al-Mulk 67:2

Alladhī khalaqa'l-mawta wa'l-ḥayāta li-yabluwakum ayyukum aḥsanu ʿamalā, wa huwa'l-ʿazīzu'l-ghafūr "He who created death and life, to test which of you is best in deed. He is the mighty, the much-forgiving."

The centre of gravity of the sūra is here. And in two separate places it steps outside the usual: in death's being mentioned first, and in the measure's being not "the most" but "the best".

If the sentence is passed over without dwelling on it, this is not noticed: death is said to have been "created".

The most widespread thought about death is that it is a nothingness. There is life, and death is the ending of life; there is light, and darkness is the absence of light. On this understanding death is not a thing — it is the coming to an end of a thing.

The verse does not accept this understanding. What is the object of the act of creating is a thing that exists. Nothingness is not created.

This has two consequences:

One. Death is an event, not a void. The Qurʾān sets it up this way elsewhere too: death is "tasted" ("Every soul shall taste death" — Āl ʿImrān 3/185). Tasting is contact with something; nothingness is not tasted.

Two. Death is not a loss but part of the plan. To say "it was created" is to say "it was there in the design". Death is not the breaking down of the machine of life; it is the way the machine works.

The practical counterpart of this is weighty and works directly in modern life: a mind that counts death a malfunction lives its life expecting a malfunction. A mind that counts death part of the design sees the same event not as an end but as a limit. The difference between the two changes the direction of fear.

The expected order would be "life and death" — because that is the order of time: first you live, then you die.

The verse does the reverse.

In classical exegesis several explanations are given for this; I record them all and then add my own reading:

I add my own reading: by bringing death forward the verse makes life bounded. If in a sentence a limit is set first and then the field is described, the field is read as limited from the outset. Had it said "life and death", death would have been an appendix coming at the end of life. When it says "death and life", life settles inside death.

And it agrees with the whole of the sūra: the first verse had said in whose hand the dominion is. The real owner of a dominion is the one who can take it back. The second verse puts the name of taking back right at the beginning.

Root: ب-ل-و. This root was treated in the discussion of al-Baqara (2/49); I do not repeat it here. The summary of the finding there is this: the borrowed word has narrowed in Turkish to mean only calamity, whereas in Arabic the root means to test, to try by wearing down, and it covers testing by good as well — "We test you with evil and with good, as a trial" (al-Anbiyāʾ 21/35).

A layer must be added here, because the concrete side of the root is also at work in Sūrat al-Mulk.

The proper sense of the root is "to wear out, to wear down". Baliya'l-thawb — the garment wore out. Bālin — worn, old. That testing is named with this word is no accident: the Arabs tested a thing's durability by using it. Whether a sword is good is understood not by looking but by striking. Testing is wearing down.

And now the two halves of the verse come together: to test by wearing down, a period of wearing down is needed first. Death and life are the two ends of that period. The word sits exactly on its subject.

This question is unavoidable and must be handled honestly, because the verse says "in order to test", and testing is normally a method of acquiring information.

The classical answer is this, and it is reasonable: a test is not for producing knowledge but for producing an act. God's knowledge encompasses what will be; but the realisation of a thing that is known is a separate matter. A teacher's knowing that a student will fail does not require that the student not sit the examination — because the function of the examination is not to inform the teacher but to bring the outcome about in fact.

A second answer is given by way of the language: in the Qurʾān verbs of this kind (li-yaʿlama, li-yabluwa) are often used in the sense of "so that it may come out into the open" — what is meant is not the forming of knowledge but the matter's becoming public.

I relate these two explanations; I do not present either as a transmitted report. Both are widespread in the tradition and they do not exclude one another.

And this should be added: the verse was not framed in order to answer this question. The one addressed by the verse is not a theologian curious about God's knowledge but a human being who does not know what his own life was given for.

Here is the distinction.

The verse does not say "which of you will do the most deeds". The word أَكْثَر (akthar — more) exists in Arabic and is used in the Qurʾān. It was not chosen.

The word chosen is أَحْسَن (aḥsan — better, finer).

Root: ح-س-ن. To be beautiful, to be good, to be fitting. Beneath the root lies the idea of fittingness and aptness: ḥasan is a thing's being as it ought to be. In Arabic the beauty of a face, the soundness of a piece of work and the rightness of a character are all named with the same root. Iḥsān comes from the same root and means "to do a work giving it its due".

When the measure changes everything changes. The difference needs making concrete:

The fifth row is especially important. With the measure of quantity nobody can be satisfied, because "more" is an infinite direction. This is exactly what was treated in Sūrat al-Takāthur: the race to multiply is itself a sickness and its stopping point is death.

Sūrat al-Mulk cancels this race from the outset. If the measure is not quantity, there is no such thing as getting ahead by multiplying.

And there is a sixth consequence, which I write as my own reading: the measure of aḥsan equalises the test. The one with great means and the one with little means answer the same question: did you do what was in your hand giving it its due? This question can be put to a billionaire and to a labourer with the same weight. The question "how many?" cannot.

This expression does not stand alone in the Qurʾān:

• "He who created the heavens and the earth in six days… to test which of you is best in deed" (Hūd 11/7 — li-yabluwakum ayyukum aḥsanu ʿamalā, exactly the same expression as al-Mulk 67/2).
• "We have made what is on the earth an adornment for it, so that We may test which of them is best in deed" (al-Kahf 18/7 — li-nabluwahum ayyuhum aḥsanu ʿamalā).

In all three places the measure is the same: aḥsan. In none of them does akthar occur.

And the contexts of the three complete one another:

That is, the material of the testing is given at three separate scales: the universe, one's means, and one's lifetime. The measure stays the same every time.

The end of the verse calls for attention. After a sentence that speaks of a test, the expected pair of names would have been al-ʿazīzu'l-ḥakīm (mighty and wise) or al-samīʿu'l-ʿalīm. The pair that comes is: al-ʿAzīz — al-Ghafūr.

عَزِيز — root ع-ز-ز. The concrete sense of the root is hardness, being strong, unconquerability; and a second branch of meaning is rarity and preciousness (ʿazīz: hard to come by, precious). Joined together: the one not overcome, not reached, whose worth is not measured against another's.

غَفُور — root غ-ف-ر. And the concrete sense of this root is to cover. Mighfar — the helmet drawn over the head, covering the skull. From the same root ghifāra, a cover drawn over a thing.

That is, forgiveness is not the sin's being counted as nothing but its being covered. There is something there; it has been closed over.

Now the meaning of the pair appears. The two names placed at the end of a verse announcing a test describe the two sides of the test:

• ʿAzīz: there is no escaping the examination, no bargaining with the one who set it, no power that can have the result annulled.
• Ghafūr: but when the result comes out badly it can be covered over.

Their standing side by side sets the tone of the sūra. Had there been only ʿAzīz, the test would have been an execution. Had there been only Ghafūr, the test would have had no meaning. The two together: an examination to be taken seriously but not to be despaired of.

The matter of the measure works especially well today.

Modern life is built almost entirely on the measure of quantity: how many hours you worked, how many books you read, how many steps you took, how many people follow you, how many tasks you finished. What is measurable is manageable, and what is manageable is preferred. This is not a mistake; it is a convenience.

But the convenience has a price: what cannot be measured becomes invisible. Because whether a work was done giving it its due does not turn into a number, it does not appear on the chart. What does not appear is in time counted unimportant.

The measure the verse lays down is exactly the measure that does not go on the chart.

Its counterpart in the life of worship is direct and uncomfortable: how many cycles of prayer, how many pages, how many days — all of these can be counted, and counting them gives peace. The measure of aḥsan disturbs that peace, because it cannot be counted. The question "have I done enough?" can be answered; the question "did I give it its due?" cannot.

And the sūra lays down as its measure the one that cannot be answered.

And one must look at it from the other side too. The measure of aḥsan does not only make things harder; it also rescues. Someone who can do little is hopeless on the measure of quantity — he can never catch up. On the measure of quality he is not hopeless. What is in his hand is little, but the little also has its due, and that due can be given.