
Verse 19
● Allāh says: أَوَلَمْ†يَرَوْا۟†إِلَى†ٱلطَّيْرِ†فَوْقَهُمْ†صَٰٓفَّٰتٍۢ†وَيَقْبِضْنَ†مَۚا†يُمْسِكُهُنَّ†إِلَّا†ٱلرَّحْمَٰنُ†إِۚنَّهۥُ†بِكُلِّ†شَىْءٍۭ†بَصِيرٌ
○ Do they not see the birds above them, expanding and contracting
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their wings? None holds them up except The Most Merciful. Surely
He is All-Seeing of everything.
● At this point in the sūrah, we are not shifting back to Allāh’s
descriptions of His magnificent creations
○ He talked about creating life and death, creating seven heavens in
layers, creating stars in the sky, creating the Earth
■ And with each of these creations there is perfection, majesty,
and might
● We are now coming to the next creation Allāh is detailing for us, and
through this creation and its description we learn something else about
who Allāh is
○ We learn something new about Allāh’s Mulk, His Dominion
● In this verse, Allāh is encouraging us to look up at the birds flying above
us
○ Just one of many commands we find in the Q of Allāh telling us to
look at the world around us and the creation in it
○ Allāh is encouraging us to look at the birds flying above us, and He
describes their manner of flight
○ They expand their wings, and they contract their wings
○ This movement creates flight
○ A constant cycle of expansion and contraction
● Allāh then tells us, there is nothing, absolutely nothing and no one that
is holding those birds up, except Allāh, except al-Raḥmān, The Most
Merciful
○ What does this teach us about Allāh and His Mulk?
○ It teaches us that Allāh is actively involved in running the universe
○ He is actively working in His Mulk
○ He did not just create everything and then leave
● There is a theory in philosophy called The Clock-Maker Theory
○ This theory asserts that God created the universe, but is not
actively involved in its operation
■ Just as a clock-maker makes a clock, and then the clock
operates independently of its maker
○ When someone makes a clock, they make the design, they put
together the pieces, they set up the function, but once that clock is
made, the clock-maker is no longer needed
■ The clock will continue to function, perfectly normal and just
fine, and the clock-maker is no longer involved in the
constant functioning of that clock
○ This is how some philosophers view God
■ They claim that, yes there is a God, yes this God did create the
universe, but He just created it and left
■ He is not involved in the day-to-day operations
■ The universe functions on its own, after the creation of the
universe the Creator is no longer needed for the universe to
function
● This theory is in direct contradiction to what we believe about Allāh, as
Muslims, and our verse for today proves that
○ As Muslims we believe that Allāh is deeply, intricately involved in
every single aspect of the universe’s functioning
○ Allāh did not simply create His Mulk and leave
○ Rather, Allāh’s Mulk cannot survive, it cannot last for even a
fraction of a second, without Allāh’s management and
involvement
○ We need Allāh for every breath we take
○ Nothing can happen without Allāh being the cause and source of
that occurrence
● Allāh is giving us a visual example of His constant, nonstop
management and involvement in the universe — the birds
○ We have all seen birds before, we have all seen them fly
○ The way birds fly is so elegant, so graceful, so seamless and
effortless
○ Yes, the birds put in the work of expanding and contracting their
wings to create flight, as this verse tells us, but they are not the
ones holding themselves up
○ They put in the effort, but they have no control over the outcome
○ Allāh is the One who holds them up in the air, keeps them
suspended in the sky
○ There may be birds that expand and contract their wings, but no
matter how much they do it, they can’t fly
■ No matter how much they flap their wings, they cannot stay
up and suspended in the air
○ Allāh is One who is allowing their flapping to do anything
○ And in this is a huge lesson for all of us
● Our job is to put in the effort, and the outcome, the result, is completely
left to Allāh
○ In this verse Allāh tells us first that the birds expand and contract
their wings
■ They are putting in the effort, they are doing what they can to
achieve what they want to do
○ But at the end of the day, the only real reason that those birds are
able to actually fly, is Allāh
○ Similar deal with us human beings
■ When we want to do something, when we want to achieve
something, we have to put in the effort
■ We cannot sit around, doing nothing, and say — Allāh is going
to handle it all
○ We have to put in the effort, we have to invest the work
○ But the result, the outcome of that work and effort is completely
Allāh
■ The result of our work is not because of our own efforts,
rather it is because of Allāh
○ That is why you have people that put in the same amount of work
and effort to achieve a certain goal, some are successful and some
are not
○ Some birds may flap just as long and hard as others, but some of
them will fly and some of them will not
● Another point to appreciate in what this verse is teaching us about
Allāh, is a deeper understanding of Allāh’s Divine Names al-Ḥayy and
al-Qayyūm
○ And His description that لَا†تَ†أْخُذُهۥُ†سِنَةٌ†وَ†لَا†نَوْمٌ
○ Well-known descriptions of Allāh that are detailed for us in yah
al-Kursī, which is verse #255 in Sūrah al-Baqarah
● Allāh tells us that He is al-Ḥayy and al-Qayyūm
○ The Ever-Living and The All-Sustaining, these two qualities go
hand-in-hand
○ Two qualities of Allāh that directly contradict the Clock-Maker
Theory
○ Allāh has life, Allāh is always there, Allāh never ceases to exist
○ And with that constant, perpetual, neverending life, Allāh
constantly and perpetually manages and sustains the universe
○ He is always continually sustaining all that is in existence
● لَا†تَ†أْخُذُهۥُ†سِنَةٌ†وَ†لَا†نَوْمٌ†—neither drowsiness nor sleep overtakes Him
○ Meaning, there is never a break in Allāh management and
sustainment of the universe, of His Mulk
○ It is continually, constantly taking place
○ Not even a fraction of a second break, because as we stated earlier,
nothing can exist for even a fraction of a second without Allāh’s
sustainment
● This verse, by encouraging us to ponder and reflect upon the birds
above us, teaches us that
○ 1) Allāh is intimately involved in the management and sustainment
of His Mulk
○ 2) We have to put in the effort, the outcome is left to Allāh
○ 3) Allāh never takes a break, his management and sustainment of
the universe is constant
● May Allāh help us to learn more about Him and grow closer to Him