The interpretation of 'Dua Kumayl' & the hugeness of the world

وَبِعِزَّتِكَ الَّتِي لا يَقُومُ لَهَا شَيْءٌ

(I ask You) by Your Might, which nothing can resist.

Allah has created all things by His Strength, and covered all things by His Mercy. All things show humbleness and humility before Him. He has compensated all shortcomings by His Invincibility. How can anything, in whatever position, resist His Might?

All things from the heavens and the earth to their inhabitants, and from the hidden to the visible beings are but rays of His enlightening Might. The creatures are only shadows of His Essence, so how they can resist His eternal Might and infinite Strength.

The Arabic word “عزة”, which means strength, exists in all the creatures, as part of Allah’s holy Strength. The glimmer of a small light is far from the rays of an infinite and eternal source of an Illuminating Light!

فَلِلَّهِ الْعِزَّةُ جَمِيعًا.

To Allah belong all glory and power. (35:10)

Based on this holy Qur’¡nic verse, All the power is Allah’s. He grants power to anyone He wills, according to his/her capacity. He grants no power to anyone He likes not, and regains power from anyone He wills. Therefore, no powerful is independent of Him and no one can resist His Power. He is the Undefeated Mighty.

وَبِعَظَمَتِكَ الَّتِى مَلَأَتْ كُلَّ شَيٍْء

(I ask You) by Your Greatness, which has filled all things.

Knowing the Actor by His Act

It is clear that to some extent, the position and rank of an actor can be realized from his act. An engineer, who builds a 110-story skyscraper, is probably a skillful and intelligent person.

A distinguished author, like Sadr Al-Muta’ahhilin, who have written some invaluable books such as “Asfar”, “Arshiya”, “Hikmat Muta’aliya”, “Asrar Al-Ayat”, demonstrates his great mentality and high attitude in his writings.

We recognize the competence of an electricity factory inventor by his accurate job in illuminating the dark nights as bright as the days.

The Almighty’s greatness is in His Preexistence, Eternity and Infinity. But His greatness is not recognizable for us. Yet rays of His Greatness we can observe by pondering on the world, the creatures, and the magnitude of creation, since His greatness has filled all things.

We mention just two traditions and a scientific fact in order to clarify our point more deeply.

Creation of Various Worlds

The great scholar, Sayyid Hiybat Al-Din Shahristani, in his singular book “Islam wa Hiy’at” (Islam and Astronomy) has narrated from “Khisal” of ¯ad£q, “Bi¦¡r al-Anw¡r” of Allamiyi Majlis¢, “Anwar Nu’maniyya”, “Sharh Sahifa”, and “Tafsiri Nur Al-Thaqalayn” a tradition by Imam ¯¡diq (a.s), with a strong documentation:

إنَّ للهِ عَزَّ وَجَلَّ اثْنَي عَشَرَ ألفِ عالَمٍ؛ كُلُّ عالَمٍ مِنْهُمْ أكْبَرُ مِنْ سَبْعِ سَمَاواتٍ وَسَبْعِ أرَضينَ، ما يُرَى عالَمٌ مِنْهُم أنَّ للهِ عَزَّ وَجَلَّ عالَماً غَيْرَهُمْ.

The Almighty has created twelve thousand worlds, each of which is larger than all the heavens and the earth, and none of them is cognizant of the worlds outside its world![1]

The contemporary astrologers believe that the living world is composed of thousands of worlds, each of which contains heavens and the earths larger than our world’s.[2]

By referring to numbers, the Holy Qur’¡n and the traditions do not intend to show the exact record or extent of things, rather to illustrate their immensity. We should not, therefore, consider the number of the worlds as twelve thousand. The number of the worlds is far beyond what is mentioned in the holy Qur’¡n, the traditions, and the astrological books.

Hanging Lanterns in the Heaven and the Solar System

In his “Sharh Sahifa”, Sayyid Ni’mat Allah Jazayiri has narrated the prophet (s.a) and the infallible Imams (a.s) that Allah has created a hundred thousand lanterns, hanging them from the sky. All the heavens and the earth and the things inside them Allah has placed in one of these lanterns, and only He knows about what is inside other lanterns!

Allama Shahristani, in the exigency of this fascinating tradition says that there are similarities between lanterns and the solar system:

First, a lantern has an oval shape, and the solar system is like an oval too, in view of contemporary scientists.

Second, a lantern contains an object at its center that spreads light and heat, and the scientists believe that the solar system has the sun at its heart, scattering out light and heat on the surrounding planets.

Thirdly, a lantern is floating in the air and is not placed on a wall or something, and our solar system is floating in the space, too.

Fourth, the illuminating object of a lantern is not exactly at its center and is nearer to one side of it; the sun, too, is not at the exact center of the solar system.

Considering these resemblances, the correspondence of this tradition to the modern astrological basics and its disagreement with the old philosophy becomes clear. Therefore, this tradition explicitly proves the existence of thousands of worlds and solar systems, each containing separate planets, moons, suns, earths, heavens and hells, and that each of the worlds inside the lanterns is as large as a solar system and as vast as the heavens and the earth![3]

Suns; the Countless Stars

At the beginning of the twentieth century, when people heard that in our galaxy, which is clearly observable at night, there are thirty million suns, they were amazed. But today, it is proved that there are ten thousand million suns only in our galaxy.

When we look at the night sky without telescope it seems small and insignificant and it is not as glorious as the massive clouds of a winter day. But viewed by a large modern telescope like the one at “Wilson” or “Palumer” observatories, the greatness of this galaxy becomes observable.

The suns are positioned so compactly in our galaxy that the exact counting of them is not possible. No scientist has yet announced the exact number of suns in the galaxy. They can only estimate a ten thousand million number by considering a limited part of it, counting its suns, and then generalizing the number to the whole system!

The number of the suns is probably more than this because they are so myriad that some conceal others, making them unobservable. Among the galaxy suns there are suns ten million times of our sun! Sometimes the galaxies are two million light years apart from each other.

Today’s greatest telescope at the Palumar Mountain in America can observe galaxies at the distance of a thousand million light years. But occasionally some lights glitter beyond this distance that show scientists other galaxies are over there, too!

The solar system sun weighs two billion billion tons and our galaxy, which is only a small corner of the great world, weighs approximately 165 thousand million times the weight of sun! Though there are so many objects scattered in the world, the world is mostly empty, with so many vacancies in between![4]

All this is but a small angle of the huge world, observed by our limited telescopes. By studying these numbers and statistics that depict a very narrow view of our world, its size, depth and breadth, we can imagine the Greatness of Allah; a Greatness that is infinite and has filled everything.

The huge world is Allah’s work; His factory and His book. His Greatness is partly observable by viewing Allah’s work to make us call out:

اَللهُ اَكْبَرُ مِنْ اَنْ يُوصَفَ.

Allah is Exalted above what he is described.[5]

The most expressive describers are incapable of describing Him, the most eloquent tongues are unable to express Him, and the most powerful thoughts cannot realize a part of His Greatness!

In accord with our own understanding, we can only say the same thing our Prophet has taught us:

مَا عَرَفْنَاكَ حَقَّ مَعْرِفَتِكَ

We cannot appreciate Your due Greatness.[6]