al-Ṣaffāt

وَمَا مِنَّآ إِلاَّ لَهُ مَقَامٌ مَعْلُومٌ

وَإِنَّا لَنَحْنُ الصَّآفُّونَ

وَإِنَّا لَنَحْنُ الْمُسَبّـِحُونَ

164. “And (the angels say:) ‘There is not (any one) of us, but for him is an assigned place,”

165. “And verily we are they who range ourselves in order.”

166. “And verily we are they who celebrate His glory.”

In the world of angels, there is a rank, position, special responsibility and hierarchy for every one of them, the same angels whom the idol worshippers used to imagine as the daughters of Allah. It is interesting that the Qur’an narrates this statement from their own tongue, and says:

And, in the second and third verses the Qur’an announces that they said they were all ready to obey the command of Allah and waiting to receive His order while celebrating His glory. Yes, they say that they are some servants who are always ready, with their whole entity, to perform His order. They say they are far off to be Allah’s offspring and they count Him free from these kinds of ugly and false attributes, and that they hate these superstitions and delusions of the polytheists.

The abovementioned three verses, in fact, refer to three qualities of the angels. The first is that each of them has a proper rank which they do not exceed. The second is that they are always ready to obey the command of Allah in the expanse of creation and execute His orders in the whole world of existence. The third is that they constantly celebrate the glory of Allah and exempt Him from whatever is not suitable for him. It is noteworthy that, concerning these verses, a group of the commentators have narrated a tradition from the Prophet (S) who said that in all heavens there is no room, even as large as a span, except that an angel is over there busy praying and glorifying Allah.⁹

Another narration indicates that one day the prophet of Islam (S) was sitting with some of his companions when he said:

“Once the heaven began moaning (because of its heavy burden), and it is right to moan because there is no space in it even as large as a footstep save that an angel is bowing or prostrating there”,

then he recited these verses.¹⁰ These different meanings are as a tender hint to the fact that the world of existence is full of the obedient beings of Allah and those who glorify Him.

Footnotes

1. 9. Tafsir-i-Qurtabi, Vol. 8, P. 5581
2. 10. Durr-ul-Manthur and Al-Mizan, under the verses