Sūrat al-Ḥadīd

Medinan. It consists of twenty-nine verses. (It was revealed after [Sūrat] al-Zalzalah).

In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

1. Everything in the heavens and the earth glorifies God, and He is the Almighty, the All-Wise.

2. To Him belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth. He gives life and causes death, and He is capable of all things.

3. He is the First and the Last, the Manifest and the Hidden, and He is All-Knowing of everything.

4. It is He who created the heavens and the earth in six days, then He established Himself upon the Throne. He knows what penetrates into the earth and what emerges from it, and what descends from the heaven and what ascends therein. He is with you wherever you are, and God is All-Seeing of what you do.

5. To Him belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth, and to God all matters are returned.

6. He causes the night to enter into the day, and He causes the day to enter into the night, and He is All-Knowing of what is within the breasts.

Regarding the opening: It is recorded in some manuscripts as sabbaḥa (past tense), and in others as yusabbiḥu (present tense). Both convey that it is the nature of those to whom glorification is attributed to glorify Him; it is their constant habit and practice.

This verb is sometimes transitive through the particle li (as in sabbaḥa lillāh) and sometimes direct (as in tusabbiḥūhu). Its original form is direct, as the meaning of sabbaḥtuhu is "I distanced him from evil," derived from sabaḥa (to go away/be distant). Thus, the li is either like the li in naṣaḥtuhu and naṣaḥtu lahu (I advised him), or it implies: "He performed glorification for the sake of Allah and for His countenance exclusively."

"Everything in the heavens and the earth": Meaning, everything from which glorification is possible and valid.

Regarding "He gives life" (yuḥyī): If you ask: What is the grammatical position of yuḥyī? I say: It is possible it has no position, being an independent sentence, like His saying: "To Him belongs the dominion of the heavens" (Al-Baqarah: 107). It may also be in the nominative case, implying "He is the one who gives life and causes death," or in the accusative case as a state (ḥāl) from the pronoun in lahu (to Him), with the prepositional phrase acting as the governing agent.

Its meaning: He gives life to sperm, eggs, and the dead on the Day of Resurrection, and He causes the living to die.

"He is the First": The Eternal who existed before all things.

"And the Last": The One who remains after the destruction of all things.

"And the Manifest" (al-Ẓāhir): Manifest through the proofs that indicate Him.

"And the Hidden" (al-Bāṭin): Hidden because He is not perceived by the senses.

Regarding the wāw (conjunctions): The first wāw signifies that He combines the two attributes of Firstness and Lastness. The third wāw signifies that He combines the two attributes of Manifestness and Hiddenness. As for the middle wāw, it signifies that He combines the totality of the first two attributes with the totality of the latter two. Thus, He is the One whose existence is continuous throughout all past and future times, and in all of them, He is both Manifest and Hidden: combining manifestation through proofs with hiddenness, as He is not perceived by the senses. In this is an argument against those who permit the possibility of perceiving Him in the Hereafter through the senses.

It has been said: Al-Ẓāhir means the Exalted over everything, the Overcomer, from the phrase "he appeared over him" (ẓahara ʿalayhi) meaning he rose above and overcame him. And al-Bāṭin means the One who encompasses the interior of everything, i.e., He knows its inner reality. However, this interpretation is weak, as it deviates from the commonly understood meaning of al-Ẓāhir.

"Believe in Allah and His Messenger and spend out of that in which He has made you successors. For those who have believed among you and spent, there will be a great reward. And why do you not believe in Allah while the Messenger invites you to believe in your Lord, and He has taken your covenant, if you should be believers?"