people’s hearts.

“Allah and His Messenger know best”: attributing knowledge to the Messenger ﷺ is proper only during his earthly life; after his death one should say simply, “Allah knows best.”

“The thickness of each heaven”: the word kathf refers to its thickness and solidity.

Overall meaning of the ḥadīth: The Prophet ﷺ informs us about the higher created realms—their immensity, vastness, and the great distances that separate their bodies. He states that the heavens are seven layers, one above the other; that the height of the first heaven above the earth is a journey of five hundred years; that the gap between every two successive heavens is five hundred years; that the thickness of each heaven is likewise five hundred years; that above the seventh heaven is the kursī (Footstool); above the Footstool is a sea, the distance between them being five hundred years, and the depth of that sea equalling the distance between heaven and earth; above the sea is the Throne, and Allah is above the Throne—nothing of the deeds of the children of Adam is hidden from Him.

Relevance of these two ḥadīths to the chapter: they demonstrate Allah’s sublime greatness, His overwhelming power, His exaltedness above His creation, and His encompassing knowledge of them.

Lessons derived from the two ḥadīths:

1. They affirm Allah’s majesty and power and the obligation to devote worship to Him alone.
2. They describe the upper celestial bodies—their enormity, breadth, and the vast distances of their extremities.
3. They offer a clear refutation of proponents of modern theories who deny the existence of the heavens, the Footstool, and the Throne, claiming that the higher cosmos is nothing but empty space and planets.
4. They establish that Allah is exalted above His creation in His very essence, contrary to the claims of