He brings it back again, and it is easier for Him (than the first creation), and His is the Sublime Similitude in the heavens and the earth, and He is the Might, the Wise.”

The objective meaning of the Qur’anic phrase /man fis-samawat/ (every being that is in the heavens) is either the angels, who are obedient to the command of Allah, or some other intelligent beings over there whom are not recognized to humankind. This holy verse says:

And since all of them belong to Him, they are humble and subservient before Him. The verse says:

Thus, it is clear here that the purpose of ownership and also obedience is a genetic ownership and obedience; that is, from the point of the laws of creation everything in His authority and, desirably or undesirably, all are subservient to His laws in the world of creation. Even the disobedient haughty persons and the sinful law-breakers also have to obey Allah’s genetic laws. The reason of this ownership is His divinity and Lordship. The One Who has created the beings from the beginning and has undertaken their management, surely He must be the essential owner, too, not other than Him.

And in view of the fact that all the beings of the world of existence are equal from this point of view, it makes clear that there is no partner for Him in ownership; even the polytheists’ imaginary objects of worship are totally owned by the Lord of sovereignty and they obey His command. By the way, it should be noted that the Qur’anic word /qanit/ is derived from /qunut/ which originally means: ‘obedience accompanied with humility’.¹⁰ The holy Prophet (S) in a tradition said:

“Every time (the word) /qunut/ (is mentioned) in the Qur’an it means obedience.”

But sometimes it is either genetic obedience and sometimes it is religious obedience. Some commentators have rendered the word /qanitun/ here into ‘being witnessed unto ‘Unity of Allah’ which, in fact, is the statement of one of the extensions of obedience, because giving witness to the Unity of Allah is a kind of obedience to Him. In this verse the themes of Origin and Resurrection have been woven into each other. In the next verse, the Holy Qur’an returns again to the subject of Resurrection and says:

The noble Qur’an has proved the subject of possibility of Resurrection with the shortest reasoning in this holy verse. It announces that you believe that the origin of creation belongs to Him, why does its return again, which is easier than that, not belong to Him? The reason of its being easier than its originating at first is that: at the beginning there was nothing existed and Allah absolutely created it, while in returning something, at least, the main materials are present: a part of it is inside the dust of the earth, another part is scattered in the sky, and the only problem is to organize and to shape it.

Here, there is a point which must be noted, and it is from the window of our thought that something is easy and another one is difficult. For the Essence Who is infinite, being easy or difficult is the same. In principle, being difficult or easy is meaningful where a limited power is spoken of, that the possessor of that power can fulfil something well and easily, or rather with difficulty. But when the words are about an infinite power, being difficult or easy becomes meaningless.

In other words, taking the greatest mountains from the earth for Allah is as easy as taking a piece of straw. And perhaps it is why that at the end of the holy verse the Qur’an says:

Its reason is that any complete description we consider for anything in the heavens and in the earth from the point of knowledge, power, ownership, greatness, graciousness, its most complete and perfect extension is with Allah, because all of beings have a limited scale of it, but His is unlimited. The attributes of all things are casual, but those of His are essential and He is the main source of all virtues. Even our words which are often used for stating our daily aims cannot describe His qualifications, as we already saw its example in the Qur’anic word /’ahwan/ (easier).

The abovementioned sentence is similar to what is said in Surah Al-’A‘raf, No. 7, verse 180:

and in Surah Ash-Shaura, No. 42, verse 11 Qur’an says:

Finally, at the end of this holy verse, as an emphasis or as reasoning, it says:

He is Mighty and invincible but, in the meantime that He Has an infinite Power, He does not do anything undue and all His deeds are based on Wisdom.