رَفِيعُ ٱلدَّرَجَٰتِ ذُو ٱلْعَرْشِ يُلْقِى ٱلرُّوحَ مِنْ أَمْرِهِۦ عَلَىٰ مَن يَشَآءُ مِنْ عِبَادِهِۦ لِيُنذِرَ يَوْمَ ٱلتَّلَاقِ
[He is] the Exalted above [all] degrees, Owner of the Throne; He places the inspiration of His command upon whom He wills of His servants to warn of the Day of Meeting.
Introduction
This is āyah 15 of Sūrat Ghafir (The Forgiver), the 60th sūrah in the traditional order of revelation. It was revealed in the Meccan period and sits within Juzʾ 24. Meccan verses tend to address faith, the oneness of God, and the hereafter.
This introduction is a starting point — the community and Bilal will enrich it over time.
Revelation & occasion
- Period
- Meccan
- Order revealed
- 60 of 114
- Surah
- Ghafir (40)
Uplifter of degrees is He, Possessor of the Throne. He uplifts the degrees of the disobedient to salvation, of the obedient to rewards, of the possessors of needs to sufficiency, of the friends to charismatic gifts, and of the recognizers to states of watch- fulness and encounter. He lifts up the degrees of the servants. He keeps each in a station and gives to each of them what is suitable for him. To the disobedient He gives salvation, to the obedient rewards, to the requesters sufficiencies, to the friends charismatic gifts, to the recognizers states of watchfulness and encounter. The degrees of the faithful and the friends are first today and then tomorrow. Today they are in knowledge and faith, as He says, “He will lift up in degrees those among you who have faith and those who have been given knowledge” [58:11]. Tomorrow they will be in the garden of ap- proval with repose and ease [56:89] in the neighborhood of the All-Merciful, as He says: “They are degrees with God” [3:163]. As for the degrees of the folk of form tomorrow in paradise, they are one thing, and the degrees of the folk of attributes are another thing, for the folk of form are one thing and the folk of attributes are another. The folk of form are in the valley of dispersion, the folk of attributes in the center point of togetherness. “The faithful indeed are siblings” [49:10]; this is in the world of form. As for what MuṣṬafā said, “The faithful are like one soul,” that is in the world of attributes. One of the nomad leaders came before MuṣṬafā and asked, “What has been put away for us in paradise, and how high will be our degrees?” This man was one of the folk of form. God's Messenger replied, “'Therein are rivers of water unstaling' [47:15], and therein are such and such and so on.” He counted out the flowing water, the roasted fowl, the various sorts of fruit, just as the Qur'an speaks of them. Someone else, one of the folk of attributes, asked him about this meaning. God's Messenger knew he was a man of attributes, not a man of form, so he said, “Within it are what no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what has never passed into the heart of any mortal.
Tafsir
Hafiz Ibn Kathir
Chains of transmission
Oral — isnād
- ~610–632 CERevelation & memorisation
Received by the Prophet ﷺ and preserved by the ḥuffāẓ (memorisers) among the Companions.
- 1st century AHMutawātir transmissionawaiting curation
Carried by mass-transmission through the generations of qurrāʾ.
- TodayLiving chainsawaiting curation
Continuous ijāzah chains link reciters today back to the Prophet ﷺ.
Verified isnād chains for this āyah will be added by curators.
Written — the manuscript record
- ~650 CEʿUthmānic codicesawaiting curation
The standardised muṣḥaf sent to the great cities (e.g. the Topkapı and Samarqand codices).
- 8th–10th c.Early Ḥijāzī & Kūfic foliosawaiting curation
Surviving leaves in Birmingham, Sanaa, Paris (BnF) and beyond.
- Modern printModern printawaiting curation
The 1924 Cairo edition → today: the standard printed muṣḥaf used worldwide.
A curated chain of manuscript images for this exact āyah — roughly one per century — is coming. Help us source and verify them.
And now — what do you think?
The text, its history and the classical commentary are laid out above. Share your own understanding, ask a question, or reason with others.
Community resources
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