Surah Fatir, The Originator

Surah 35 · 45 verses · revealed at Mecca

Fatir opens by naming God as the originator of the heavens and the earth and the maker of the angels, and is also known as Al-Mala'ikah, the angels, for that reason.

Its argument is that nothing else has any power to give or withhold. Whatever mercy God opens to people, none can hold back; whatever He holds back, none can release afterwards. The surah states this at the start and spends the rest of its length illustrating it.

It uses two long comparisons. The blind and the seeing are not equal, nor darkness and light, nor shade and heat, nor the living and the dead. And the two seas, one fresh and sweet and one salt and bitter, from each of which people eat fresh meat and take ornaments to wear — different in themselves, alike in what they give.

There is a passage on colour that has drawn attention for a long time: streaks of white and red in the mountains and streaks of intense black, and among people and beasts and cattle the same variety of colours. The surah offers it as a reason for awe rather than for ranking.

It contains the verse that only those of His servants who have knowledge truly fear God — a line that has been used to argue for learning in every century of the religion's history.

Surah Fatir on this site

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