al-Ḥadīd 57:4

Huwa'lladhī khalaqa's-samāwāti wa'l-arḍa fī sittati ayyāmin thumma'stawā ʿala'l-ʿarsh; yaʿlamu mā yaliju fi'l-arḍi wa mā yakhruju minhā wa mā yanzilu mina's-samāʾi wa mā yaʿruju fīhā; wa huwa maʿakum ayna mā kuntum; wa'llāhu bimā taʿmalūna baṣīr "It is He who created the heavens and the earth in six days, then took His place upon the Throne. He knows what enters the earth and what comes out of it, what comes down from the sky and what ascends into it. Wherever you may be, He is with you. God sees what you do."

One of the longest verses in the sūra, made up of four separate sentences. The third verse made its description on an abstract plane; this verse builds the same description through movement.

This expression recurs in several places in the Qurʾān and needs attention, because it is very open ground for forced interpretation.

The word يَوْم in Arabic does not mean only "a day of twenty-four hours". The original sense of the root is a stretch of time, a period. The Qurʾān shows this itself: "A day with your Lord is like a thousand years of what you count" (al-Ḥajj 22/47); and in a later verse in the same sūra a day of fifty thousand years is named for the ascent of the angels and the Spirit (al-Maʿārij 70/4).

That is, yawm is a unit whose measure changes with the context. It is also plain that "day" cannot be used in its present-day sense when the sun has not yet been created.

The position taken in this commentary is this: how long the six "days" lasted has not been reported and is not known. To close this indefiniteness and try to match it one-to-one with the periods of modern cosmology or geology is the forced scientific reading that Method forbids. The only thing that must be recorded is this: the verse tells of the creation as a process — not instantaneous but in stages.

And this does not conflict with the expression kun fa-yakūn at al-Baqara 2/117. It was recorded there: kun fa-yakūn says whose the command is, while "six days" says how the process works. Two separate answers to two separate questions.

One of the most debated expressions in the Qurʾān. It occurs in seven places.

استوى — root س-و-ي: to be equal, to be level, to become straight, to be completed. From the same root come sawāʾ (equal), taswiya (levelling), musāwāt (equality), istiwāʾ.

عرش — root ع-ر-ش: to raise, to build a bower. In Arabic ʿarsh answers to a throne, a bower, a high roofed structure. The word is also used as the symbol of sovereignty — indeed the Qurʾān uses the same word for the throne of the queen of Sabaʾ (al-Naml 27/23).

The disagreement is over how the expression is to be understood. The main positions are these:

I take no side in this disagreement. Per the method (Method) no partisanship is exercised in theological disputes, and this is one of the oldest theological divisions in exegesis.

What must be recorded is this:

One. All parties agree on the limit set by al-Shūrā 42/11: however it is understood, no likening to created things may be made.

Two. The context of the verse narrows what the matter is. The sentence comes with thumma (then), and immediately after it the verbs of knowing and seeing are ranged. That is, in the place where the expression stands the subject is not a location but a picture of governance and oversight. This is the strength the taʾwīl view draws from the context; but I do not impose it as a preference.

Three. That this expression should stand in the fourth verse of the sūra, and that "wherever you may be, He is with you" should come immediately after, is meaningful. The verse sets images of distance and nearness side by side: height (the Throne) and being-with (maʿiyya). Like the continuation of the ẓāhir/bāṭin pair in the third verse.

In the middle of the verse there is a list of four verbs, and its symmetry is faultless:

Two pairs, two axes: on the axis of the earth, going in and coming out; on the axis of the sky, coming down and going up. Note this — it is the same two-axis structure as in the third verse, but built this time with verbs. There a state was reported; here, movement.

ولج — root و-ل-ج: to go into a narrow place, to slip in. This root will recur in the verses that follow (57/6) and I shall take it up in detail there.

عرج — root ع-ر-ج: to go up a sloping road, to climb. From the same root come miʿrāj (a means of ascent, a ladder) and maʿārij (ways of ascent); this is the name of Sūrat al-Maʿārij. The concrete sense of the word also carries limping, going lame (aʿraj: lame) — because walking on a sloping road is not level.

The function of the list is this: the four verbs count every direction of movement possible on the earth and in the sky. The seed going into the soil, the shoot coming out, the rain coming down, the vapour going up — all are within these four verbs. And likewise: something hidden being kept hidden, and coming to light; a revelation coming down, a deed going up.

And all four of these verbs are imperfect: happening now, continuously, again and again.

One of the most quoted sentences of the sūra, and one of those that must be read most carefully.

مَعَ — an adverb conveying accompaniment. The English "with", "together with", "beside".

At al-Baqara 2/115 — "wherever you turn, there is the face of God" — a note was entered, and that note holds here exactly, and is indeed more necessary:

What the verse says: there is no place that can be kept outside God's knowledge, oversight and disposal. Wherever you may be.

What the verse does not say: that God is beside you in place, corporeally. Maʿiyya (being with) is used in Arabic outside physical juxtaposition as well — and in the Qurʾān it is used so for the most part.

The text itself shows this. At the beginning of the same verse God's istiwāʾ upon the Throne is spoken of; at the end it says "He sees what you do". That is, the sentence places the being-with within a frame of knowledge and oversight, not within a frame of place.

Indeed this becomes clear when the Qurʾān's uses of maʿiyya are examined:

• "Do not fear; I am with you both, hearing and seeing" (Ṭāhā 20/46) — to Moses (Mūsā) and Aaron (Hārūn) as they go to Pharaoh. The content of the being-with is explained immediately afterwards: hearing and seeing.
• "Do not grieve; God is with us" (al-Tawba 9/40) — in the cave. Here the being-with is a promise of protection.
• "Wherever they may be, He is with them" (al-Mujādala 58/7) — and that verse comes in a context that speaks of secret conversations. The being-with is again in the sense of knowledge.

In the classical commentaries this is called maʿiyya ʿilmiyya (being-with in knowledge) and is widely adopted for the general verses of being-with. A further distinction is made, of maʿiyya khāṣṣa (a particular being-with) — in verses such as "God is with the patient", the being-with is in the sense of help and support.

This distinction also accounts for two readings of the verse:

The context brings the first reading forward, because the sentence closes with "God sees what you do" and this part of the sūra is preparing a demand for spending. But the second reading does not run against the text either, and it is plainly present elsewhere in the Qurʾān. The two do not cancel one another.

And this must be said: the strength of this sentence lies in its carrying both readings at once. "You are seen" and "you are not alone" are two faces of the same sentence. Which of them weighs more is determined by the state of the one who reads.

بصير — root ب-ص-ر: to see, but especially to see discerningly. From the same root comes baṣīra (inner sight, discernment). The Qurʾān uses this root for blindness (rather than aʿmā) and says "the eyes do not go blind; it is the hearts within the breasts that go blind" (al-Ḥajj 22/46).

In the sentence there is again a fronting: bimā taʿmalūn (what you do) has come before the verb. This puts the emphasis on the object: it is what you do in particular that He sees.

And the verse closes from a striking place. From the beginning up to here the subject has been cosmic — the heavens, the earth, six days, the Throne, the things that come down and go up. In the last sentence the scale suddenly narrows and the subject becomes what you did today.

This narrowing is an instance of the sūra's method: the large picture is built, then the one addressed is placed inside the picture. The command in the seventh verse is the consequence of this narrowing.