—and that He is the Preserver of the heavens and all they contain, and of the earth and all it contains, sustaining them through mighty causes, a faultless system, and a wondrous ordering.
“He is al-ʿAliyy, the Most High”: exalted in His essence above all His creatures, exalted in His greatness and attributes, exalted in His dominance over His creation. Before Him faces are humbled, necks bow, what is formidable becomes meek, and every existing thing submits. Transcendent is He—how sublime is His majesty!
“He is al-ʿAẓīm (255), the All-Great,” who gathers within Himself every attribute of grandeur and magnificence, glory and splendor. He is the beloved, venerated One, the generous and exalted.
A verse that contains such lofty meanings, praiseworthy divine attributes, and majestic Lordly knowledge is indeed the greatest verse in the Book of Allah. Speech gains honor and weight from the nobility and magnitude of the meanings it conveys; and the knowledge of Allah—His sublime attributes and beautiful names—is the most noble of sciences and the loftiest of branches of knowledge.
Those who truly know Allah, whose hearts are receptive, perceive from this mighty verse and others like it in the Book of Allah—verses that set out His names and attributes—what others cannot perceive.
- As for Sūrah al-Ikhlāṣ, many authentic ḥadiths attest to its virtue; we can cite here only a few. In Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī (5015), on the authority of Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī (may Allah be pleased with him), the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said to his Companions: “Is any one of you incapable of reciting a third of the Qur’an in a single night?” They said, “Who among us could manage that, O Messenger of Allah?” He replied, “Allāh al-Wāḥid al-Ṣamad—‘Say: He is Allah, the One…’—is equal to one third of the Qur’an.”
And in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim (811), on the authority of Abū al-Dardāʾ, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “Allah has divided the Qur’an into three parts, and He has made ‘Say: He is Allah, the One’ (112:1) one of those parts.”
- Shaykh al-Islām said: As for the question concerning the meaning of this equivalence, despite the sharing in