Tafsir of Luqman 31:30

Surah Luqman (30): That is because Allah...

When the Exalted [Allah] mentioned the attributes of perfection, such as:

• His saying: {Indeed, Allah is the Self-Sufficient, the Praiseworthy} (Luqman: 26)
• His saying: {Indeed, Allah is All-Mighty, All-Wise} (Al-Baqarah: 220)
• His saying: {Indeed, Allah is Hearing, Seeing} (Al-Mujadilah: 1)

And He alluded to Will and Perfection with His saying: {And if the words of Allah were to be exhausted} (Luqman: 27), and with His saying: {He causes the night to enter the day} (Luqman: 29).

In general, His saying: {He is the Self-Sufficient (Al-Ghaniyy)} alludes to every negative attribute (i.e., freedom from need). For if He is Self-Sufficient, He is not an accident needing substance for subsistence, nor a body needing space for permanence, nor anything among contingent beings needing a bringer-into-existence.

Following this, He mentioned all the affirmative attributes, explicitly and implicitly. Life is encompassed within Knowledge and Power.

{That is because Allah is the Truth (Al-Haqq)} means that this attribution—being the Truth—is established. The Truth is stability and the established reality. Allah is the Absolute, Unfading Stability.

The correct doctrine is that His existence is distinct from His essence. Everything besides Him is subject to cessation when viewed in relation to Him. Allah, however, possesses stability and existence when viewed in relation to Him. Therefore, He is the Truth, and everything else is falsehood (al-bāṭil), because falsehood is that which ceases (e.g., "his shadow became void/false" when it disappears). Since He possesses stability in every respect, He is perfect, having no deficiency.

Know that the philosophers stated that Allah is perfect (tāmm) and above perfection (fawq al-tamām). They divided things into four categories: deficient, self-sufficient, perfect, and above perfection.

1. The Deficient (An-Nāqiṣ): That which lacks what it ought to have, like a child, a sick person, or a blind person.
2. The Self-Sufficient (Al-Muktafī): That which has what wards off its need at the time, like humans and animals that possess the necessary faculties to meet their needs at that moment, even though these faculties are subject to decay and cessation.
3. The Perfect (At-Tāmm): That which has attained everything possible for it, even if it does not need it, like the Near Angels. They have ranks that neither increase nor decrease, and Allah does not grant them anything beyond that, as Gabriel (peace be upon him) said: "If I were to draw nearer by an inch, I would be burned," due to the Almighty's saying: {And there is none of us except that he has a known station} (As-Saffat: 164).
4. Above Perfection (Fawq At-Tamām): That which has attained everything possible for it, and everything possible or necessary for others has also been attained for it. Allah—Exalted is He—has attained for Himself all possible attributes of perfection and majesty, so He is Perfect (tāmm). And everything possible or necessary for others has been attained for them.

If this is established, we say:

• His saying: {He is the Truth} alludes to His Perfection (at-tamām).
• His saying: {And that Allah is the Most High, the Greatest} means He is above perfection (fawq at-tamām).
• His saying: {And He is the Most High (Al-ʿAlīy)} means in His attributes.
• His saying: {The Greatest (Al-Kabīr)} means in His Essence.

This contradicts the notion that He is a body occupying a space, because if He were a body, He would be limited by a measure, and it would be possible to conceive of something larger than Him, making Him small relative to the conceived thing. However, He is absolutely the Greatest, greater than anything that can be imagined.