Imam Aĥmad ibn Ĥanbal relates on the authority of `Alī, the Prophet’s cousin and Companion, that the Prophet loved this sūrah. The famous Ĥadīth anthologist, Muslim, also relates that the Prophet used to read this sūrah and Sūrah 88, The Enveloper, in `Īd prayers and also in Friday prayers. If one of the festivals fell on a Friday, the Prophet would be sure to read these two sūrahs in the prayers.

The Prophet is right to love this sūrah as it turns the whole universe into a temple whose four corners echo the praises and glorification of God, the Sublime. “Extol the limitless glory of the name of your Lord, the Most High, who creates and proportions well, who determines and guides, who brings forth the pasturage, then turns it to withered grass.” (Verses 1-5) The rhythm of the sūrah, characterized by the long vowels with which each of its verses ends, imparts a feeling of the praises echoed everywhere in the universe.

The Prophet is also right to love this sūrah as it brings him good news. As God charges him with the double task of delivering His message and warning people, He promises him: “We shall teach you and you shall not forget, except what God wills. He knows what is manifest and what is kept hidden. And We shall smooth your way to perfect ease. Give warning, therefore, [regardless of] whether such warning is of use.” (Verses 6-9) o God takes upon Himself the responsibility of making His Messenger not forget anything of the Qur’ān. He also promises that his path will be smoothed in all his affairs, whether they are personal or concerned with his message. This is certainly a great favour.

Again, the Prophet is right to love this sūrah as it includes the basic ingredients of the Islamic concept of life and existence: the oneness of the Creator; the reality of divine revelation; and the certainty of the life to come with the reward and punishment it involves. The sūrah also affirms that these basic principles have well- established roots in earlier divine messages. “All this has indeed been stated in the earlier revelations; the scriptures of Abraham and Moses.” (Verses 18-19) All this is in addition to the impression it imparts of the easy nature of the Islamic ideology, the Messenger who conveys it, and the nation it builds.

“Extol the limitless glory of the name of your Lord, the Most High, who creates and proportions well, who determines and guides, who brings forth the pasturage, then turns it to withered grass.” (Verses 1-5) The sūrah opens with an order to praise the Lord, which means to glorify Him, recognize His supremacy and infallibility in everything, and remember His divine attributes. It is much more than verbal repetition of the phrase ‘Subĥān Allah’, which we normally translate as ‘limitless is God in His glory.’ It is a genuine feeling of the sublimity of His attributes.

As the sūrah inspires us with the splendour of a life based on constant appreciation of divine attributes, we experience a feeling which is very real and very difficult to describe at the same time.

The two immediately presented attributes are Lordship and Highness. The “Lord” or the Arabic equivalent, Rabb, is the one who tends and nurtures. The connotations of this attribute fit in very well with the general atmosphere of the sūrah, the happy news it brings and its easy rhythm. The ‘Highness’ attribute prompts one to look up to endless horizons. Having a genuinely vivid feeling of this attribute is indeed the essential purpose of praising God and glorifying Him.

The sūrah opens with an order addressed by God to the Prophet in the first instance: “Extol the limitless glory of the name of your Lord, the Most High.” (Verse 1) The order is given with an air of friendliness and compassion almost beyond description.

Whenever the Prophet read this sūrah he used to fulfil this order promptly by stopping after the first verse to say: “Limitless in his glory is my Lord, the Most High”. Thus, he would receive the order, carry it out promptly and read on. When this sūrah was revealed the Prophet told the Muslims to fulfil the divine order as they prostrated themselves in their daily prayers. Similarly he told them to carry out the other order to ‘Extol the limitless glory of the name of your Lord, the Most Great,’ (56: 96)

as they bowed in prayer. These praises, warm with life, have been included in the prayers as a direct response to a direct order, or more precisely to a direct permission. For God’s permission to His servants to praise Him is one of the favours He has bestowed on them. It is a permission to them to be in contact with Him in a way, given their limited abilities, they can appreciate. He, out of His grace, has permitted them to do this so that they may know Him and His attributes as best they can.

“Extol the limitless glory of the name of your Lord, the Most High, who creates and proportions well, who determines and guides.” (Verses 1-3) Everything God has created is well proportioned and perfected. Every creature is assigned its own role and given guidance so that it may know its role and play it. It is told the purpose of its creation, given what it needs for sustenance and guided to it. This is clearly visible in everything around us, large or small, important or trivial. For everything is well perfected and guided to fulfil the purpose of its creation. Furthermore, all things are also collectively perfected so that they may fulfil their role together.

A single atom is well balanced between its electrons and protons, to the same degree as the solar system, its sun, planets and satellites are well balanced. Each of the two knows the way it is assigned to travel and fulfils its role. A single living cell is also perfect and well equipped to do everything it is asked to do, in the same measure as the most advanced and complex species. This perfect balance, in the individual and collective sense, is easily noticed in every one of the countless types of creation that fill the gap between the single atom and the solar system or between the single cell and the most advanced living creature.

This basic fact, evidenced by everything in the universe, is well recognized by the human heart as it contemplates what is in the universe. This sort of inspiration and recognition is within the reach of every man in every age, regardless of his standard of education. All that is required is an open mind which contemplates and responds.

Increased knowledge then endorses and emphasizes, with numerous examples, what inspiration has already proven at first glance. The results of study and research endorse, within their limited scope, this basic truth which applies to everything in the universe.

The American scientist, A. Cressy Morrison, Head of the Science Academy in New York, says in his book Man Does Not Stand Alone:

Birds have the homing instinct. The robin that nested at your door may go south in the autumn, but will come back to his old nest the next spring. In September, flocks of many of our birds fly south, often over a thousand miles of open sea, but they do not lose their way. The homing pigeon, confused by new sounds on a long journey in a closed box, circles for a moment then heads almost unerringly for home. The bee finds its hive while the wind waving the grasses and trees blots out every visible guide to its whereabouts.

This homing sense is slightly developed in man, but he supplements his meagre equipment with instruments of navigation. We need this instinct and our brain provides the answer. The tiny insects must have microscopic eyes, how perfect we do not know, and the hawks, the eagle and the condor must have telescopic vision. Here again man surpasses them with his mechanical instruments. With his telescope he can see a nebula so faint that it requires two million times his vision, and with the electron microscope he can see hitherto invisible bacteria and, so to speak, the little bugs that bite them.

If you let old Dobbin alone he will keep to the road in the blackest night. He can see, dimly perhaps, but he notes the difference in temperature of the road and the sides with eyes that are slightly affected by the infra-red rays of the road. The owl can see the nice warm mouse as he runs in the cooler grass in the blackest night. We turn night into day by creating radiation in that short octave we call light. 12

The honey-bee workers make chambers of different sizes in the comb used for breeding. Small chambers are constructed for the workers, larger ones for the drones, and special chambers for the prospective queens. The queen bee lays unfertilized eggs in the cells designed for males, but lays fertilized eggs in the proper chambers for the female workers and the possible queens. The workers, who are the modified females, having long since anticipated the coming of the new generation, are also prepared to furnish food for the young bees by chewing and predigesting honey and pollen. They discontinue the process of chewing, including the predigesting, at a certain stage of the development of the males and females, and feed only honey and pollen. The females so treated become the workers.

As the beginning of the sūrah opens up this limitless horizon, it provides a framework for the fundamental facts tackled in this sūrah to be related to the whole universe. This framework is especially suitable, for it is in perfect harmony with the atmosphere of the sūrah, its rhythm and shades of meaning.

The sūrah then gives the Prophet, and the Muslim nation in general, a very welcome tiding: “We shall teach you and you shall not forget, except what God wills. He knows what is manifest and what is kept hidden. And We shall smooth your way to perfect ease. Give warning, therefore, [regardless of] whether such warning is of use.” (Verses 6-9)

The happy news starts with sparing the Prophet the trouble of memorizing the Qur’ān. All he needs to do is to read as he is taught and God will ensure that he will never forget any part of it. “We shall teach you and you shall not forget.” (Verse 6) So keen to keep the Qur’ān in his memory, the Prophet used to repeat it after Gabriel, the angel, delivered it to him. He felt that it was part of his responsibility to keep it registered in his mind. But God decided that He would look after this task. The promise is also a happy one for the Islamic community, since it is a reassurance that the faith the Prophet preaches is authentic. It is from God and He looks after it. This is part of God’s grace. It shows how weighty the question of purity of faith is in His scales.

Every time the Qur’ān states a definite promise or constant law, it follows it with a statement implying that divine will is free of all limitations and restrictions, even those based on a promise or law from God. For His will is absolute. Here, the sūrah emphasizes this principle after the promise is made to the Prophet that he will never forget any part of the Qur’ān: “except what God wills.” (Verse 7) The two are complementary in the sense that the promise is within divine will. So we look forward to God’s fulfilment of what He has willed to promise.

“He knows what is manifest and what is kept hidden.” (Verse 7) This is stated here by way of giving a reason for all that has passed: teaching to read, freedom from forgetfulness and the exception made to it. Everything is decided according to the wisdom of the One who knows the secret and the manifest. He views everything from all angles and makes His decisions on the basis of His unfailing knowledge.

Then follows another promise, happy and all-embracing: “And We shall smooth your way to perfect ease.” (Verse 8) This is again happy news for the Prophet personally and for the Muslim community at large. It is furthermore a statement of the nature of Islam, its role in human life and in the universe. This verse, which is rendered in Arabic in no more than two words, states one of the most fundamental principles of faith and existence. It provides a link between the nature of the Prophet and the nature of Islam on the one hand and the nature of the whole universe on the other. It is a universe created by God with ease; it follows its appointed way with ease and draws nearer its final objective with ease. Thus it is an inspiration lighting limitless horizons.

Such was the Prophet in all affairs. His wife, `Ā’ishah, reports that “whenever faced with a choice, the Prophet would always choose the easier of the two alternatives.” [Related by al-Bukhārī and Muslim.] She also reports: “Whenever the Prophet was alone with his family at home, he was the easiest of men, always smiling and laughing.” Al-Bukhārī also relates: “Any woman would take the Prophet by the hand to take him wherever she wished.” His guidance in matters of clothing, food, household furniture and other matters of day to day life pointed to a preference for what is easy.

Imām Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah speaks in his book, Zād al-Ma`ād, of the Prophet’s guidance concerning what to wear:

He had a turban which he gave to `Alī as a gift, but he used to wear it over a cap. But he also wore either the turban or the cap separately. When he wore the turban, however, he used to leave the end part of it hanging between his shoulders. This is related by Muslim in his Şahīĥ anthology of authentic aĥādīth, on the authority of `Umar ibn Ĥarīth, who said, ‘I saw the Prophet speaking on the platform of the mosque, wearing a black turban with its end hanging between his shoulders’. Muslim also relates on the authority of Jābir ibn `Abdullāh that the Prophet entered Makkah wearing a black turban, but nothing is mentioned here about his leaving its end part hanging. This signifies that the Prophet did not always leave the tail of his turban hanging between his shoulders. It is also said that the Prophet entered Makkah wearing his fighting attire, with a helmet on his head, which suggests that he used to wear what suited the occasion.22

The best method, it is true, is that followed by the Prophet and which he encouraged his Companions to adopt. His guidance regarding clothes is, in short, that he used to wear whatever was available, whether woollen, cotton, linen or other types of material. He used Yemeni gowns and had a green gown. He also used different types of dress such as overcoat, long robe, shirts, trousers, top gown, sandals and shoes. He left the end of his turban hanging between his shoulders on occasions, and not on other occasions.23

On food, the Prophet’s guidance gives a similar message:

The Prophet never refused what was available at home, nor did he ever go out of his way to get what was not. He would eat whatever was served of good food and he never slighted any sort of food whatsoever. If he did not like something he would simply not eat it, but would not forbid it. An example of his attitude is the case of lizard, which he would not eat without forbidding others to eat it. On the contrary, he was present when others ate it at his own table.

He liked sweets and honey, used to eat dates, fresh and preserved... drank milk, pure and mixed, added water to ice and honey and drank a drink made from dates. He also ate khazīrah, which is a thick soup made of milk and flour.

He ate cucumber with fresh dates, butter, dates with bread, bread with vinegar, bread with meat, dried meat, a dish called dubbā’ (which was one of his favourites), boiled meat, rice and meat cooked with fat, cheese, bread with oil, water melon with fresh dates, and he used to like dates cooked with butter. In short, he never refused good food, nor did he go to any trouble to get it. His guidance was to eat what was available. If he did not have anything to eat, he would simply go hungry, etc.24

The Prophet’s life story is composed of pages of gentility, ease, tolerance and understanding in all affairs. Let us quote here an incident which reveals his method of dealing with people of difficult temperament: “Once a bedouin came to the Prophet asking something. The Prophet granted his request then said, ‘Have I treated you well?’ The bedouin said, ‘No, and you have not been kind either!’ The Prophet’s Companions present felt very angry and wanted to punish the man. The Prophet, however, motioned them to leave him alone. He then went into his house, sent for the man and gave him something over and above his original request. He then asked him: ‘Have I treated you well?’ The man said: ‘Yes, indeed. May God reward you well for you are a good kinsman and a good tribesman.’ The Prophet then said to him: ‘When you said what you said you made my Companions feel angry with you.

Would you now like to tell them what you have just told me so that they hold nothing against you.’ The man said: ‘I will.’ The following day he came and the Prophet said: ‘This bedouin said yesterday what you heard. We gave him more and he claimed that he was satisfied. Is that so?’ The bedouin said: ‘Yes indeed! May God reward you well, for you are a good kinsman and a good tribesman.’ The Prophet then said to his Companions: ‘My affair with this bedouin is similar to that of a man who had a she-camel which ran loose. Other people rushed to try to catch her but they managed only to make her run wild. The owner then appealed to them to let him alone with his she-camel as he was gentler to her and knew her temperament.

The owner then went towards her, having picked something to feed her with. He approached her gently until she responded and sat down. He then saddled her and mounted her back. Had I left you alone when the man said what he said, you would probably have killed him and he would have gone to hell.” So gentle, simple and compassionate was the Prophet’s attitude towards any person of rough nature. Examples of this attitude abound in the records of his life.

These examples are practical manifestations of how his path was smoothed for him to achieve perfect ease in every aspect of life. He was given a tolerant, understanding nature so that he might carry out his mission as God’s Messenger to mankind. In this way his nature and the nature of Islam, the message he carried and delivered, are alike. He was able, with God’s grace, to fulfil the great task with which he was entrusted. For when his path was smoothed, the heavy burden of his mission became an enjoyable sport.

The Qur’ān carries descriptions of Muĥammad, God’s Messenger, and the role assigned to him: “We have sent you forth only as a mercy to mankind.” (21: 107) “Those who follow the Messenger, the unlettered Prophet whom they shall find described in the Torah and the Gospel that are with them. He commands them to do what is right and forbids them to do what is wrong, and makes lawful to them the good things of life and forbids them all that is foul. He lifts from them their burdens and the shackles that weigh upon them.” (7: 157) As the Qur’ān states, Muĥammad (peace be upon him) was a messenger bringing mercy to mankind, lifting their burdens which were imposed on them when they sought to make things hard.

“Give warning, therefore, [regardless of] whether such warning is of use.” (Verse 9) God has taught the Prophet so as not to forget, smoothed his way to perfect ease so that he may be able to discharge his great task of warning mankind. For this he has been the subject of careful preparation. Hence, he is asked to warn whenever he has a chance to address people and to convey to them God’s message.

“Regardless of whether such warning is of use.” Warning is always useful. There will always be, in every land and every generation, those who will listen to the reminders and warnings and will benefit by them, no matter how corrupt their society is and how hardened their people are.

If we ponder a little over the verses in this sūrah and their sequence, we realize how great the message entrusted to the Prophet is. To deliver it, and to give the warnings he is asked to give, he needs special equipment: a smooth way to perfect ease in everything, to be taught what to say, and God’s preservation of the message intact.

Once the Prophet has delivered his message, his task is fulfilled. Everyone is left to choose his way. Destinies differ according to the choice of ways people follow: “He who fears God will heed it, but the most hapless wretch will turn aside from it, who shall be cast into the great fire, in which he shall neither die nor remain alive. Successful will be he who purifies himself and glorifies the name of his Lord and prays.” (Verses 10-15) The Prophet is told here that his warnings will benefit those who fear God and dread to incur His displeasure. Any intelligent person will shudder when he learns that there is a Creator who proportions well, determines and guides. For he realizes that such a Creator must hold everyone responsible for their actions, good or evil, and will reward them accordingly. Hence they fear Him and heed the warnings they are given.

“But the most hapless wretch will turn aside from it.” (Verse 11) If a man does not listen to the warning given, then he is absolutely “the most hapless wretch.” He lives in a void, uninspired by the facts surrounding him, turning a deaf ear and a senseless mind to the evidence they give. Such a person lives in constant worry, striving hard to attain the paltry pleasures of this world. Hence he is the most wretched in this life.

But he is also the most wretched in the hereafter as he will there suffer endless torment: He “shall be cast into the great fire, in which he shall neither die nor remain alive.” (Verses 12-13) The great fire is that of hell. It is indeed the greatest of all fires in intensity, duration and size. He who suffers it finds it endless. He neither dies to rest from its torment, nor does he live in it a life of rest and security. It is an unending agony which makes the sufferer yearn for death as his greatest hope.

At the other end we find prosperity accompanied with self- purification and a heeding of warnings: “Successful will be he who purifies himself and glorifies the name of his Lord and prays.” (Verses 14-15) Purification is used here in the widest sense of the word: purification from everything filthy or sinful. The person who seeks to purify himself, glorifies his Lord, feels His power and majesty in his inmost soul and prays, [whether praying is taken in its general sense or its specific Islamic sense] will definitely be successful, as God states here. He will achieve success here in this life as he enjoys his relationship with God and the perfect bliss that results from his glorification of God. He will achieve even greater success in the hereafter as he escapes hell and is rewarded with perfect happiness in heaven. How different the two destinies are.