إِنَّا كُلَّ شَىْءٍ خَلَقْنَٰهُ بِقَدَرٍ
كُلَّ شَىْءٍ is in the accusative (kulla, with fatḥa). Yet the verb already has an object: khalaqnā-hu — the pronoun hu at the end.
There are thus two objects in the sentence: once as an explicit noun brought forward (kulla shayʾin), and once as a pronoun attached to the verb (hu).
This is the structure Arabic calls ishtighāl: the noun brought forward is counted the object of an elided verb and stays in the accusative; then the same object is repeated by a pronoun. Its function is emphasis.
The word has also been read as كُلُّ (kullu, with ḍamma). On that reading the structure of the sentence changes: kullu shayʾin becomes the subject and khalaqnāhu bi-qadar the predicate.
| Reading | Structure | Its English rendering |
|---|---|---|
| كُلَّ (accusative) | Ishtighāl — object of an elided verb | "We — everything — We created it by a measure" |
| كُلُّ (nominative) | Subject + predicate | "Everything — We created it by a measure" |
Since I cannot state with certainty which reading belongs to which imām, I write no names. The accusative reading is the widespread one.
And there is a theological debate here. In the classical period the question of divine decree was entered by way of the grammatical structure of this verse; it was argued that the accusative reading makes the scope complete (nothing is left outside), while a limitation might be read into the nominative.
This commentary takes no side in theology. The same note was made in al-Ḥāqqa and al-Fajr. One further thing outside our task must also be stated: the question of divine decree cannot be settled under this verse, and it is not attempted here. Below I look only at what the word says.
Root: ق-د-ر. And this root was treated in detail in al-Qadr in its three senses. The table there was this:
| Sense | Which aspect of the night in Sūrat al-Qadr |
|---|---|
| Measure / determining | What was done |
| Worth / honour | What it accomplished |
| Narrowness / fullness | What it was filled with |
And in the section on al-Qadr precisely this verse was adduced as the evidence for the first sense: "We have created everything according to a measure (bi-qadar) (al-Qamar 54/49)." The same verse was also cited in the same context in al-Mursalāt, al-Aʿlā and al-Ḥadīd.
| al-Qadr 97/1-5 | al-Qamar 54/49 | |
|---|---|---|
| Form of the word | ٱلْقَدْر — a definite noun | قَدَر — indefinite, with bi- |
| What it names | A night | The quality of the creating |
| How many senses are at work | All three — shown in the section on al-Qadr | One only: measure/quantity |
| The word's place in the sentence | Second term of an annexation (laylatu'l-qadr) | An accusative of state / a qualifier (bi-qadar) |
| The power branch of the root | The sense qudra is attached to the night indirectly | It comes with a separate word: muqtadir (42, 55) |
In Sūrat al-Qadr the three branches of the root were gathered into a single word; the word's polysemy was a density. In al-Qamar the root is divided into branches:
The sūra has distributed the two aspects of the root, that is, over two separate words. For this reason there is no ambiguity in how the word qadar is to be read in verse forty-nine: the sūra itself has given the sense of power to another word.
This makes it easier to read verse forty-nine independently of the debate about divine decree — and that is what this commentary does here.
"Everything with Him is by a measure (bi-miqdār)." (al-Raʿd 13/8) "There is nothing whose stores are not with Us; and We send it down only in a known measure." (al-Ḥijr 15/21) — cited in al-Ḥadīd. "He created everything and determined it by a measure (fa-qaddarahu taqdīrā)." (al-Furqān 25/2)
Verse forty-nine turns a theme the sūra has been building from the start into a sentence of rule. The table below gathers the expressions in the sūra that convey measure and number:
| Verse | Expression | What is measured |
|---|---|---|
| 3 | kullu amrin mustaqirr | Where every matter arrives |
| 12 | ʿalā amrin qad qudir | The flood's having been decreed |
| 19 | fī yawmi naḥsin mustamirr | The day of the destruction |
| 27-28 | qismatun baynahum · kullu shirbin muḥtaḍar | The water's share and turn |
| 31 | ṣayḥatan wāḥidatan | The number of the penalty: one |
| 34 | bi-saḥarin | The hour of the rescue |
| 38 | ṣabbaḥahum bukratan | The hour of the destruction |
| 49 | kulla shayʾin khalaqnāhu bi-qadar | The measure of everything |
| 50 | illā wāḥidatun ka-lamḥin bi'l-baṣar | The number and duration of the command |
| 53 | kullu ṣaghīrin wa kabīrin mustaṭar | The scope of the record |
From beginning to end the sūra gives measures: day, hour, number, share, turn, duration. And in verse forty-nine it says where these come from.
I record this as my own reading. The wording of the verses in the table can be verified; gathering the table under one theme is my reading.
It is possible to read the word's sense of "measure" in a practical place, independently of the theological debate, and I record this as an observation.
The expression بِقَدَرٍ says that the quantity of a thing is determined. And a thing whose quantity is determined has two features: it is limited and it is sufficient.
Limited — because it has been measured; it is not infinite. Sufficient — because it was given not at random but cut to size.
Its counterpart in a person's own life is the fact that resources and spans are limited: time is measured, strength is measured, opportunity is measured. The verse names this not as a lack but as an order.
This is not the sort of dressing-up of a verse in modern knowledge that Method forbids; it follows directly from the lexical sense of the word. And I record it not as a definite ruling but as a reading.