Surah Saba' ([The People of] Saba) 34 : 2

Explanatory Note

The sūrah gives us a notion of God’s knowledge, portrayed against the background of heaven and earth. This is a vast image drawn in a few simple words, painting an amazing multitude of things, motions, sizes, shapes, forms and meanings that go beyond any imagination. Should all the people on earth spend their entire lives monitoring and recording what takes place in just one moment of the things mentioned in the verse, they would not be able to do so. How many things go into the earth in such a moment? How many leave it? And how many come down from the sky or go up into it?

Yet God’s knowledge reckons all this up, in all places and at all times, as well as all human thoughts, feelings, actions and movements. But God nevertheless gives us our privacy and forgives us our shortcomings: “He is the Merciful, the truly Forgiving.” Just one Qur’ānic verse like the present one is sufficient to prove that this Qur’ān could not have been written by a human being. By nature, such descriptions do not occur to any person, nor does human nature contemplate matters in this way. That such a comprehensive vision is provided in one simple touch reflects the superiority of God’s style.