and grant him peace—to his right and to his left, until I saw the pulpit shaking from its very base, so much so that I was saying: “Will it collapse with the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, upon it?”

This hadith is related in the Sahīh, the Musnad collections, and elsewhere, in wordings that corroborate one another. In one version, the narrator said that he recited upon the pulpit:

“The whole earth will be in His grasp on the Day of Resurrection”—the verse [al-Zumar: 67].

He said: “Folded up in His palm, He tosses it as a boy tosses a ball.” Another wording states: “The Compeller will take His heavens and His earth in His hand and place them in His palm. Then He will move them like this, as children do with a ball, saying: ‘I am Allah, the One!’”

Ibn ‘Abbās said: “Allah grasps them both, so that you cannot see their edges in His hand.” In another wording reported from him: “The seven heavens and the seven earths, all that is within them and all that is between them, are in the hand of the Most Merciful no more than a mustard seed in the hand of one of you.” These reports are well known in the books of hadith.

In the two Sahīh collections, ‘Abdullāh ibn Mas‘ūd said:

“A Jewish man came to the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and said: ‘O Muhammad, Allah places the heavens on one finger, the earths on one finger, the mountains on one finger, the water and soil on one finger, and the rest of creation on one finger. Then He shakes them and says: “I am the King! I am the King!”’”

He said: “The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, laughed until his molar teeth became visible, affirming the rabbi’s words. Then he recited:

‘They have not esteemed Allah as He deserves. The whole earth will be in His grasp on the Day of Resurrection, and the heavens will be folded up in His right hand’—the verse [al-Zumar: 67].”

This verse and the widely transmitted authentic hadiths explaining it—which the scholars have unanimously deemed authentic and received with acceptance—make clear that the heavens, the earth, and all that is between them are, in comparison with the greatness of Allah Most High, so small that they are