رَّبُّ ٱلْمَشْرِقِ وَٱلْمَغْرِبِ لَآ إِلَٰهَ إِلَّا هُوَ فَٱتَّخِذْهُ وَكِيلًۭا
[He is] the Lord of the East and the West; there is no deity except Him, so take Him as Disposer of [your] affairs.
Introduction
This is āyah 9 of Sūrat Al-Muzzammil (The Enshrouded One), the 3rd sūrah in the traditional order of revelation. It was revealed in the Meccan period and sits within Juzʾ 29. 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
- 3 of 114
- Surah
- Al-Muzzammil (73)
Lord of the east and the west, there is no god but He, so take Him as a trustee. Since you know that He is the God of the world and the world's folk, that He is their keeper, nurturer, work-knower, and guardian, consider Him your trustee and caretaker, for He is more suf- ficient than all caretakers. Come totally outside your rushing and running, your preoccupations, and entrust yourself totally to Him. Turn away from all and lean on His assurance. Lift your heart away from creatures and put aside self-governance. Put all of your self in the hands of His prede- termination so that the road of seeking may become clear to you. He is one Lord, and He wants a servant who is one in aspiration and one in seeking. These words will be not set in place by a man of every door and every place. Be the man whose feet are on the ground and whose aspiration's head is in the Pleiades. * The unique man has no use for middling passion; middling passion is not fit for the unique man. Either passion, or blame, or the road of safety- the arrow of trial has no target but man's spirit.
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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