Tafsir of Al-Mulk 67:14

This is a denial and negation of the absence of His knowledge—exalted be His majesty—of those two things [the secret and the public]. The "one who created" is the agent of "knows"; meaning, does not the One who brought all things into existence by His wisdom know the secret and the public, which are among those things?

His saying, "And He is the Subtle, the Aware," is a circumstantial qualifier (ḥāl) for the agent of "knows," emphasizing the denial and negation. It means: Does He not know that, while He is the One whose knowledge reaches what is manifest of His creation and what is hidden? It is also said that it is a circumstantial qualifier for the agent of "created," but the first is more apparent.

The object of "knows" is determined as you have heard, and the verb is not treated as belonging to the category of yu‘ṭā and yumna‘ (passive construction) due to the presence of this circumstantial qualifier, as has been said. For if you were to say, "Does not the one who is the Creator, while He is the Subtle, the Aware, have knowledge?", it would not result in a sound meaning because the denial in "Does He not know?" is contingent upon the state, and a thing does not define itself; thus, one does not say, "Does He not know while He is knowing?", but rather, "Does He not know such-and-such while He is the Knower of all things?"

An objection was raised against this: "The Subtle" (al-Laṭīf) is the one who knows the hidden things, so the meaning would be, "Does He not know while He is the Knower of hidden things?"—which is coherent. The reply is that "Does He not know" is not of that category; rather, it is—according to what al-Sakkākī established—encompassing within the rhetorical context. "The Subtle, the Aware" is the one whose knowledge reaches what is manifest of His creation and what is hidden; thus, they are equal in encompassment and scope.

This was countered by the argument that encompassment is not necessary, as al-Zamakhsharī mentioned regarding the verse: “And when he arrived at the water of Madyan...” Even if it were granted, the perspective is different, for the generality derived from the second is not the generality derived from the first. "Subtlety" (al-luṭf) pertains specifically to knowledge of the hidden, and knowledge of the manifest follows by way of implication. Furthermore, al-Ghazālī considered in the concept of "The Subtle," alongside knowledge of the hidden, the path of gentleness in delivering what is beneficial to them; thus, it is not redundant with "The Aware," based on the latter also being the Knower of hidden things.

The reason for the need for estimation [of the object], as some of the Imams stated, is that His saying, "Does He not know?" is a concluding statement following the ‘illah (causation) in His saying: “Indeed, He is All-Knowing of that within the breasts.” Thus, the meaning is connected to say: Does He not know this hidden thing—I mean what you say secretly—or does He not know your secret and your public, He who knows the subtleties of the hidden and the major things, their summaries and their details? If it were said, "Does not the one who is thus, possess profound knowledge?" it would not be well-connected and would suffer from deficiency and shortcoming.

It is permissible that "the one" (man) is the object of "created"—a view preferred by Abū Ḥayyān—meaning: Does He not know His creation, while this is His state? The first view is prioritized because it involves placing the noun in the place of the pronoun referring to the Lord, which is more indicative of the omitted object—namely, the secret and the public—and the generalization of the creation, which encompasses them primarily. For this reason, they estimated [the meaning as] "He who created all things" to indicate that the omission of the object is for the sake of generalization.