يَٰعِبَادِىَ ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوٓا۟ إِنَّ أَرْضِى وَٰسِعَةٌ فَإِيَّٰىَ فَٱعْبُدُونِ · كُلُّ نَفْسٍ ذَآئِقَةُ ٱلْمَوْتِ
"O My servants who believe! My earth is wide; so serve Me, and Me alone. Every soul shall taste death."
Almost the same expression had occurred at al-Zumar 39/10: wa arḍu'llāhi wāsiʿa — "God's earth is wide." There it was announced that those who are patient would receive their recompense without reckoning.
| Place | Expression | Context |
|---|---|---|
| al-Zumar 39/10 | Wa arḍu'llāhi wāsiʿa | Patience — recompense without reckoning |
| al-ʿAnkabūt 29/56 | Inna arḍī wāsiʿa | Trial — the command to serve |
The difference must be recorded: in al-Zumar "God's earth", here "My earth" — the first person. And the address is first person too: yā ʿibādī — "O My servants."
I record this as my own reading, and its ground is the pronouns: the first block of the sūra described the person left under pressure (10-11: counting the affliction of people as though it were the punishment of God). This verse announces a way out from under that pressure — and it does so with the closest form of address.
فَإِيَّٰىَ فَٱعْبُدُون — the object is fronted (iyyāya), and in Arabic this conveys restriction: not to another. The same fronting was treated at al-Zumar 39/66 (bali'llāha fa'ʿbud).
كُلُّ نَفْسٍ ذَآئِقَةُ ٱلْمَوْت — and immediately afterwards the inevitability of death is recalled.
I record this as an observation about the word order: read together, the two verses set down, immediately after the call to migrate, the note that one will die in any case. That is, changing one's place is not escaping death — it is choosing in what state one dies.