Tafseer of Sheba · Saba · 34:2
He knows what penetrates into the earth and what emerges from it and what descends from the heaven and what ascends therein. And He is the Merciful, the Forgiving.
Important: The Arabic source text is always authoritative. This translation is a study aid and has not been verified by scholars — do not use it as a basis for religious proof or for deriving rulings (ahkam). When in doubt, always consult the Arabic text and a qualified scholar.
The statement concerning the explanation of His saying, the Exalted: يَعْلَمُ مَا يَلِجُ فِي الأَرْضِ وَمَا يَخْرُجُ مِنْهَا وَمَا يَنْزِلُ مِنَ السَّمَاءِ وَمَا يَعْرُجُ فِيهَا وَهُوَ الرَّحِيمُ الْغَفُورُ ("He knows what enters the earth and what comes forth from it, and what descends from the heaven and what ascends therein; and He is the Merciful, the Forgiving") (34:2).
He, exalted is His mention, says: He knows what enters the earth and what becomes hidden within it of any matter. This is derived from their expression "walajtu fī kadhā" when you enter into something, as the poet said:
"I saw the rhyme-verses (qawāfī) entering through entrances, which even needles are too narrow to penetrate." (1)
By his saying "yattalijna mawālija" he means: they enter through entrances. وَمَا يَخْرُجُ مِنْهَا ("and what comes forth from it"). He says: and what comes forth from the earth. وَمَا يَنْزِلُ مِنَ السَّمَاءِ وَمَا يَعْرُجُ فِيهَا ("and what descends from the heaven and what ascends therein"), that is to say: and what ascends in the heaven. That is a report from Allah that He is the All-Knowing, from whom nothing is hidden in the heavens and the earth, of what is visible therein and what is concealed; and He is the Merciful (al-Raḥīm), the Forgiving (al-Ghafūr): He is merciful toward the people of repentance (tawba) among His servants, in that He does not punish them after their repentance, forgiving of their sins when they repent of them.
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The footnotes:
(1) The verse belongs to the poetry attributed to Ṭarafa ibn al-ʿAbd al-Bakrī, but it is not found in his dīwān which contains the poems of the six poets (see it in al-ʿIqd al-thamīn, in the dīwāns of the pre-Islamic poets by the German Ahlwardt, printed at Greaves's), born in the year 1869. (It occurs in) al-Lisān, entry "walaja", without attribution. It likewise occurs in Farāʾid al-qalāʾid, in the abridgment of the explanation of the witness-verses of al-ʿAynī, p. 391; he said: "For the rhyme-verses ... etc." It was said by Ṭarafa ibn al-ʿAbd. And al-qawāfī is the plural of qāfiya, and by it he here means the qaṣīda (the poem), because the qāfiya encompasses the poem. The witness-word is in "yattalijna": the original form is "yawtalijna", because it is derived from "walaja" when he entered; the wāw was replaced by a tāʾ, and the tāʾ was assimilated into the tāʾ. And al-mawālij is the plural of mawlaj, and that is the place of entering. Al-ibar is the plural of ibra: the sewing needle. Ṭarafa means that satirical poems, in their effect upon the soul of the one satirized, reach far places that the points of needles do not reach when the one satirized is pricked with them. It resembles the saying of another: "The word penetrates where needles do not penetrate." End.
