“Allah is the Creator of all things and He is the Guardian over all things” [i].
The first ayah of Surah Al Alaq (Read, In the Name of your Lord Who created) mentions that Allah (swt), “Created”! And before He created us, He created various other things such as water, His throne, the Pen and the Preserved Tablets. Therefore, this should be the first lesson, before any study of any history, so that children are able to appreciate the Creation process.
Our Prophet Mohammad (saw) was asked “Where was our Lord before He created His creation?” He replied “Nothing existed but Him, with nothing beneath Him and nothing above Him.“[vi].
Allah (swt) is thus Al Awwal, The First. Everything besides Allah was created by Him, is under His Dominion and His Disposal and was brought into being, having previously not existed. He is thus Al Khaliq, the Creator.
Prophet Mohammad (saw) further said:
“Allah created the Arsh (Throne) and placed it above the water”[vii]
“Allah created everything from water”[viii].
“Allah ordained the measures of the creation fifty thousand years before He created the Heavens and the Earth, while His Throne was over the water“[ix].
“The first thing that Allah created was the Pen, then He said to it, ‘Write’. In that very hour all that was to occur was written up to the Day of Resurrection”[x].
“Indeed, Allah created a Preserved Tablet from a white pearl; its pages are made from a red ruby and its Pen is light and its record is light”[xi].
| Arsh and Kursi |
| “The Throne was created from a red ruby and the distance between its two sides would take fifty thousand years to traverse.”[ii] It has legs which are held by the angels, it is above Paradise, which is above the heavens and there are a hundred levels between each of heavens’ seven levels. “His Kursi extends over the heavens and the Earth and He feels no fatigue in guarding and preserving them. And He is the Most High, the Most Great”[iii] “The Kursi refers to the Footstool”.[iv] “The Kursi in relation to the Arsh is no more than a ring of iron thrown into an open desert on Earth.”[v] |
The above narrations describe the Sequence of Creation as follows:
After creating water and the Throne, Allah (swt) decided the destiny of mankind; He created the Pen and commanded it to write. So, the Pen wrote upon the Lohe Mahfouz or the Preserved Tablet. It is beyond human comprehension to imagine this Tablet, which has a record of every action, utterance, thought and movement (or lack of) within creation, from the moment the Pen began writing till the Last Hour. Even if a leaf is to fall from a tree within the darkness of the night in an isolated forest, the precise time of its falling and the path of descent has been written upon the Tablet.[xii]
The Lohe Mahfouz has Allah’s protection and so it has been preserved. Some people believe that whatever has been written in it cannot be altered while others state that it is possible for alterations to exist with the permission of Allah (swt). Also, it is believed that the Quran originated from the Lohe Mahfouz.
The Lohe Mahfouz was written 50,000 years before mankind was created. Everything that will happen to us throughout our lives has already been decided by Allah (swt). All that will happen after we are gone is in the Lohe Mahfouz. All that has already occurred since the creation of the Pen until today is also written in it. Mankind only has some record of this History and we will try to learn some of it in this course of study.
After the Lohe Mahfouz, Allah created the Heavens and the Earth and everything in it. We will cover this in more detail in the next article.
Download a printable version of this article, lesson plan as well as Comprehension Questions above.
[i] Surah Al Zumar 39:62
[ii] From the book “The Description of the Throne”
[iii] Surah Al Baqarah 2:255
[iv] Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim
[v] Narrated by Ibn Jareer At Tabari in his Tafseer
[vi] Sahih Bukhari
[vii] Sahih Bukhari
[viii] Narrated by Ibn Hibban
[ix] Sahih Muslim
[x] Narrated by Ahmad in his Musnad
[xi] Weak hadeeth narrated by At Tabarani in AI Kabeer
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