Surat al-Hadid is a Madinan surah consisting of twenty-nine verses (1).

In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Compassionate.

“Whatever is in the heavens and the earth glorifies Allah, and He is the Almighty, the All-Wise. To Him belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth. He gives life and causes death, and He is fully capable of all things. He is the First and the Last, the Manifest and the Hidden, and He has full knowledge of all things.”

“Whatever is in the heavens and the earth glorifies Allah, and He is the Almighty, the All-Wise. He is the First and the Last, the Manifest and the Hidden”: that is, He is “the First,” before all things, without a beginning: He existed when nothing else existed. He is “the Last,” after all things have perished, without end: things perish while He remains. He is “the Manifest,” the Dominant, the Exalted above all things; and “the Hidden,” the Knower of all things. This is the meaning given by Ibn ‘Abbas.

Yaman said: “He is the First,” the Eternal; “the Last,” the Merciful; “the Manifest,” the Forbearing; and “the Hidden,” the All-Knowing.

Al-Suddi said: He is the First through His goodness, when He made His oneness known to you; the Last through His generosity, when He made repentance known to you for what you have committed; the Manifest through His granting of success, when He enabled you to prostrate to Him; and the Hidden through His concealment, when you disobeyed Him and He concealed your sin.

Al-Junayd said: He is the First by opening hearts, the Last by forgiving sins, the Manifest by relieving distresses, and the Hidden through His knowledge of the unseen. ‘Umar—may Allah be pleased with him—asked Ka‘b about this verse, and he replied: “Its meaning is that His knowledge of the first is like His knowledge of the last, and His knowledge of the manifest is like His knowledge of the hidden.”