Sto­ry of The Cranes or ​“Satan­ic Verses”

Ibn Sa‘d (d. 230) in his al-Tabaqat al-Kubra (reprint Beirut : Dar Sadir), vol. 1 said :

[p. 205] Muham­mad ibn ​‘Umar(*) nar­rat­ed to us :

(1) Yunus ibn Muham­mad ibn Fadala al-Zafari nar­rat­ed to me : From his father who said :

(2) From Kathir ibn Zayd : From al-Mut­tal­ib ibn ​‘Abd Allah ibn Hantab who said :

[(*) Muham­mad ibn ​‘Umar al-Waqi­di (d. 207), Ahmad ibn Han­bal said of him : ​“He is a liar.” Al-Bukhari and Abu Hatim al-Razi said : ​“Dis­card­ed.” Ibn ​‘Adi said : ​“His nar­ra­tions are not retained, and their bane comes from him.” Ibn al-Madi­ni said : ​“He forges hadiths.” Al-Dha­habi said : ​“Con­sen­sus has set­tled over his debil­i­ty.” Mizan al‑I‘tidal (3:662 – 666 #7993).]

Allah’s Mes­sen­ger — Allah bless and greet him — saw rejec­tion com­ing from his peo­ple, so he sat in iso­la­tion, wish­ing to him­self : Would that noth­ing is revealed to me that would dri­ve them away from me. There­after Allah’s Mes­sen­ger — Allah bless and greet him — approached his peo­ple again and made over­tures to them, and they respond­ed to him. One day he sat with them in one of the usu­al pub­lic gath­er­ings around the Ka‘ba and he recit­ed to them ​“By the Star when it set­teth” (Sura 53, al-Najm). When he reached the words :

19. Have ye thought upon Al Lat and Al Uzza ?
20. And Man­at, the third, the other ?

the dev­il inter­ject­ed two phras­es (kali­matayn) upon his tongue :

“Those are the ele­vat­ed cranes : tru­ly their inter­ces­sion is dear­ly hoped!”

Allah’s Mes­sen­ger spoke these two phras­es then went on to fin­ish the entire Sura, then he pros­trat­ed and all those in atten­dance pros­trat­ed. Al-Walid ibn al-Mughi­ra took a hand­ful of earth and [apply­ing it to his fore­head] pros­trat­ed on it, for he was an aged old man who could not pros­trate. It is also said that Abu Uhay­ha Sa‘id ibn al-‘As was the one who did this.… and some say both did it.

They [the Quraysh] were elat­ed at what Allah’s Mes­sen­ger — Allah bless and greet him — had spo­ken, say­ing : ​“We def­i­nite­ly know that Allah gives life and gives death as well as cre­ates and sus­tains, but these our gods inter­cede for us before Him, so if you give them their share, we are with you.” This state­ment of theirs bore heav­i­ly on the Prophet — Allah bless and greet him — and he with­drew to his house. When evening came, Gib­ril came to him and rehearsed the Sura with him, where­upon Gib­ril said : ​“Did I bring you those two phras­es (al-kali­matayn)?” Allah’s Mes­sen­ger said : ​“Have I said on Allah’s part some­thing He nev­er said?” Where­upon Allah revealed to him [p. 206] the verse : {And they indeed strove hard to beguile thee (Muham­mad) away from that where­with We have inspired thee, that thou shouldst invent oth­er than it against Us ; and then would they have accept­ed thee as a friend.} (17:73)

Imam al-Baghawi (d. 510) said in his com­men­tary of the Qur’an enti­tled Lubab al-Ta’wil fi Ma‘alim al-Tanzil (Dar al-Fikr ed. vol. 3) con­cern­ing the sto­ry of the cranes (qis­sat al-gharaa­neeq):

[p. 293] Ibn ​‘Abbas, Muham­mad ibn Ka‘b al-Qurazi and oth­ers of the com­men­ta­tors of Qur’?n said that when the Prophet — Allah bless and greet him — saw the turn­ing away of his peo­ple from him and it bore heav­i­ly on him to see the dis­tance grow between them and what he brought them on Allah’s part, he desired in his soul (taman­na fi naf­si­hi) that there come from Allah some­thing that would bridge the gap between him and his peo­ple, for he was deeply con­cerned that they should have faith. As he was in a gath­er­ing of the Quraysh one day, Allah revealed Sura al-Najm (53), where­upon Allah’s Mes­sen­ger — Allah bless and greet him — began to recite it, until he reached His saying :

19. Have ye thought upon Al Lat and Al Uzza ?
20. And Man­at, the third, the other ?

where­upon the dev­il inter­ject­ed upon his tongue (alqa al-shay­tan ​‘ala lisani­hi) in con­nec­tion with that of which he spoke to him­self and was hop­ing for :

“Those are the ele­vat­ed cranes : tru­ly their inter­ces­sion is dear­ly hoped!”

When the Quraysh heard this, they rejoiced great­ly. Allah’s Mes­sen­ger pro­ceed­ed with his recita­tion until the end of the Sura, at which point he pros­trat­ed, and the Mus­lims pros­trat­ed with him as well as all those of the pagans that were in the mosque. There remained no-one in the mosque, nei­ther believ­er nor non-believ­er, except he pros­trat­ed, but for al-Walid ibn al-Mughi­ra and Abu Uhay­ha Sa‘id ibn al-‘As who took a hand­ful of earth and applied it to their fore­heads, pros­trat­ing on it, for they were aged old men who could not pros­trate. Then the Quraysh dis­persed in ela­tion at the way they had heard their gods men­tioned, say­ing : ​“Muham­mad has men­tioned our gods in the best way pos­si­ble.” They also said : ​“We def­i­nite­ly know that Allah gives life and gives death as well as cre­ates and sus­tains, but these our gods inter­cede for us before Him, so if Muham­mad gives them their share, we are with him.” When evening came, Gib­ril came to Allah’s Mes­sen­ger — Allah bless and greet him — and said : ​“O Muham­mad ! What have you done ? You have recit­ed to the peo­ple some­thing which I nev­er brought you from Allah Exalt­ed and Almighty.” Hear­ing this, the Prophet — Allah bless and greet him — was deeply griev­ed and feared much from Allah . So Allah revealed to him the fol­low­ing verse in which he con­soled him , as He was ever mer­ci­ful towards him :

{Nev­er sent We a mes­sen­ger or a Prophet before thee but when He recit­ed (the mes­sage) Satan pro­posed (oppo­si­tion) in respect of that which he recit­ed there­of. But Allah abol­isheth that which Satan pro­poseth. Then Allah estab­lisheth His rev­e­la­tions. Allah is Know­er, Wise} (22:52)

Mean­while those of the Prophet’s Com­pan­ions who were in Abyssy­nia heard the news of the pros­tra­tion of the Quraysh and the rumor that the Quraysh and the Mec­ca­ns had accept­ed Islam, so most of them returned to their kin­dred. But when they neared Mec­ca the news reached them that what they had heard of the Islam of the Mec­ca­ns was false. So no-one actu­al­ly entered Mec­ca except under pro­tec­tion or stealth­ily. When the above verse was revealed, the Quraysh said : ​“Muham­mad regrets his words about the sta­tus of our gods before Allah and has now changed them.” The two phras­es that the dev­il had inter­ject­ed upon the tongue of Allah’s Mes­sen­ger — Allah bless and greet him — by then were in the mouth of every idol­ater, and their hos­til­i­ty increased in inten­si­ty against those who had accept­ed Islam.

Al-Tabari (d. 310) said in his com­men­tary enti­tled Jami‘ al-Bayan fi Tafsir al-Qur’an (30 vols.) Beirut : Dar al-Fikr, ¹⁴⁰⁵⁄₁₉₈₅, reprint of the Bulaq 1322−1330÷1904−1911 ed. vol. 17 :

[p. 186] The say­ings con­cern­ing the inter­pre­ta­tion of the verse :

{Nev­er sent We a mes­sen­ger or a Prophet before thee but when He recit­ed (the mes­sage) Satan pro­posed (oppo­si­tion) in respect of that which he recit­ed there­of. But Allah abol­isheth that which Satan pro­poseth. Then Allah estab­lisheth His rev­e­la­tions. Allah is Know­er, Wise} (22:52):

It was said that the rea­son for which this verse was revealed upon the Mes­sen­ger of Allah — Allah bless and greet him — is that the dev­il had inter­ject­ed upon the Prophet’s tongue — Allah bless and greet him — dur­ing some of his recita­tion of the Qur’an as it had been revealed to him by Allah, some­thing which Allah had not revealed. Then this bore heav­i­ly on Allah’s Mes­sen­ger — Allah bless and greet him — who became despon­dent, where­upon Allah Almighty com­fort­ed him by reveal­ing to him the above…

[Then al-Tabari pro­ceeds to nar­rate reports to that effect, all of them weak, but the col­lec­tive weight of which sug­gests authen­tic­i­ty as stat­ed by Ibn Hajar in Fath al-Bari (see below).]

[p. 190] The gist of the inter­pre­ta­tion of the verse is : ​“We nev­er sent before you any Mes­sen­ger nor Prophet except that, when he uttered Allah’s Book in recita­tion, or dis­coursed and spoke, the dev­il inter­ject­ed some­thing into what he uttered of Allah’s Book in recita­tion or into his dis­course and speech, {But Allah abol­ish­es that which the dev­il inter­jects}, i.e. He removes what­ev­er sug­ges­tion the dev­il inter­jects upon the Prophet’s tongue and nul­li­fies it.”

[Al-Tabari goes on to state that the vers­es that fol­low make explic­it the fact that the rea­son for this inci­dent was to test the belief of those who har­bored a dis­ease in their hearts and increase the belief of those who were right­ly-guid­ed — and this test con­tin­ues until our time :

22:53 {That He may make that which the dev­il pro­poseth a temp­ta­tion for those in whose hearts is a dis­ease, and those whose hearts are hard­ened. Lo ! the evil-doers are in open schism.}
22:54 {And that those who have been giv­en knowl­edge may know that it is the truth from thy Lord, so that they may believe there­in and their hearts may sub­mit humbly unto Him. Lo ! Allah ver­i­ly is guid­ing those who believe unto a right path.}
22:55 {And those who dis­be­lieve will not cease to be in doubt there­of until the Hour come upon them unawares, or there come unto them the doom of a dis­as­trous day.}
22:56 {The Sov­er­eign­ty on that day will be Allah’s. He will judge between them. Then those who believed and did good works will be in Gar­dens of Delight,}
22:57 {While those who dis­be­lieved and denied Our rev­e­la­tions, for them will be a shame­ful doom.}]

Al-Jas­sas (d. 370), Ahkam al-Qur’an (5 vols.), ed. Muham­mad al-Sadiq Qamhawi (Beirut : Dar Ihya’ al-Turath al-‘Arabi, ¹⁴⁰⁵⁄₁₉₈₅) 5:83 – 84 : Con­cern­ing the verse :

{Nev­er sent We a mes­sen­ger or a Prophet before thee but when He recit­ed (the mes­sage) Satan pro­posed (oppo­si­tion) in respect of that which he recit­ed there­of. But Allah abol­isheth that which Satan pro­poseth. Then Allah estab­lisheth His rev­e­la­tions. Allah is Know­er, Wise} (22:52):

It was nar­rat­ed from Ibn ​‘Abbas, Sa‘id ibn Jubayr, al-Dah­hak, Muham­mad ibn Ka‘b, and Muham­mad ibn Qays that the cir­cum­stance of rev­e­la­tion fof this verse was that when the Prophet — Allah bless and greet him recit­ed {Have ye thought upon Al Lat and Al Uzza ? And Man­at, the third, the oth­er?} (53:19 – 20), the dev­il inter­ject­ed (alqa) into his recita­tion : ​“Those are the ele­vat­ed cranes : tru­ly their inter­ces­sion is dear­ly hoped!”

There is dif­fer­ence of opin­ion over the mean­ing of ​“the dev­il inter­ject­ed.” Some said that when the Prophet — Allah bless and greet him — recit­ed this sura and men­tioned in it the idols, the pagans knew that he would vil­i­fy them and so one of them said, at the time the Prophet — Allah bless and greet him — reached the words {Have ye thought upon} etc. ​“Those are,” etc. in full pres­ence of the mul­ti­tude of the Quraysh in the holy Mosque. At that time the gen­er­al­i­ty of the pagans who were far back said : ​“Muham­mad just praised our divini­ties!” and they con­jec­tured that this was part of his recita­tion. There­after, Allah declared this claim of theirs false, and showed that the Prophet — Allah bless and greet him — nev­er recit­ed it in the first place, but that it was only recit­ed by one of the pagans. Allah named that per­son ​“Satan” because he was one of the dev­ils of humankind… ​“shay­tan” being a name for every obdu­rate rebel among jinn and humankind. It was also said that it is pos­si­ble that he was one of the dev­ils of the jinn.

5. Al-Tha‘alibi’s (d. 876) al-Jawahir al-Hisan fi Tafsir al-Qur’?n (4 vols.), Beirut : Mu’as­sasa al‑A‘lami li al-Matbu‘at, 1970?, Reprint of the orig­i­nal ¹³²³⁄₁₉₀₅ Alger­ian edi­tion, 3:84 :

Al-Qadi ​‘Iyad said [in al-Shi­fa]: ​“Suf­fice it for you that this nar­ra­tion was not doc­u­ment­ed by any of the schol­ars of sound hadith, nor have any of the trust­wor­thy nar­ra­tors relat­ed it with a healthy, unin­ter­rupt­ed chain. The only ones to be inter­est­ed in it are the type of com­men­ta­tors and his­to­ri­ans who are inter­est­ed in every strange mat­ter, blind­ly com­pil­ing from the books every­thing their hands fall upon, whether it is sound or fee­ble.” Qadi Abu Bakr told the truth.

6. Abu al-Su‘ud’s (d. 951) Irshad al-‘Aql al-Sal­im ila Maza­ya al-Qur’?n al-Karim (9 vols.), Dar Ihya’ al-Turath al-‘Arabi, 6:113 :

Con­cern­ing the verse :

{Nev­er sent We a mes­sen­ger or a Prophet before thee but when He recit­ed (the mes­sage) Satan pro­posed (oppo­si­tion) in respect of that which he recit­ed there­of. But All?h abol­isheth that which Satan pro­poseth. Then All?h estab­lisheth His rev­e­la­tions. All?h is Know­er, Wise} (22:52):

It was said that he [the Prophet — All?h bless and greet him] hoped, because of his yearn­ing that his peo­ple should have faith, that there be revealed to him some­thing that would bring them near­er to him, and he per­sist­ed in this until he was among them and Sura al-Najm was revealed ; where­upon he began to recite it, and when he reached {And Man­at, the third, the oth­er}, the dev­il whis­pered to him with the result that his tongue tripped in inat­ten­tion and he said ​“Those are the ele­vat­ed cranes : tru­ly their inter­ces­sion is dear­ly hoped!” Where­upon the pagans rejoiced and joined him in pros­tra­tion when he pros­trat­ed at the end of the Sura, and there remained none in the Mosque — whether believ­er or pagan — except they all pros­trat­ed. After this, Gib­ril — upon him peace — warned him of the mis­take, then All?h the Exalt­ed rebuked him with this verse. This account is reject­ed by the schol­ars of verification.

7. Ibn Hajar in Fath al-Bari, 1959 ed. vol. 8 :

[p. 439] All the paths of this hadith are either weak or cut off, except for that of Sa‘id ibn Jubayr… How­ev­er, the pro­fu­sion of the chains show that the sto­ry has a basis, fur­ther­more, there are two oth­er ​“mur­sal” chains whose nar­ra­tors are those of Bukhari and Mus­lim. The first one is that nar­rat­ed by al-Tabari through Yunus ibn Yazid from Ibn Shi­hab [al-Zuhri]: ​“Abu Bakr ibn ​‘Abd al-Rah­man ibn al-Harith ibn Hisham nar­rat­ed to me,” etc. The sec­ond is what al-Tabari also nar­rat­ed through al-Mu‘tamir ibn Sulay­man and Ham­mad ibn Sala­ma from Dawud ibn Abi Hind from Abu al-‘Aliya.… Con­trary to what Abu Bakr ibn al-‘Arabi and al-Qadi ​‘Iyad have claimed where­by the sto­ry has no basis at all.… When the paths of a hadith are many and dis­tinct, it shows that the report has a basis.… So, as I said, there are three sound but ​‘mur­sal’ chains for it, among them what meets the cri­te­ria of the two Sahihs but for the fact that they are ​‘mur­sal’. These con­sti­tute proof for both those that accept ​‘mur­sal’ reports as proofs and those that do not, due to the mutu­al strength­en­ing of the chains.

This said, it is required to inter­pret the inci­dent and address what appears to be rep­re­hen­si­ble, name­ly the state­ment ​“the dev­il inter­ject­ed upon the Prophet’s tongue — All?h bless and greet him — the words ​‘Those are the ele­vat­ed cranes : tru­ly their inter­ces­sion is dear­ly hoped.’ ” Such a thing is pre­clud­ed from being accept­ed in lit­er­al terms for it is impos­si­ble for the Prophet — All?h bless and greet him — to add some­thing to the Qur’?n that does not belong to it whether delib­er­ate­ly (‘amdan) or erro­neous­ly (sah­wan). …

[p. 440] Al-Qadi ​‘Iyad did well when he said : ​“It is pos­si­ble the Prophet — All?h bless and greet him — was men­tion­ing the belief of the pagans by way of deri­sion, not­ing that at that time it was per­mit­ted to speak in the midst of prayer. To this posi­tion leaned Ibn al-Baqil­lani. It was also said that when he reached the words {Have ye thought upon Al Lat and Al Uzza ? And Man­at, the third, the oth­er?} the pagans feared lest he would add some­thing to mock their gods, so they has­tened to inter­ject and jeer so as to cov­er up what was com­ing next, as was their habit stat­ed in the verse {Those who dis­be­lieve say : Heed not this Quran, and drown the hear­ing of it ; hap­ly ye may con­quer} (41:26). This act on their part was attrib­uted to the dev­il as it was he that inspired it to them. Or, what was meant by the dev­il was the dev­il of humankind.… It was also said that the Prophet — All?h bless and greet him used to recite the Qur’?n slow­ly, so that the dev­il lay in wait for one of the paus­es and uttered the words in ques­tion with the same tim­bre of voice. Those that were near him heard it as if com­ing from the Prophet — All?h bless and greet him — and attrib­uted it to him. This is the best of all interpretations.”

Ibn al-‘Arabi also approved of the lat­ter inter­pre­ta­tion, say­ing : ​“This verse [{Nev­er sent We a mes­sen­ger or a Prophet before thee but when He recit­ed (the mes­sage) Satan pro­posed (oppo­si­tion) in respect of his amaniyya (=“that which he recit­ed there­of”)} (22:52)] is an explic­it proof-text, in our school, to the inno­cence of the Prophet — All?h bless and greet him — of what was imput­ed to him. The mean­ing of ​‘amaniyya’ in the verse being : ​‘recita­tion’. All?h Almighty there­fore informed us in this verse that His way with His Mes­sen­gers is that when they say some­thing, Satan adds some­thing to it on his part. This is an explic­it proof-text that it is Satan that con­veys this state­ment inside the Prophet’s words — All?h bless and greet him — and it is not the lat­ter that says it. A prece­dent for this view was giv­en by al-Tabari, in keep­ing with his high eru­di­tion, vast learn­ing, and per­spic­u­ous analy­sis, and he declared it the cor­rect inter­pre­ta­tion, and set­tled on it.”

There are two recent book­lets from the late Nasir Alban­i’s print­ing house, al-Mak­tab al-Isla­mi out of Beirut, on the topic :

1- Nasb al-Majaniq li-Nasf Qis­sat al-Gha­raniq (“The Hoist­ing of Cat­a­pults for the Destruc­tion of the Sto­ry of the Cranes”) by M. Nasir al-Albani, 3rd ed. 1996.

2- Al-Gha­raniq : Qis­sat­un Dakhi­latun ​‘ala al-Sir­ati al-Nabawiyya (“The Cranes : A Sto­ry Inter­po­lat­ed into the Prophet­ic Sira”) by Alban­i’s stu­dent Sal­ih Ahmad al-Sha­mi, 1st ed. 1998.

The first work argues for the inva­lid­i­ty of the sto­ry from the view­point of isnad, a weak argu­ment as shown in the pre­ced­ing discussion.

The sec­ond work argues for the inva­lid­i­ty of the sto­ry from the view­point of chronol­o­gy, a strong and con­clu­sive argu­ment from the face of it, mak­ing the fol­low­ing points :

- Surat al-Najm (in which the dis­put­ed vers­es were pur­port­ed to belong) was revealed in one whole in the tenth year of the Hijra.

- The First Hijra to Abyssinia took place in the fifth year, between Rajab and Shawwal.

- How then could the rev­e­la­tion of Surat al-Najm and the sub­se­quent events — prompt­ing the rumors of mass con­ver­sion in Mec­ca — that all took place in the tenth year, be a cause for the return of the Abyssin­ian Emi­grants in the fifth ?

- The true rea­son for the return of the Mus­lims from the first Abyssin­ian Emi­gra­tion was alien­ation and dif­fi­cult con­di­tions as spo­ken by Asma’ bint ​‘Umays in the nar­ra­tion of al-Bukhari in his Sahih : ​“Asma’ bint ​‘Umays went in to see Haf­sa the wife of Rasu­l­ul­lah Sal­lal­lahu ​‘alay­hi wa Ali­hi wa Sal­lam, and she was one of those who had emi­grat­ed to the Negus. Where­upon ​‘Umar came in to see Haf­sa while Asma’ was with her. He asked who she was and Haf­sa told him. ​‘Umar said : She is the Abyssin­ian ? The one from accross the sea ? Asma’ said yes. ​‘Umar said : We all [emi­grants to Mad­i­na] made Hijra before you all [emi­grants to Abyssinia], so we are more enti­tled to the Mes­sen­ger of All?h than you — All?h bless and greet him. She became angry and said : Not at all, by All?h ! You were with the Mes­sen­ger of All?h — All?h bless and greet him — at a time he fed your hun­gry ones and admon­ished your igno­rant ones, while we were in the abode of alien­ation and detes­ta­tion (dar al-bu‘ada’ wa al-bugha­da’) in Abyssinia, all for the sake of All?h and for the sake of Rasu­l­ul­lah ! And, by All?h, I shall not eat one morsel of food nor drink one drop of water until I men­tion what you said to Rasu­l­ul­lah ! And how much did we suf­fer, and how we lived in fear ! But I shall men­tion this to the Prophet ! etc.”

- All the above does not pre­clude the fact that the Mec­can unbe­liev­ers did pros­trate upon hear­ing Sura al-Najm exact­ly as it was revealed, due to its majesty and the fear caused in them by the invo­ca­tion of pun­ish­ment pro­nounced towards its end. One needs only to imag­ine them gath­ered togeth­er with the Mus­lims before the Ka‘ba as the Prophet — All?h bless and greet him — him­self recit­ed this new­ly-revealed Sura to them from begin­ning to end. Sim­i­lar exam­ples are the reac­tions of the unbe­liev­ers at the invo­ca­tions of pun­ish­ment they heard from the believ­ers. For exam­ple, ​‘Utba ibn Rabi‘a’s reac­tion when he heard the verse {If they turn away, tell them I have warned you of a destruc­tion sim­i­lar to that of ​‘Ad and Thamud} (Fussi­lat 13). Upon hear­ing this ​‘Utba placed his hand on the mouth of the Prophet — All?h bless and greet him — so that the threat of pun­ish­ment would be avert­ed. And when Khubayb ibn ​‘Adi pro­nounced a sim­i­lar threat, Abu Sufyan lied down on the ground togeth­er with his son Mu‘awiya to deflect its harm.

Al-Sha­mi also makes note of the book ​“Had­ha al-Habib” by the late Abu Bakr al-Jaza­’iri in which the author advo­cates the posi­tion that the sto­ry did take place and that the Prophet — All?h bless and greet him — was in fact mis­lead. This is the same man who used to sit in the Haram of Mad­i­na attack­ing the Awliya and Sufis, and who wrote that the father and moth­er of the Prophet — All?h bless and greet him — are in Hell­fire. He was refut­ed among oth­ers by the two Moroc­can authors of the book Wa‘izun Ghayru Mutta‘iz (“A Heed­less Admonisher”).

The late al-Sayyid ​‘Abd Allah Sir­aj al-Din al-Hal­abi (died this March 2002 rahi­mat­ul­lah) also has a long, extreme­ly detailed treat­ment of the sto­ry of the cranes in his mas­ter­ful book Hady al-Qur’an al-Karim ila al-Huj­jati wal-Burhan, 2nd edi­tion, 1994, p. 155 – 182. He too con­cludes that it is a forgery.

Wa Allahu ta‘ala a‘lam. Bless­ings and salu­ta­tions of Allah on the Prophet, his Fam­i­ly, and all his Com­pan­ions. Praise belongs to Allah, Lord of the Worlds.