The creation of the heavens and the earth

Allah the Most High said in His Mighty Book:

"Allah is the Creator of all things, and He has power over all things."

Surah az-Zumar, 62

All things are His creation

Everything other than Him is His creation, nourished and governed by Him, formed after not having been, come to be after its non-being. The Throne, which is the roof of created things – down to what lies beneath the earth – and all between them, of inanimate and speaking beings: all of it is His creation, His possession, His servants, under His constraint and power, under His disposition and will. He created the heavens and the earth in six days, then established Himself upon the Throne. He knows what enters the earth and what comes out of it, what descends from the sky and what ascends into it; He is with you wherever you are, and Allah sees what you do:

"He knows what enters the earth and what comes out of it, what descends from the sky and what ascends into it; He is with you wherever you are, and Allah sees what you do."

Surah al-Hadid, 4

Six days to create the heavens and the earth

The scholars of Islam, unanimously, without any Muslim doubting it, hold that Allah created the heavens and the earth and what is between them in six days, as the wise Quran indicates; but they differed over those days: are they like our days, or is each day like a thousand years of your counting? Two views, as we explained in the tafsir.

They also differed: was anything created before the heavens and the earth? Groups of theologians held that there was nothing before them and that they were created from pure non-being. Others said: rather, there were other creatures before the heavens and the earth, according to His saying:

"It is He who created the heavens and the earth in six days, and His Throne was upon the water."

Surah Hud, 7

And in the hadith of Imran ibn Husayn – which will come – : "Allah was, and nothing was before Him, and His Throne was upon the water; He wrote in the Reminder all things, then He created the heavens and the earth." Imam Ahmad reported, from Bahz, from Hammad ibn Salama, from Ya'la ibn Ata, from Waki ibn Hudus, from his uncle Abu Razin Laqit ibn Amir al-Uqayli who said: "O Messenger of Allah, where was our Lord before He created the heavens and the earth?" He answered:

"He was in a cloud: above it was air and below it was air; then He created His Throne upon the water."

Reported by at-Tirmidhi (hassan), from Abu Razin Laqit ibn Amir al-Uqayli

Yazid ibn Harun also reported it from Hammad ibn Salama with this wording: "where was our Lord before He created His creation?" with the rest identical. At-Tirmidhi reported it from Ahmad ibn Mani and Ibn Majah from Abu Bakr ibn Abi Shayba and Muhammad ibn Sabbah, all three from Yazid ibn Harun, and at-Tirmidhi said: hassan.

The Pen, first of creation

They differed over what He created first. Some authors said: He created the Pen before all of that – and that is the choice of Ibn Jarir, Ibn al-Jawzi and others. Ibn Jarir said: after the Pen came the light cloud, relying on the hadith reported by Imam Ahmad, Abu Dawud and at-Tirmidhi from Ubadah ibn as-Samit:

"The first thing Allah created was the Pen; then He said to it: write! And it unrolled, in that instant, everything that was to be until the Day of Resurrection."

Reported by Ahmad, Abu Dawud and at-Tirmidhi (hassan sahih gharib), from Ubadah ibn as-Samit

The Throne before the Pen according to the jumhur

What the jumhur hold, as reported by al-Hafiz Abu al-Ala al-Hamadhani and others, is that the Throne was created before that – and that is what Ibn Jarir reported by the way of al-Dahhak, from Ibn Abbas, as the hadith that Muslim reports in his Sahih indicates:

"Allah inscribed the decrees of the creatures fifty thousand years before creating the heavens and the earth, and His Throne was upon the water."

Muslim, from Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-As

They said: that inscription is the writing of the decrees by the Pen, and this hadith shows that it took place after the creation of the Throne; so the creation of the Throne precedes the Pen by which the decrees were written – as the jumhur held. The hadith of the Pen is taken to mean it was the first of the creations of this world. Confirming this is what al-Bukhari reported from Imran ibn Husayn: the people of Yemen said to the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him): "We have come to you to learn the religion and to ask you about the beginning of this matter." He answered:

"Allah was, and nothing was before Him, and His Throne was upon the water; He wrote in the Reminder all things, then He created the heavens and the earth."

Al-Bukhari, from Imran ibn Husayn

In a version: "with Him", in another: "other than Him". They asked him about the beginning of the creation of the heavens and the earth – hence their request "about the beginning of this matter" – and He answered only what they asked, which is why he did not inform them of the creation of the Throne as he did in the earlier hadith of Abu Razin.

Ibn Jarir said: others said: rather, Allah created the water before the Throne – al-Suddi reported it from Abu Malik and Abu Salih, from Ibn Abbas, and from Murra, from Ibn Mas'ud, and from people among the Companions of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) who said: the Throne of Allah was upon the water and He had created nothing else than what He had created before the water. Ibn Jarir reported from Muhammad ibn Ishaq that he said: the first thing Allah created was light and darkness, then He distinguished between them, making the darkness a black, dark night, and the light an illuminating, brightening day. Ibn Jarir said: it has been said that what our Lord created after the Pen was the Kursi, then after the Kursi the Throne, then after that the air and the darkness, then He created the water and placed His Throne upon the water. And Allah knows best.