causes laughter and weeping and grants wealth and possessions. He is the One who sends the winds as heralds of His mercy and sends down water from the sky, reviving the earth after its death and spreading throughout it creatures of every kind. He is
“the One who created the heavens and the earth and made darkness and light; yet those who disbelieve equate others with their Lord.”
“Whoever Allah wills to guide, He opens his heart to Islam; and whoever He wills to lead astray, He makes his heart tight and constricted, as though he were climbing into the sky. Thus Allah places defilement upon those who do not believe.”
“He is Allah; there is no deity worthy of worship except Him. To Him belongs all praise in this life and the Hereafter. His is the judgement, and to Him you will be returned.”
He is the Ever-Living, the Sustainer of all, whom neither drowsiness nor sleep overtakes. He upholds justice and watches over every soul and what it earns. He is the Creator, the Originator, the Fashioner.
“There is no creature on earth whose provision does not rest with Allah.”
What Allah has willed! There is no power except through Allah. Whatever Allah wills comes to pass, and whatever He does not will does not come to pass. There is neither might nor power except through Allah, and there is no refuge from Him except with Him.
These meanings, and others like them, concern His Lordship, sovereignty, creation, provision, guidance, aid, beneficence, kindness, governance and workmanship. Connected with these is the fact that He knows all things and has power over all things, and that He is All-Hearing, All-Seeing. Hearing one thing does not distract Him from hearing another; requests do not confound Him, nor does He grow weary of those who persist in their pleas. He sees the black ant crawling across a solid rock in the darkness of night.
All of this is true, and it is the pure affirmation of His oneness in His Lordship. Along with this, He has given each thing its form and then guided it; He has made everything He created excellent and began the creation of man from clay.