The Heavens, the Earth, and Whatever Is Between Them: A Multidisciplinary Study of the Quranic Formula al-Samāwāt wa’l-Arḍ wa Mā Baynahumā
Presented by Zia H Shah MD
Abstract
The Quranic phrase al-samāwāt wa’l-arḍ wa mā baynahumā (“the heavens and the earth and whatever is between them”) appears across fourteen verses spanning twelve surahs, constituting one of the Quran’s most theologically dense and cosmologically significant formulae. This study undertakes a systematic, multidisciplinary examination of each occurrence, integrating three analytical lenses: scientific commentary grounded in modern astrophysics and cosmology, philosophical analysis drawing on both Western and Islamic intellectual traditions, and theological exegesis rooted in classical kalām and tafsīr literature. The phrase functions simultaneously as a comprehensive merism designating the totality of creation, WikipediaWikipedia a theological declaration of divine sovereignty (mulk) and lordship (rubūbiyya), and a cosmological assertion about the non-trivial ontological status of the intermediate realm (mā baynahumā). Classical exegetes including al-Ṭabarī, Ibn Kathīr, Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, and al-Qurṭubī understood “what is between them” to encompass atmosphere, clouds, rain, birds, celestial bodies, angels, and all created beings. Modern science reveals this intermediate space to contain interstellar gas and dust, plasma comprising 99.9% of observable matter, NASAWikipedia dark matter (26.8% of the universe’s mass-energy), dark energy (68.3%), cosmic microwave background radiation at 2.725 K, WMAP cosmic rays, neutrinos, gravitational waves, electromagnetic radiation across the full spectrum, and quantum vacuum fluctuations with measurable physical effects. Philosophically, the tripartite formula resonates with Leibnizian relational ontology, supports the kalām cosmological argument as articulated by al-Kindī, al-Ghazālī, and William Lane Craig, engages Avicenna’s contingency argument (burhān al-ṣiddīqīn), and affirms teleological purpose against nihilistic cosmologies. Theologically, the phrase anchors the three dimensions of tawḥīd—rubūbiyya, ulūhiyya, and asmāʾ wa ṣifāt— Desired Mominwhile grounding the Ashʿarī, Māturīdī, and Muʿtazilī schools’ understandings of God’s relationship to creation. The study concludes that this formula operates as an integrating axis connecting Quranic cosmology, metaphysics, and theology into a unified declaration of comprehensive divine sovereignty over every stratum of existence.
Introduction: a formula at the intersection of cosmos, philosophy, and faith
Few Quranic phrases carry as much conceptual weight across as many domains as al-samāwāt wa’l-arḍ wa mā baynahumā—”the heavens and the earth and whatever is between them.” Appearing fourteen times across twelve surahs, from the Medinan polemic of al-Māʾidah to the eschatological declarations of al-Nabaʾ, this formula functions as what linguists call a merism: a literary device using polar terms to designate totality. WikipediaWikipedia Yet it transcends simple merism by introducing a third term—mā baynahumā, “what is between them”—that insists on the ontological reality of the intermediate realm.
The phrase appears in four distinct thematic clusters. Three verses deploy it in the context of creation in six days (25:59, 32:4, 50:38). Four verses frame it as a declaration of divine lordship (rabb) (19:65, 37:5, 44:7, 78:37). Three verses assert God’s dominion (mulk) over all creation (5:17, 5:18, 38:10, 43:85). Two verses use it to negate purposelessness in creation (21:16, 44:38). And one verse extends divine ownership to include even what lies beneath the soil (20:6). Each deployment reveals a different facet of the Quran’s cosmological-theological vision while maintaining the same tripartite architecture.
What makes this phrase remarkable for modern scholarship is the convergence of three independent fields of inquiry upon it. Astrophysics has revealed that the space between celestial bodies is extraordinarily rich—filled with plasma, radiation, dark matter, dark energy, and quantum vacuum fluctuations. Philosophy finds in the tripartite structure resonances with relational ontology, the cosmological argument, and teleological reasoning. Islamic theology treats the phrase as a foundational pillar of tawḥīd, the doctrine of divine unity that stands at the heart of the Islamic worldview. This study examines all fourteen occurrences through each of these lenses, drawing on classical tafsīr, modern scientific data, and philosophical analysis from both Islamic and Western traditions.
Verse-by-verse commentary
Verse 1 — Surah al-Māʾidah 5:17: sovereignty that dismantles false divinity
Arabic Text: لَّقَدْ كَفَرَ الَّذِينَ قَالُوا إِنَّ اللَّهَ هُوَ الْمَسِيحُ ابْنُ مَرْيَمَ ۚ قُلْ فَمَن يَمْلِكُ مِنَ اللَّهِ شَيْئًا إِنْ أَرَادَ أَن يُهْلِكَ الْمَسِيحَ ابْنَ مَرْيَمَ وَأُمَّهُ وَمَن فِي الْأَرْضِ جَمِيعًا ۗ وَلِلَّهِ مُلْكُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ وَمَا بَيْنَهُمَا ۚ يَخْلُقُ مَا يَشَاءُ ۚ وَاللَّهُ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ قَدِيرٌ
Abdel Haleem Translation: “Those who say, ‘God is the Messiah, the son of Mary,’ are defying the truth. Say, ‘If it had been God’s will, could anyone have prevented Him from destroying the Messiah, son of Mary, together with his mother and everyone else on earth? Control of the heavens and earth and all that is between them belongs to God: He creates whatever He will. God has power over everything.’” My Islam
Context: This verse appears within a Medinan discourse addressing Christian theological claims. The preceding verse (5:16) speaks of divine guidance, while the following verse (5:18) extends the refutation to include both Jewish and Christian claims of special status before God.
Scientific Commentary: The assertion of divine mulk (dominion) over “all that is between” the heavens and earth gains particular force when one considers the sheer scale of what modern science reveals in that intermediate realm. The interstellar medium alone within our galaxy contains an estimated 5–10 billion solar masses of gas and dust— Ucsdprimarily hydrogen (~90%) and helium (~9%)— Highline Collegedistributed across five thermodynamic phases ranging from cold molecular clouds at 10–20 K to hot ionized plasma at 10⁶ K. arXiv The claim of dominion thus extends over a materially rich and physically dynamic domain, not empty void.
Philosophical Commentary: The verse deploys what philosophers call a reductio ad absurdum: if God possesses total sovereignty over the cosmos, then any being within that cosmos—including the Messiah—is ontologically subordinate. This mirrors the structure of Avicenna’s contingency argument: all entities within the heavens, earth, and the intermediate realm are mumkin al-wujūd (contingent), dependent for their existence on the Wājib al-Wujūd (Necessary Existent). Wikipedia No contingent being can possess the attributes of necessity.
Theological Commentary: Ibn Kathīr explains that “all things in existence are Allah’s property and creation,” and therefore nothing within that domain can share in divinity. Quran.comMy Islam The verse instantiates Tawḥīd al-Rubūbiyya (Oneness of Lordship): since God alone creates and owns everything between heavens and earth, the attribution of divinity to any created being constitutes a logical and theological contradiction. The closing clause—”He creates whatever He will”—asserts absolute creative freedom, My Islam a key attribute in Ashʿarī theology.
Verse 2 — Surah al-Māʾidah 5:18: dominion as the great equalizer
Arabic Text: وَقَالَتِ الْيَهُودُ وَالنَّصَارَىٰ نَحْنُ أَبْنَاءُ اللَّهِ وَأَحِبَّاؤُهُ ۚ قُلْ فَلِمَ يُعَذِّبُكُم بِذُنُوبِكُم ۖ بَلْ أَنتُم بَشَرٌ مِّمَّنْ خَلَقَ ۚ يَغْفِرُ لِمَن يَشَاءُ وَيُعَذِّبُ مَن يَشَاءُ ۚ وَلِلَّهِ مُلْكُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ وَمَا بَيْنَهُمَا ۖ وَإِلَيْهِ الْمَصِيرُ
Abdel Haleem Translation: “The Jews and the Christians say, ‘We are the children of God and His beloved ones.’ Say, ‘Then why does He punish you for your sins? You are merely human beings, part of His creation: He forgives whoever He will and punishes whoever He will. Control of the heavens and earth and all that is between them belongs to Him: all journeys lead to Him.’” My Islam
Context: Immediately following 5:17, this verse extends the theological critique from Christological claims to soteriological ones. The phrase “all journeys lead to Him” (ilayhi al-maṣīr) introduces an eschatological dimension absent from the previous verse.
Scientific Commentary: The verse’s closing phrase—”all journeys lead to Him”—acquires a striking resonance against the backdrop of modern cosmology. In the standard ΛCDM model, all matter in the universe traces its origin to the initial singularity of the Big Bang, approximately 13.8 billion years ago. The concept of universal return (maṣīr) parallels the thermodynamic trajectory of the cosmos itself: whether through heat death, Big Crunch, or Big Rip, all physical processes converge toward a definitive cosmological endpoint. The cosmic microwave background radiation that permeates all of “what is between”—411 photons per cubic centimeter at 2.725 K—is itself a remnant of this universal origin, a kind of cosmic memory embedded in the intermediate realm. Wikipedia
Philosophical Commentary: The verse challenges claims of ontological privilege by grounding all beings in the same contingent category: “you are merely human beings, part of His creation” (basharun mimman khalaqa). This is a direct application of the Principle of Sufficient Reason: no contingent being possesses within itself the reason for its own existence, and therefore no contingent being can claim special metaphysical status before the Necessary Existent. Leibniz’s question—”Why is there something rather than nothing?”—applies equally to every entity occupying the space between heavens and earth.
Theological Commentary: Al-Qurṭubī links the assertion of divine mulk directly to the refutation of claims of filial relationship with God. The comprehensive scope of sovereignty—heavens, earth, and what is between—negates any possibility of co-sovereignty or special exemption. The addition of al-maṣīr (the return) connects cosmological sovereignty to eschatological authority, reinforcing the Quranic theme that the Creator of all things is also the Judge of all things.
Verse 3 — Surah Maryam 19:65: lordship as the foundation of worship
Arabic Text: رَّبُّ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ وَمَا بَيْنَهُمَا فَاعْبُدْهُ وَاصْطَبِرْ لِعِبَادَتِهِ ۚ هَلْ تَعْلَمُ لَهُ سَمِيًّا
Abdel Haleem Translation: “He is Lord of the heavens and earth and everything in between so worship Him: be steadfast in worshipping Him. Do you know of anyone equal to Him?” Islam Awakened
Context: The preceding verse (19:64) records an angelic declaration: “We do not descend unless your Lord commands. What is before us and behind us and everything in between all belongs to Him.” This sets up the imperative of worship based on comprehensive lordship. The following verse (19:66) shifts to human denial of resurrection. Islam Awakened
Scientific Commentary: The rhetorical question “Do you know of anyone equal to Him?” (hal taʿlamu lahu samiyyā) gains force from the staggering complexity revealed by modern astrophysics. The “between” governed by this Lord encompasses an interstellar medium with over 200 identified molecular species, stellar nurseries where gravitational collapse births new stars at temperatures exceeding 10 million K, and a web of dark matter filaments forming the cosmic scaffolding along which galaxies cluster. Wikipedia The sheer informational and structural complexity of “what is between” renders the question of finding an “equal” not merely rhetorical but empirically compelling.
Philosophical Commentary: The verse’s logical structure is a practical syllogism: (1) God is Lord of the entire cosmos; (2) therefore, worship Him exclusively. This maps onto the philosophical move from Tawḥīd al-Rubūbiyya to Tawḥīd al-Ulūhiyya—from the recognition of divine lordship to the obligation of exclusive worship. Al-Islam The closing question—”Do you know of anyone equal?”—operates as an argument from uniqueness, paralleling Avicenna’s demonstration that the Necessary Existent must be one: if there were two necessary existents, each would require a differentiating factor, making them contingent rather than necessary.
Theological Commentary: Ibn Kathīr explains via Ibn ʿAbbās that the question means “there is no one named al-Raḥmān other than Him”—asserting divine uniqueness at the level of names and attributes (Tawḥīd al-Asmāʾ wa’l-Ṣifāt). Surah Quransurahquran The command to “be steadfast” (iṣṭabir) implies that worship commensurate with the lordship of all creation requires endurance—a recognition that authentic devotion is costly precisely because its object is infinitely exalted.
Verse 4 — Surah Ṭā Hā 20:6: ownership extending beneath the soil
Arabic Text: لَهُ مَا فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ وَمَا فِي الْأَرْضِ وَمَا بَيْنَهُمَا وَمَا تَحْتَ الثَّرَىٰ
Abdel Haleem Translation: “Everything in the heavens and on earth, everything between them, everything beneath the soil, belongs to Him.” Islam AwakenedQuran.com
Context: This verse appears as part of the prologue to the story of Moses, immediately following the description of God as “the Lord of Mercy, established on the throne” (20:5). Islam Awakened The subsequent verse (20:7) speaks of divine omniscience: “Whatever you may say aloud, He knows what you keep secret and what is even more hidden.” Islam Awakened
Scientific Commentary: This is the only verse in the set that extends the formula downward: wa mā taḥta al-tharā (“and what is beneath the soil”). Modern geophysics reveals that “beneath the soil” encompasses the Earth’s crust (5–70 km thick), mantle (~2,900 km), outer core of liquid iron-nickel (~2,200 km), and inner core reaching temperatures of approximately 5,400°C. The inclusion of the subterranean realm alongside the atmospheric and celestial produces a four-dimensional spatial totality: above (heavens), surface (earth), between (atmosphere and space), and below (geological interior). The neutrino flux penetrating Earth—approximately 65 billion neutrinos per square centimeter per second from the Sun alone—demonstrates that even the planet’s interior is pervaded by cosmic phenomena originating in “what is between.”
Philosophical Commentary: The four-part enumeration eliminates any ontological gap in divine ownership. This is an exhaustive partition of reality that anticipates Leibniz’s principle of completeness: every region of space, every stratum of existence, falls under a single sovereign. The philosophical implication is that there is no “outside” to divine dominion—no region of being that is ontologically autonomous. This directly challenges any form of dualism or polytheism by asserting monistic sovereignty over a pluralistic cosmos.
Theological Commentary: The extension to “beneath the soil” is theologically significant for the doctrine of resurrection (baʿth). God’s ownership of the subterranean realm—where the dead are buried—establishes His power to resurrect bodies. The verse thus simultaneously asserts divine sovereignty over the living cosmos and the dead within the earth, connecting cosmological ownership to eschatological power.
Verse 5 — Surah al-Anbiyāʾ 21:16: the cosmos is not a game
Arabic Text: وَمَا خَلَقْنَا السَّمَاءَ وَالْأَرْضَ وَمَا بَيْنَهُمَا لَاعِبِينَ
Abdel Haleem Translation: “We did not create the heavens and the earth and everything between them playfully.” My Islam
Context: The verse follows a description of destroyed civilizations (21:15) and precedes a conditional: “If We had wished for a pastime, We could have found it near at hand—if We had wished for such a thing” (21:17). Verse 21:18 then declares: “We hurl the truth against falsehood so that it crushes it.”
Scientific Commentary: The denial of laʿib (play/purposelessness) is strikingly consonant with the precision observed in fundamental physical constants. The cosmological constant (Λ ≈ 10⁻¹²² in Planck units) is calibrated with such extraordinary fine-tuning that a deviation of one part in 10¹²⁰ would render the universe either too rapidly expanding for structure formation or collapsing back upon itself. The strong nuclear force coupling constant, if altered by as little as 2%, would prevent the fusion processes that create carbon and heavier elements essential for life. Philosophy Institute The intermediate realm—”what is between”—is governed by physical laws of such mathematical elegance and parametric precision that the concept of purposelessness appears, at minimum, scientifically counterintuitive.
Philosophical Commentary: This verse constitutes the Quran’s most direct teleological declaration. It maps precisely onto Aristotle’s concept of telos (final cause) and directly refutes what modern philosophy calls the “absurdist” position (Camus, Sartre) that the universe has no intrinsic purpose. The verse also anticipates the structure of the fine-tuning argument: if the cosmos were “play,” its extraordinary mathematical precision would be inexplicable. Averroes (Ibn Rushd) formalized this as the Dalīl al-ʿInāya (Argument from Providence), treating the order visible throughout creation as evidence of divine intellect. Wikipedia Al-Ghazālī, despite critiquing certain causal philosophies, maintained that creation unfolds “according to divine will and wisdom”—not randomness. Substack
Theological Commentary: The negation of laʿib is foundational for the Islamic doctrine of purposeful creation (ḥikma). Al-Qurṭubī interprets “except in truth” (illā bi’l-ḥaqq) as meaning creation exists for moral recompense—reward and punishment—establishing the logical necessity of the Day of Judgment. If creation were purposeless, eschatological accountability would be meaningless. The Muʿtazilī school emphasized this verse as proof that God necessarily acts with wisdom and justice, while the Ashʿarī school affirmed divine wisdom without making it a binding obligation on God.
Verse 6 — Surah al-Furqān 25:59: the Creator who ascended the Throne
Arabic Text: الَّذِي خَلَقَ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضَ وَمَا بَيْنَهُمَا فِي سِتَّةِ أَيَّامٍ ثُمَّ اسْتَوَىٰ عَلَى الْعَرْشِ ۚ الرَّحْمَٰنُ فَاسْأَلْ بِهِ خَبِيرًا
Abdel Haleem Translation: “It is He who created the heavens and earth and what is between them in six Days, and then established Himself on the throne—He is the Lord of Mercy; He is the Best Informed.” Islam AwakenedMy Islam
Context: The verse follows an exhortation to trust “the Living God who never dies” (25:58) and precedes a passage where people refuse to prostrate before “the Lord of Mercy” (25:60). Islam Awakened
Scientific Commentary: The “six days” (sittat ayyām) of creation, when read against modern cosmology, invite correlation with the major epochs of cosmic evolution: the Planck epoch (0 to 10⁻⁴³ seconds), the formation of fundamental forces and particles, nucleosynthesis (3 minutes to 20 minutes after the Big Bang), the radiation era, the matter era during which galaxies formed (~200 million years onward), and the current dark-energy-dominated era. The Quran itself provides interpretive flexibility: Lamp of Islam “A day with your Lord is like a thousand years of your reckoning” (22:47) and “a day whose measure is fifty thousand years” (70:4). Al-Islam The “six days” need not correspond to terrestrial days but may denote six cosmological epochs during which the heavens, earth, and everything between them were progressively structured.
Philosophical Commentary: The conjunction of temporal creation (“in six days”) and sovereign establishment (“on the Throne”) addresses a question central to metaphysics: the relationship between the Creator and the created order. Al-Ghazālī argued in Tahāfut al-Falāsifa that temporal creation by a personal agent with will is the only coherent explanation for why the universe exists at this moment rather than another. WikipediaInternet Encyclopedia of Philosophy If the cause were an impersonal, timeless emanative principle (as al-Fārābī and Avicenna held), there would be no reason for temporal differentiation. The “six days” formula thus supports the kalām argument’s premise that the universe began to exist through a volitional act.
Theological Commentary: The istiwāʾ (establishment on the Throne) is one of the most debated concepts in Islamic theology. The Ashʿarī school interprets it metaphorically as sovereignty and dominion. The Atharī/Ḥanbalī school affirms it literally bilā kayf (without asking “how”). The Māturīdī school employs taʾwīl (figurative interpretation). Al-Islam What all schools agree upon is that the verse links the act of creation to the exercise of governance: God first creates the heavens, earth, and everything between, then assumes sovereign administration over all of it. The name al-Raḥmān following the istiwāʾ indicates that divine governance is characterized by comprehensive mercy.
Verse 7 — Surah al-Sajdah 32:4: no protector besides the Creator
Arabic Text: اللَّهُ الَّذِي خَلَقَ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضَ وَمَا بَيْنَهُمَا فِي سِتَّةِ أَيَّامٍ ثُمَّ اسْتَوَىٰ عَلَى الْعَرْشِ ۖ مَا لَكُم مِّن دُونِهِ مِن وَلِيٍّ وَلَا شَفِيعٍ ۚ أَفَلَا تَتَذَكَّرُونَ
Abdel Haleem Translation: “It is God who created the heavens and the earth and everything between them in six Days. Then He established Himself on the Throne. You have no one but Him to protect you and no one to intercede for you, so why do you not take heed?”
Context: This follows a defense of the Quran’s divine origin (32:3) IslamAwakened and precedes a description of divine governance: “He organizes the running of the universe from heaven to earth and then it all ascends to Him in a single day, a day that measures a thousand years in your reckoning” (32:5).
Scientific Commentary: The subsequent verse’s description of divine command descending “from heaven to earth” and ascending back has drawn comparison to the flow of energy and information through cosmic systems. The solar wind—a stream of charged particles traveling at 300–800 km/s—carries magnetic fields outward from the Sun through the interplanetary medium. Gravitational interactions transmit information across billions of light-years. Electromagnetic radiation from distant quasars traverses the intermediate realm at 299,792 km/s, carrying information about events billions of years in the past. The universe’s “organizational” processes—from stellar nucleosynthesis to galactic dynamics—all occur within “what is between.”
Philosophical Commentary: The exclusion of any protector (walī) or intercessor (shafīʿ) besides God applies the concept of divine sovereignty to the domain of causation. In Ashʿarī occasionalism, as articulated by al-Ghazālī, God is the sole true cause of every event—there are no independent secondary causes that could “protect” or “intercede” autonomously. Medium Even in the more causally robust frameworks of the Māturīdī school and Islamic philosophy, all derivative causal power ultimately originates from and depends upon the Necessary Existent. GhaybPhilopedia
Theological Commentary: The phrase “so why do you not take heed?” (afalā tatadhakkarūn) transforms the cosmological declaration into an ethical imperative. The theological logic is: (1) God created everything in the cosmos; (2) He alone governs it; (3) no other entity can protect you; (4) therefore, recognition of this truth demands right action. This is the practical import of Tawḥīd al-Rubūbiyya leading to Tawḥīd al-Ulūhiyya—the move from acknowledging divine lordship to actualizing exclusive worship. IslamWeb
Verse 8 — Surah al-Ṣāffāt 37:5: Lord of every sunrise
Arabic Text: رَبُّ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ وَمَا بَيْنَهُمَا وَرَبُّ الْمَشَارِقِ
Abdel Haleem Translation: “Lord of the heavens and earth and everything between them, Lord of every sunrise.” My Islam
Context: This verse concludes an opening oath: “By those ranged in rows, who rebuke firmly and recite God’s word—truly your God is one” (37:1–4). The following verses describe the adornment of the nearest heaven with stars and its protection against “every rebellious devil” (37:6–7). My Islam
Scientific Commentary: The addition of “Lord of every sunrise” (Rabb al-mashāriq, literally “Lord of the easts”) extends divine sovereignty across the temporal-directional axis. Since Earth’s axial tilt (23.44°) causes the sunrise point to shift daily across the horizon, “the easts” denotes the multiplicity of sunrise points throughout the year—an observation requiring awareness of astronomical cycles. Beyond Earth, every star in the Milky Way’s estimated 100–400 billion stellar population has its own “sunrise” relative to orbiting bodies. The phrase thus implicitly encompasses the photonic activity of every stellar system in the intermediate realm. The subsequent mention of stars as “adornment” connects to the fact that starlight traversing the interstellar medium is scattered by dust grains, producing the diffuse optical glow observable in galactic surveys. Ucsd
Philosophical Commentary: The verse’s expansion from spatial lordship (heavens, earth, between) to temporal-directional lordship (easts/sunrises) produces a comprehensive cosmological statement covering both space and time. This resonates with Leibniz’s dual definition of reality: space as the “order of coexistences” and time as the “order of successions.” By claiming lordship over both the spatial arrangement of the cosmos and its temporal unfolding (successive sunrises), the verse asserts divine sovereignty over the full spatiotemporal fabric of existence.
Theological Commentary: The mention of “the easts” in the plural affirms God’s governance over natural cycles and regular phenomena. This connects to the concept of tadbīr (divine governance): God does not merely create and withdraw but continuously administers the mechanics of the cosmos, including the daily rotation that produces sunrise. Surah Quran The pairing with the preceding oath by angels “ranged in rows” establishes a cosmic hierarchy: angels serve as instruments of divine governance within the very realm—”what is between heavens and earth”—over which God is declared Lord.
Verse 9 — Surah Ṣād 38:10: a rhetorical challenge to human pretension
Arabic Text: أَمْ لَهُم مُّلْكُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ وَمَا بَيْنَهُمَا ۖ فَلْيَرْتَقُوا فِي الْأَسْبَابِ
Abdel Haleem Translation: “Do they control the heavens and earth and everything between? Let them climb their ropes.”
Context: The Quraysh had objected to Muhammad’s prophethood. The preceding verse asks: “Do they possess the treasures of the mercy of your Lord?” (38:9). The following verse warns: “A large army, the confederates there, will be routed” (38:11).
Scientific Commentary: The challenge “let them climb their ropes” (falyartaqū fi’l-asbāb) invokes the impossibility of humans ascending to cosmic sovereignty. The distances involved render this challenge empirically absolute: the nearest star beyond the Sun (Proxima Centauri) is 4.24 light-years away; the observable universe spans approximately 93 billion light-years in diameter. Even at the speed of light, traversing the “between” of heavens and earth would require timescales exceeding human civilizational history by orders of magnitude. The challenge thus functions as a cosmic argument from scale.
Philosophical Commentary: The verse employs what Aquinas would recognize as an argument from proportion: the gap between human capability and cosmic sovereignty is not merely quantitative but qualitative. No finite being can possess infinite mulk. This mirrors Aquinas’s Second Way: an infinite regress of finite causes cannot account for the existence of the cosmos; similarly, no finite claimant can possess the dominion that belongs to the First Cause alone.
Theological Commentary: The Arabic al-asbāb (translated “ropes” by Abdel Haleem) can also mean “means” or “pathways”—the various mechanisms through which one might attempt to access divine power. The verse’s ironic challenge—”let them climb”—exposes the absurdity of any creature claiming cosmic authority. This directly reinforces Tawḥīd al-Rubūbiyya: sovereignty over the cosmos is exclusively divine, and any human pretension to it is self-evidently futile.
Verse 10 — Surah al-Dukhān 44:7: lordship demands certainty
Arabic Text: رَبِّ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ وَمَا بَيْنَهُمَا ۖ إِن كُنتُم مُّوقِنِينَ
Abdel Haleem Translation: “Lord of the heavens and the earth and everything between—if only you people were firm believers—”
Context: The verse follows a description of the Quran’s revelation on a “blessed night” (44:3) and God’s mercy (44:6). The subsequent verse (44:8) affirms: “There is no god but Him: He gives life and death.” Verse 44:9 notes that the disbelievers “play about in doubt.”
Scientific Commentary: The conditional “if you were certain” (in kuntum mūqinīn) invites reflection on the relationship between empirical evidence and epistemic certainty. Modern cosmology has achieved remarkable certainty about the contents of “what is between”: the Planck satellite (2015) determined the universe’s composition with precision—4.9% ordinary matter, 26.8% dark matter, 68.3% dark energy—with error margins of less than 1%. The cosmic microwave background has been mapped to anisotropy levels of 10⁻⁵. Yet the nature of dark matter and dark energy—which together constitute 95.1% of the universe—remains fundamentally unknown, maintaining a profound epistemic humility at the heart of cosmological science.
Philosophical Commentary: The verse connects cosmological fact to epistemic obligation. The philosophical structure is: recognition of divine lordship over the cosmos should produce yaqīn (certainty), yet the disbelievers remain in doubt. This parallels Pascal’s observation that the evidence for God is “sufficient to convince, but not to compel.” The Quran repeatedly positions the cosmos as a source of āyāt (signs) that point toward the Creator—but the interpretive step from sign to certainty requires the will to engage honestly with the evidence.
Theological Commentary: The concept of yaqīn (certainty) occupies a central place in Islamic epistemology. Al-Ghazālī distinguished three levels: ʿilm al-yaqīn (knowledge of certainty), ʿayn al-yaqīn (eye of certainty), and ḥaqq al-yaqīn (truth of certainty). The verse implies that contemplation of divine lordship over the cosmos—heavens, earth, and everything between—should produce at minimum the first level. The contrast with the disbelievers’ “play in doubt” (44:9) suggests that the failure to achieve certainty is volitional rather than evidential.
Verse 11 — Surah al-Dukhān 44:38: creation in truth, not in sport
Arabic Text: وَمَا خَلَقْنَا السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضَ وَمَا بَيْنَهُمَا لَاعِبِينَ
Abdel Haleem Translation: “We were not playing a pointless game when We created the heavens and earth and everything in between.”
Context: The preceding verse invokes the destruction of the people of Tubbaʿ (44:37). The following verse (44:39) affirms: “We created them only for a true purpose, but most people do not comprehend.” Verse 44:40 then declares: “The Day of Decision is the time appointed for all of them.”
Scientific Commentary: This verse, identical in Arabic to 21:16, extends its scientific resonance through the immediate context: creation “for a true purpose” (bi’l-ḥaqq) followed by the “Day of Decision.” The concept of cosmic finality finds a parallel in physical cosmology’s projections of the universe’s ultimate fate. Current evidence, based on the accelerating expansion driven by dark energy (discovered by Perlmutter, Schmidt, and Riess in 1998, Nobel Prize 2011), points toward eventual heat death—a state of maximum entropy where no thermodynamic work is possible. Whether this physical endpoint constitutes a “Day of Decision” is beyond the scope of science, but the convergence of all cosmological processes toward a terminal state is empirically established.
Philosophical Commentary: The restatement of teleological denial in a different surah context demonstrates the Quran’s systematic commitment to purposive cosmology. Philosophically, the laʿib (play) that is denied corresponds to what modern philosophy calls contingent purposelessness—the view that the universe’s existence is a brute, unexplained fact with no inherent meaning. The verse asserts the opposite: the cosmos is bi’l-ḥaqq (in/for truth), establishing what Mulla Ṣadrā would call the primacy of existence (aṣālat al-wujūd)—existence itself is meaningful, purposive, and oriented toward truth.
Theological Commentary: Al-Qurṭubī interprets bi’l-ḥaqq (in truth) as meaning creation exists “to recompense the doer of good and the doer of evil.” The theological framework is thus fundamentally moral-eschatological: the cosmos exists not as an end in itself but as a theater of moral agency whose purpose is fulfilled in the Day of Judgment. The Muʿtazilī school emphasized this verse as proof of divine justice (ʿadl): a purposeless creation would be unjust, and God cannot act unjustly.
Verse 12 — Surah al-Zukhruf 43:85: the Blessed One who knows the Hour
Arabic Text: وَتَبَارَكَ الَّذِي لَهُ مُلْكُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ وَمَا بَيْنَهُمَا وَعِندَهُ عِلْمُ السَّاعَةِ وَإِلَيْهِ تُرْجَعُونَ
Abdel Haleem Translation: “Exalted is He who has control of the heavens and earth and everything between them; He has knowledge of the Hour; you will all be returned to Him.”
Context: The preceding verse (43:84) declares: “It is He who is God in heaven and God on earth; He is the All Wise, the All Knowing.” The following verse (43:86) notes that those invoked beside God “have no power of intercession.”
Scientific Commentary: The verse links cosmic sovereignty to knowledge of “the Hour” (al-sāʿa), the eschatological endpoint. In information-theoretic terms, knowledge of the Hour would require omniscience regarding every variable in the cosmic system—the positions, velocities, and quantum states of every particle in “what is between” the heavens and earth. Given that the observable universe contains approximately 10⁸⁰ atoms and vastly more photons, neutrinos, and dark matter particles, such knowledge represents an information content that dwarfs any conceivable computational system. The verse thus implicitly asserts a degree of omniscience that transcends the physical universe’s own information-processing capacity.
Philosophical Commentary: The word tabāraka (“exalted/blessed”) introduces a doxological dimension. Philosophically, it asserts divine transcendence: the One who possesses cosmic sovereignty is not merely powerful but ontologically exalted—belonging to a different category of being. This resonates with Anselm’s definition of God as “that than which nothing greater can be conceived” and with Avicenna’s distinction between the Necessary Existent (whose essence is existence) and contingent beings (whose essence merely receives existence). The conjunction of sovereignty, omniscience, and the promise of return (ilayhi turjaʿūn) produces a comprehensive philosophical portrait of the divine: omnipotent, omniscient, and eschatologically authoritative.
Theological Commentary: This verse is among the most theologically comprehensive in the set, combining four attributes: sovereignty (mulk), knowledge (ʿilm), transcendence (tabāraka), and eschatological authority (ilayhi turjaʿūn). It manifests the divine names al-Malik (the Sovereign), al-ʿAlīm (the All-Knowing), al-Mubārak (the Blessed), and the concept of al-Maṣīr (the Return). The pairing of cosmic dominion with eschatological knowledge establishes that the same God who created and governs the cosmos will bring it to its appointed end.
Verse 13 — Surah Qāf 50:38: creation without weariness
Arabic Text: وَلَقَدْ خَلَقْنَا السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضَ وَمَا بَيْنَهُمَا فِي سِتَّةِ أَيَّامٍ وَمَا مَسَّنَا مِن لُّغُوبٍ
Abdel Haleem Translation: “We created the heavens, the earth, and everything between, in six Days without tiring.”
Context: The preceding verse (50:37) speaks of cosmic signs as reminders “for whoever has a heart.” The following verse (50:39) counsels the Prophet: “Bear everything they say with patience; celebrate the praise of your Lord before the rising and setting of the sun.”
Scientific Commentary: The assertion “without tiring” (wa mā massanā min lughūb) has a direct scientific resonance: the total energy involved in the formation of the observable universe is, paradoxically, estimated by some cosmologists to be net zero, since gravitational potential energy (negative) may exactly balance the positive energy of matter and radiation. If this is the case, the universe’s creation required, in a sense, “no expenditure”—a striking parallel to the verse’s denial of divine fatigue. Furthermore, the ongoing processes within “what is between”—stellar fusion converting 600 million tons of hydrogen to helium per second in our Sun alone, gravitational collapse forming new stars, supernovae distributing heavy elements—continue ceaselessly without any indication of a governing principle that “tires.”
Philosophical Commentary: The negation of fatigue asserts what philosophers call divine impassibility: God is not affected or diminished by the act of creation. This directly engages the theological distinction between God’s essential attributes (which remain unchanged) and His acts (which produce effects in the created order). The verse’s denial of lughūb (weariness) is philosophically significant because it distinguishes the Quranic Creator from the Demiurge of Plato’s Timaeus, who works upon pre-existing matter, and from the God of Genesis 2:2, who “rested on the seventh day.” The Quranic Creator’s effortless sovereignty over the vast intermediate realm affirms absolute divine power without limitation.
Theological Commentary: Classical exegetes, including Ibn Kathīr, identify this verse as a direct refutation of the Biblical concept of Sabbath rest. The theological implication is that God’s creative and sustaining power is inexhaustible—creation does not deplete Him. This reinforces the Ashʿarī doctrine that God sustains the universe at every instant through continuous creation (tajdīd al-khalq): if creating the entire cosmos produces no fatigue, then sustaining it moment by moment is equally effortless. The verse also implicitly supports the ease of resurrection: if creating the heavens, earth, and everything between them caused no weariness, then recreating human bodies on the Day of Judgment is trivially easy for God.
Verse 14 — Surah al-Nabaʾ 78:37: the Merciful before whom none may speak
Arabic Text: رَّبِّ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ وَمَا بَيْنَهُمَا الرَّحْمَٰنِ ۖ لَا يَمْلِكُونَ مِنْهُ خِطَابًا
Abdel Haleem Translation: “From the Lord of the heavens and earth and everything between, the Lord of Mercy. They will have no authority from Him to speak.”
Context: The preceding verses (78:35–36) describe Paradise as a reward “from your Lord, a fitting gift.” The following verse (78:38) describes the Day of Judgment: “On the Day when the Spirit and the angels stand in rows, they will not speak except for those to whom the Lord of Mercy gives permission.”
Scientific Commentary: The eschatological silence before God—”they will have no authority from Him to speak”—acquires a cosmological resonance when set against the acoustic phenomena of the early universe. The cosmic microwave background preserves the imprint of acoustic oscillations (sound waves) that propagated through the primordial plasma during the first 380,000 years after the Big Bang. These “baryon acoustic oscillations” produced the large-scale structure of the universe visible today. The intermediate realm thus carries within it the fossil record of cosmic sound—yet before the Lord of that realm, on the Day of Judgment, all voices fall silent. The juxtaposition of cosmic acoustic history with eschatological silence is theologically powerful.
Philosophical Commentary: The prohibition of speech without permission introduces a concept of sovereign authority over discourse—a theme with resonances in both political philosophy (sovereignty as the power to determine who may speak) and philosophy of language (the conditions under which utterance is meaningful). The verse implies that on the Day of Judgment, the normal conditions of human autonomy are suspended before absolute divine sovereignty. This represents the ultimate expression of the asymmetry between the Necessary Existent and contingent beings: contingent beings have no intrinsic right even to speech before the One upon whom their existence depends.
Theological Commentary: The coupling of al-Raḥmān with cosmic lordship and eschatological authority is theologically significant. It indicates that divine sovereignty, even at its most absolute—the Day when no one may speak without permission—is exercised through mercy. The Ashʿarī theologians emphasized that God’s mercy is not a limitation on His sovereignty but an expression of it: He is merciful because He wills to be, not because He is compelled. The verse thus integrates the highest expression of divine power (cosmic lordship + absolute eschatological authority) with the most characteristic divine attribute in Islamic theology (mercy).
Thematic analysis: how the fourteen verses build a unified vision
The four pillars of the cosmological formula
Across its fourteen occurrences, the phrase al-samāwāt wa’l-arḍ wa mā baynahumā deploys four interconnected theological arguments:
Pillar 1 — Creation (khalq): Verses 25:59, 32:4, and 50:38 establish that God created the entire tripartite cosmos in six days/epochs. The “six days” framework serves as the Quran’s answer to the philosophical question of temporal origin: the cosmos is muḥdath (originated), not qadīm (eternal). This directly supports the first premise of the kalām cosmological argument: the universe began to exist. Al-Kindī, uniquely among the major Islamic philosophers, accepted this premise and used it to construct the earliest known formulation of the cosmological argument for creation ex nihilo.
Pillar 2 — Sovereignty (mulk): Verses 5:17, 5:18, 38:10, and 43:85 assert God’s absolute dominion over the cosmos. The mulk verses function polemically, refuting claims of rival sovereignty—whether by religious communities claiming special status (5:17–18) or by individuals denying prophetic authority (38:10). The comprehensiveness of “heavens, earth, and what is between” makes the sovereignty claim absolute: no domain of reality lies outside divine control.
Pillar 3 — Lordship (rubūbiyya): Verses 19:65, 37:5, 44:7, and 78:37 designate God as Rabb (Lord/Sustainer) of the cosmos. Unlike mulk (which emphasizes ownership and power), rubūbiyya encompasses creation, sustenance, governance, and nurture. The Rabb verses consistently issue imperatives: worship Him (19:65), be certain (44:7), acknowledge that no one may speak without permission (78:37). Lordship demands responsive devotion.
Pillar 4 — Teleology (ḥikma): Verses 21:16 and 44:38 deny purposelessness in creation. Everything between heavens and earth was created bi’l-ḥaqq (in/for truth), not lāʿibīn (in play). This establishes the moral-eschatological framework: creation has an end (judgment) because it has a purpose (truth). The teleological verses anchor Islamic ethics in cosmology: moral obligation exists because the cosmos itself is morally structured.
What “between” means: from classical exegesis to modern astrophysics
Classical scholars understood mā baynahumā concretely: al-Ṭabarī identified it as “creatures between heaven and earth” (min al-khalāʾiq), including the atmosphere produced when God separated the originally joined heavens and earth. Ibn Kathīr specified air, clouds, rain, celestial bodies, and all beings traversing the space. Al-Rāzī expanded the concept philosophically, arguing for the possibility of “a thousand thousand worlds beyond this world” and debating whether celestial spheres are concrete or abstract. Al-Qurṭubī catalogued both rational beings (angels, jinn, humans) and non-rational beings (animals, inanimate phenomena) within the scope of the phrase.
Modern science has revealed that this “between” is extraordinarily rich:
- Interstellar gas and dust constituting 5–10 billion solar masses in the Milky Way alone, with over 200 identified molecular species
- Plasma comprising 99.9% of all observable matter in the universe, carrying magnetic fields and electric currents throughout the interplanetary and interstellar medium
- Dark matter (26.8% of the universe) forming the gravitational scaffolding along which galaxies cluster, detectable only through its gravitational effects
- Dark energy (68.3%) driving the accelerating expansion of the cosmos, its fundamental nature still unknown
- Cosmic microwave background radiation at 2.725 K, with 411 photons per cubic centimeter permeating all of space
- Quantum vacuum fluctuations producing measurable physical effects (Casimir effect, Lamb shift), demonstrating that even “empty” space seethes with energy
The Arabic relative pronoun mā (“whatever/that which”) is grammatically inclusive, encompassing everything—known and unknown, rational and non-rational, visible and invisible. This linguistic inclusiveness finds its empirical vindication in the discovery that 95.1% of the universe consists of dark matter and dark energy—substances entirely unknown to any civilization before the late 20th century, yet falling squarely within the scope of “whatever is between.”
The i’jāz discourse and its limits
The claim that the Quranic phrase anticipates modern scientific discoveries about the non-empty nature of space—a central argument in the iʿjāz ʿilmī (scientific miraculousness) tradition—deserves careful evaluation. Proponents, including Zia H. Shah, Maurice Bucaille, and Zaghloul al-Najjar, argue that the Quran’s assertion that there is “something” between heavens and earth was unknown in 7th-century Arabia, where prevailing Aristotelian cosmology posited empty crystalline spheres. Critics, notably Nidhal Guessoum (Zygon, 2008), have identified two weaknesses in this argument. First, Aristotle explicitly rejected the vacuum and filled space with aether—so the dominant ancient view was already that space was not empty. Second, the phrase functions primarily as a literary merism designating totality, not as a scientific proposition about the composition of interstellar space.
The most balanced assessment recognizes that the phrase is genuinely distinctive among ancient cosmological formulations in its explicit and repeated insistence that a third domain—”what is between”—belongs to the divine creative act. No comparable emphasis exists in Genesis or other Near Eastern cosmogonies. Whether this constitutes a “scientific miracle” or reflects the Quran’s characteristic theological thoroughness is a matter of hermeneutical perspective. What is empirically demonstrable is that the phrase’s scope—mā, “whatever”—has proven capacious enough to encompass realities that no 7th-century audience could have imagined.
A relational ontology of cosmic space
The philosophical implications of mā baynahumā extend beyond the scientific miracles debate. The tripartite structure—heavens, earth, and what is between—suggests a relational ontology: space is not an empty container awaiting objects but a domain constituted by the relations among created entities. This resonates with Leibniz’s relational theory, in which space is “the order of coexistences” rather than an independent substance. It resonates with Heidegger’s concept of Zwischen (the between) as the site where being discloses itself. And it resonates with Mulla Ṣadrā’s doctrine of the gradation of existence (tashkīk al-wujūd), in which all beings—from the most exalted to the most attenuated—participate in a single, dynamic reality whose source is the divine. In this framework, “what is between the heavens and the earth” is not a residual category but a primary ontological domain—the very arena in which divine command meets created existence, in which natural law operates, in which moral agency unfolds.
Thematic epilogue: creation, governance, and the fullness of the between
The fourteen verses examined in this study reveal the phrase al-samāwāt wa’l-arḍ wa mā baynahumā as far more than a cosmological description. It functions as an integrating axis connecting the Quran’s cosmology, metaphysics, ethics, and eschatology into a unified theological vision.
Three insights emerge from the synthesis that were not fully visible in any single verse:
First, the intermediate realm is the site of divine-world encounter. Quran 65:12 states that God’s amr (command) “descends between them”—between the heavens and the earth. The “between” is where divine governance meets the created order, where natural laws execute divine will, where prophetic revelation traverses from the celestial to the terrestrial. This transforms the intermediate space from passive emptiness into the most theologically active zone in the cosmos. Modern science’s discovery that this space seethes with energy, radiation, gravitational fields, and quantum fluctuations provides an unexpected material substrate for this theological claim.
Second, the formula’s four thematic modes constitute a complete theological argument. Creation (God made it) establishes ontological dependence. Sovereignty (God owns it) establishes political authority. Lordship (God sustains it) establishes ongoing relationship. Teleology (God made it purposefully) establishes moral structure. Together, these four modes move from metaphysics to ethics: because the cosmos is created, owned, sustained, and purposive, human beings owe their Creator worship, obedience, and moral accountability. The fourteen verses, read as a unified corpus, construct this argument incrementally across the Quran’s chronological and thematic development.
Third, the phrase’s inclusiveness—”whatever is between”—represents a theological commitment to the fullness of being. The relative pronoun mā encompasses all entities without exception: material and immaterial, known and unknown, visible and invisible, rational and non-rational. Al-Rāzī’s remarkable speculation about “a thousand thousand worlds beyond this world” extrapolates from this inclusiveness to a vision of potentially infinite creative scope. The discovery that 95.1% of the universe consists of dark matter and dark energy—substances whose nature remains fundamentally mysterious—vindicates this theological intuition: the “whatever” of mā baynahumā is vastly larger than what any human civilization has ever perceived.
The phrase thus operates on three simultaneous registers. Scientifically, it designates a realm whose material richness—plasma, radiation, dark matter, dark energy, gravitational waves, quantum vacuum—far exceeds what any pre-modern cosmology conceived. Philosophically, it asserts a relational, plenistic, purposive ontology that challenges materialist reductionism and nihilistic cosmologies while supporting the cosmological and teleological arguments for a Necessary Existent. Theologically, it anchors the comprehensive sovereignty of tawḥīd—the oneness of God as Creator, Sovereign, Lord, and Merciful Sustainer of every particle and process in existence. Read together, the fourteen verses declare that there is no corner of the cosmos—however remote, however invisible, however mysterious—that falls outside the creative act, the sovereign claim, the sustaining care, and the purposive design of the One who is Rabb al-samāwāt wa’l-arḍ wa mā baynahumā al-Raḥmān.
The Glorious Quran and Science 
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