فَاطِرُ ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ ۚ جَعَلَ لَكُم مِّنْ أَنفُسِكُمْ أَزْوَٰجًا وَمِنَ ٱلْأَنْعَٰمِ أَزْوَٰجًا ۖ يَذْرَؤُكُمْ فِيهِ ۚ لَيْسَ كَمِثْلِهِۦ شَىْءٌ ۖ وَهُوَ ٱلسَّمِيعُ ٱلْبَصِيرُ
Fāṭiru's-samāwāti wa'l-arḍ; jaʿala lakum min anfusikum azwājan wa mina'l-anʿāmi azwājā; yadhraʾukum fīh; laysa ka-mithlihi shayʾ; wa huwa's-samīʿu'l-baṣīr
"The splitter into being of the heavens and the earth. He made for you mates from among yourselves, and mates among the livestock; by this He multiplies you. There is nothing like unto Him. He is the Hearing, the Seeing."
This verse carries the densest sentence of transcendence (tanzīh) in the Qurʾān. I shall treat it in detail; but first the place where the sentence stands must be seen, because the sentence of transcendence does not come on its own.
In the fifth verse the same root occurred as yatafaṭṭarna (on the point of splitting). Here it comes as an active participle: fāṭir — the one who splits.
The concrete sense of the root is to split, and in Arabic the sense of creating is derived from this: to open a thing for the first time, when there is no precedent for it. The distinction the lexicographers transmit is this:
| Word | Root | What it conveys |
|---|---|---|
| خَلَقَ (khalaqa) | خ-ل-ق | To measure and cut — to make according to a plan |
| بَدَأَ (badaʾa) | ب-د-أ | To begin — to be first |
| فَطَرَ (faṭara) | ف-ط-ر | To split — to open what is closed, to bring out what was not |
The picture beneath the word is this: something closed splitting, and something coming out of it. The cracking of a seed, the opening of a bud, the breaking of dawn.
And since the word fiṭra is from the same root there is a link: fiṭra is a being's state at its first splitting open.
The link within the sūra was recorded in the section on its structure, and I repeat it here: in the fifth verse the heavens were near to being split; in the eleventh the one who first split them is named. The same root, six verses apart, passive and active.
Now we come to a place that requires close attention, and it is the least treated side of the verse.
What is said immediately before the sentence of transcendence? Pairing. Twice: mates from among human beings, mates among the livestock.
And pairing is the source of likeness in the created world. To be a pair is to be of the same kind; a mate is a person's counterpart. Indeed the word zawj in Arabic means "each one of a pair", and this side of the root was treated in al-Wāqiʿa and al-Takwīr.
Then comes reproduction: yadhraʾukum fīh — "by this He multiplies you". That is, the multiplying of like by like.
| Order | Sentence | What it establishes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jaʿala lakum… azwājan… azwājā | Pairing — like with like |
| 2 | Yadhraʾukum fīh | Multiplying — the increase of likes |
| 3 | Laysa ka-mithlihi shayʾ | And He has no like |
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the verse's own sequence: the verse first shows that the created world exists by pairing, and then places the Creator outside that order. Having a mate is the condition of multiplying; what has no mate does not multiply, because it has no need to.
In al-Ikhlāṣ the sentence "He has not begotten, and He has not been begotten" was treated with this logic. In al-Shūrā the same conclusion comes by another road: al-Ikhlāṣ denies begetting; al-Shūrā denies likeness — and begetting is the way likeness is produced.
The root ذ-ر-أ: to bring forth and spread, to multiply, to scatter as seed. Its kinship with the word dhurriyya is debated by the lexicographers; in the root there is dispersal by increase.
| Reading | What the pronoun refers to | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | To the pairing / to this order | "By this He multiplies you" |
| 2 | To the womb / to the field of creation | "There He multiplies you" |
| 3 | To the earth | "There He multiplies you" |
The first reading is the most widespread and accords with the context; but I do not impose a preference.
A note on the arrangement: fīh is singular, whereas azwāj is plural. This is transmitted as a ground supporting the view that the pronoun refers not to the plural but to the act itself (the pairing).
Now I come to the construction of the sentence. There is an oddity in it that disappears in translation, and it is one of the most debated linguistic questions in the history of exegesis.
And this is unusual in Arabic. Normally one says either laysa ka-huwa shayʾ ("there is nothing like Him") or laysa mithlahu shayʾ ("there is nothing that is His like"). The two coming together calls for explanation.
The lexicographers and exegetes have explained this in three main ways. I give the three in a table; I impose no preference.
| View | What it says | Its ground | The side found weak |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. The kāf is redundant | The kāf has been added for emphasis and has no sense of its own. The sentence means "laysa mithlahu shayʾ" | The use of a redundant particle for emphasis is a known fact of Arabic (bi-, min, lā) | Admitting a "superfluous letter" in the Qurʾān is disputed in general; the view that every letter does a work is widespread |
| 2. The mithl is redundant / a figure | Mithl here is a figure meaning "the essence, the thing itself". In Arabic one says "mithluka lā yafʿalu hādhā", meaning "you do not do this". The sentence means "laysa ka-huwa shayʾ" | This usage is settled in the Arabic language and its examples are many | To reckon mithl functionless meets the same objection as the first view |
| 3. Both are original — intensification | "There is nothing like His like." If even His like has no like, then He Himself has none at all. The negation has been brought, by an indirect route, to its strongest form | The rhetoricians count this intensification: because the negation is made one step further back, it becomes more comprehensive | It is argued that there is a strain in the logic: to say "His like has no like" appears to presuppose that a like exists |
A fourth explanation is also transmitted, and I record it separately: the word mithl is used in Arabic in the sense of "quality, attribute" as well (mathal — a quality, a characterisation; indeed the Qurʾān says mathalu'l-janna, and what is meant there is "the description of the Garden"). On this reading the sentence comes to mean: "there is no quality like His quality." What is denied, that is, is not likeness of essence but likeness of attribute.
None of these four explanations is certain, and all four have been defended in the classical sources.
But this must be noticed, and it is what the four explanations have in common: whichever explanation is taken, the conclusion the sentence reaches does not change — nothing resembles Him. The disagreement is not over the conclusion but over which instrument of language brings one to it.
The subject of the sentence (the subject of laysa) has been left to the end: shayʾ. And this word must be recorded.
Shayʾ is the most general noun in Arabic: it covers everything that exists or can be conceived. And when it comes in a negative sentence its scope becomes absolute — an indefinite noun in a context of negation conveys universality.
The sentence, then, does not say "no being", it says "no thing". What exists, what is thought, what is conceived — all of it is inside.
One further point of arrangement: the predicate (ka-mithlihi) has been fronted, and the subject (shayʾ) left to the end. In Arabic fronting conveys specification. The weight of the sentence falls not on "no thing" but on "not being like Him".
The first is al-Baqara 2/255 (the Verse of the Throne). What was recorded there was this: the verse consists from beginning to end of declarative sentences, with not a single imperative in it; the structure widens from the inside outward; and a limit was set — the word kursī cannot be understood so as to ascribe place, body or sitting to God, because the same verse states that not even sleep can seize Him. There, that is, the transcendence was drawn from the verse's own internal consistency.
The second is al-Ikhlāṣ. There the difference between aḥad and wāḥid was tabulated, and this was recorded: wāḥid is numerical oneness, and numerical oneness is always open to a comparison; aḥad is "that beside which no other can be conceived" — an expression not of number but of uniqueness. And al-Ṣamad, coming without a connective, had been the unfolding of aḥad.
| al-Ikhlāṣ 112/1-4 | al-Baqara 2/255 | al-Shūrā 42/11 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Method | Negative sentences — three of its verses negative | Affirmative sentences — a series of attributes | A single negative sentence, in the middle of affirmative ones |
| What it denies | Begetting, being begotten, having an equal | Sleep, weariness, being encompassed | Likeness itself |
| The word of scope | kufuwan aḥad | bi-shayʾin min ʿilmih | shayʾ |
| Where it is placed | The whole sūra | Within a long series | Between two affirmative sentences |
And the last row shows what is peculiar to al-Shūrā. In al-Ikhlāṣ the transcendence is the subject of the text; in the Verse of the Throne it is part of a series. In al-Shūrā it is a single sentence, and both its sides are full: before it creation and multiplying, after it hearing and seeing.
Al-Shūrā, that is, gives the transcendence not as a subject but as an interposed sentence. And this is the ground of the point that follows.
Transcendence is an operation of putting at a distance. When you remove likeness, you also remove the possibility of comparison. And once the possibility of comparison is gone, the possibility of relation is endangered too — because a human being builds relation with the patterns he knows.
When it is said of a being that "it resembles nothing", the natural question that arises is: then what has it to do with me?
The verse does not let that question be asked. It puts the answer in advance in the place where the question would be asked.
| Half of the sentence | What it does | Its result |
|---|---|---|
| Laysa ka-mithlihi shayʾ | Putting at a distance — every likeness is removed | The possibility of analogy ends |
| Wa huwa's-samīʿu'l-baṣīr | Drawing near — hearing and seeing | The relation continues |
- Hearing is the receiving of speech. That someone hears when a person calls out is the most basic form of relation.
- Seeing is the receiving of a state. That a person is seen while he is in some condition is the second basic form of relation.
Both are verbs that "turn towards": the one turning is He, the one turned towards is the human being.
I record this as my own reading: the verse balances the distance the transcendence produces not by taking the transcendence back but by declaring the relation in the same sentence. The distance is not removed; what is said is that the distance does not mean disconnection.
| Verse | What puts at a distance | What immediately draws near |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | The heavens on the point of splitting | al-ghafūru'r-raḥīm |
| 11 | Laysa ka-mithlihi shayʾ | al-samīʿu'l-baṣīr |
| 19 | al-qawiyyu'l-ʿazīz (at the end) | Allāhu laṭīfun bi-ʿibādihi (at the beginning) |
| 27 | Provision is sent down by measure | innahu bi-ʿibādihi khabīrun baṣīr |
Note the fourth row: the name baṣīr occurs twice in the sūra, and in both places immediately after a sentence of limitation. This is a fact that can be verified from the text.
This verse has stood at the centre of the debate about the attributes in the history of theology. One side, taking its start from the verse, turned all ascriptions of attributes into figures; another accepted the verse and held the attributes fixed without modality.
No side is taken in this dispute in this commentary. The same note was entered in al-Baqara at 2/255 and in al-Ḥadīd.
What is to be recorded is what the verse itself does: the verse mentions two attributes after denying likeness. The verse's own construction, that is, holds "there is no likeness" and "there are attributes" together. That the text says the two together is the plainest proof that the two do not conflict — and this is what can be said without taking sides.
A human being knows what he does not know by likening it to what he does. This is not a defect but the way the mind works. But it has to stop somewhere.
What this verse sets down is exactly that stopping-place. And the stopping-place does not forbid thinking; it says how far thinking goes.
And its practical consequence is this: when a person's conception of God is left unchecked, sooner or later it begins to resemble him — he carries his own anger, his own partisanship, his own reckoning into it. In al-Ikhlāṣ this was recorded by way of the command qul. Here the same thing is forbidden outright.
But in doing this the verse does not sever the relation either. Someone who hears and sees is still there. Distance is not indifference — and this is the balance that will be carried to the end of the sūra.