too, perished. Then he saw a fourth and invoked Allah likewise to annihilate him. It was then
that Allah inspired him, "O Abraham! Stop! If We were to annihilate each one of Our
servants who commits a sin, then only a small number will survive; but if one sins, We give
him a respite; if he repents, We accept his repentance, and if he persists, We postpone his
penalty knowing that he cannot escape from Our domain."
It is also narrated that a young man used to commit many sins, and he used to persist in
sinning; nay, he even used to repent and immediately go back to sinning. Having done so
quite often, he was addressed by Satan thus, "For how long will you keep sinning and
repenting?" Satan wished that Allah would cause that man to lose hope in His mercy and
become despondent. When night came, the man performed his ablution and offered two
reka`ts, then he raised his eyes to the heavens and said, "O You Who protects the righteous
against sinning, Who safeguards those who are protected from sinning, Who makes the
righteous what they are! If You neglect me, You will find me losing heart; my forelock is in
Your hand; my debts are before You! O You Who changes the hearts! I invoke You to keep
my heart firm on following Your creed!" Allah, thereupon, said to His angels, "O angels of
Mine! Have you all heard his statement? Bear witness, then, that I have forgiven all his past
sins and safeguarded him against sinning for the rest of his life."
- "Al-`Azeem"
The Almighty has said, "So glorify the Name of your Lord, the Great" (Qura'n, 56:96). "Al-
Azeem" is a superlative derived from the nounizam, greatness, magnanimity, dignity,
honour, esteem, pride... The Absolute Azeem is the One Whose greatness cannot be grasped
by vision; it is beyond all limits, so much so that no human intellect can ever absorb it. Allah
has said, "He is the Most High, the Great" (Qura'n, 2:255).
The most prominent person in a town is called its greatest. This is the meaning of what the
unbelievers say as the Holy Qura'n quotes them: "... to a man great in both towns..." (Qura'n,
43:31). Allah has said, "... and the great Qura'n" (Qura'n, 15:87). When the Messenger of
Allah wrote a letter to Heraclius (which will be discussed later in this book Insha-Allah), he
addressed him as "the azeem man of Rome," that is, the greatest dignitary in Rome. Heraclius,
who ruled from 610 - 641 A.D., was a Byzantine emperor, ruler of the Eastern Roman empire.
was involved in many wars with the Persians from 634 - 642 A.D. He did not accept Islam;
his armies were eventually conquered by Islamic troops, so he lost Syria, Palestine and
Mesopotamia (upper Iraq) as well as Egypt, one after the other.
If you consider the greatness of al-Azeem, you will come to know that anyone besides Him is insignificant. The human being, no matter how knowledgeable, is limited in the scope and content of his knowledge. How can you compare such a limited amount of knowledge with that of the Almighty? An example of His might exists in 31:28: "Neither your creation nor your raising (baith, the reunion between the soul and the recreated body) is only like (that of)