This is one of the most important verses in the Quran about reality because Allah tells us the building blocks (causes/asbab) behind reality, Allah says “So exalted is Allah (The way He exists is above the nature of our universe and our reality), the Sovereign (of everything), the Reality (Haq of everything); there is no deity except Him, Lord of the Noble Throne.” (23:116)
This verse mentions everything responsible for reality itself including the fact there is only one God of the universe which is the first part of the shahadah (oath) required to become a Muslim, when a person takes that oath he is placed on a spiritual path to discover the true nature (reality) of the universe, the oath is the first step to dispelling all illusionary realities upon us which are a result of our delusions and fantasy about life. We can create our own delusions but how do we see the one truth the Universe is created to represent, your on the right path when you dispel your self-delusions and the Shahada, the oath you took, is the first step because oaths are spiritually binding until they are fulfilled.
Therefore, in the Quran Allah places those who have witnessed the reality of the universe like the prophets next in rank; “And whoso obeys Allah and the Messenger, then they will be in the company of those on whom Allah has bestowed His Grace, of the Prophets, the Siddiqun (those who witnessed as the prophets did), the martyrs, and the righteous. The best of company are they! (4:69)
When we look at verse 23:116 everyone can understand the qualities being mentioned individually, but not why they are being mentioned together in the same verse and in relation to the fact Allah is the only Lord and how this is associated with His Arsh (throne) or even how the verse is proof of anything.
But to the Arabs of 1400 years ago, this is the language and phrasing of science and they naturally understood there is a reason why they are being mentioned together, Allah taught about the entire universe in their mother tongue.
The first Quality Allah mentions is his exaltedness, “So exalted is Allah”, Allah in the way He exists is above our creation (universe) but what does this mean. If we look at our body, organs and nervous system they all work together to create our intellect, so we can say man relies on his body and its senses to know anything, but our body, in turn, relies on the stuff it is made of which is the subatomic particles of each Atom to exist, they, in turn, rely on the laws (and forces) of the universe that created them and the forces of the universe rely on the smallest particles in the universe that created them.
The universe is layered, layer upon layer or as Allah says in the verse of light (24:35), “light (particle) upon light (particle)” from the bottom, the Arsh, until we reach the top, earth.
Besides this man also absolutely needs one more thing to exist, and that is time itself, this is because time is the movement (rate of change in the “fabric” of the universe) of everything in the universe, we don’t grow old because the earth moves around the sun but because our body and the matter it is created from is ageing (losing its energy due to entropy) so actual time is something built into the universe while the days and night are just superficial representations of the passing of time which Allah created to make measuring time easier (as He states in the Quran);
“And We have established the night and the day as two symbols (representations); and thereupon We have effaced the symbol of night (everlasting night) and set up
If time didn’t exist, it means nothing is moving or interacting with anything, no reactions are occurring, while with time our Atoms and particles are always in motion. The universe created time when it was created so we can only exist in a place that time exists in. This is an important point to understanding the exaltedness of Allah because, in contrast to us and the universe whose reactions rely on time so they can occur, Allah is timeless, He isn’t bound by time or anything outside the universe which we will see the significance of from Ahadith.
All of this is a matter of science and physics, probably one of the most erroneous ideas that pervaded the ancient world and persists to this day is that time is not real, it is simply the ticking of a clock something we imagine, many famous scholars and philosophers, and consequently because of them educated people today still believe this, but science has conclusively proven that time and space are intertwined together, what ever happens to one happens to the other.
Time is a component of space and everything it is created from so what happens to one happens to the other and vice versa, and physicists now refer to space as space-time, most of modern physics relies on this fact to study subatomic space.
Time and space can stretch, shrink or “jiggle” (as one famous physicist stated), our earth for example because of its giant Mass bends space around it and that creates how much gravity we experience on earth (9.81 m/s), a larger Mass will produce more gravity, which is a measurement of force in one location that differs on other planets and suns, for the exact same reason the Mass of each planet decides the rate at which time flows on each planet and they all differ from the rate it is flowing at in open space, although these differences a minute and we don’t notice them.
Probably the most famous example of this is black holes due to their almost infinite Mass and the amount of gravity they produce, time flows very differently inside black holes.
This led physicists to prove that time and space are connected to each other and the rate of time on earth or in objects with large Mass/Gravity like the sun is slightly different from that in cold space where there is no gravity. They proved this with satellites which need to account for this variation otherwise GPS coordinates will be wrong (we all remember the early days of GPS) and there have been some disastrous and funny consequences in the past because this wasn’t properly understood.
This is because space and all matter in the universe create the flow of time we experience, the universe creates the flow of time on each planet of sun and Allah affirms the tangible existence of time in a famous Hadith Qudsi literally referring to the flow of time as proof.
The Quran itself states that the flow of time can be different in the universe, for example when it speaks about the Isra wal Miraj of the prophet (saws) that occurred in a single night, or the scribe of Sulayman (as) who brought him the throne of the Queen Bilqees from Yemen to Jerusalem in the blink of an eye, the Jinn that was with them said he could do it in a few seconds, and the journey of the Angels to the Arsh that by our estimation on would take 50,000 years but occurs almost instantly so decrees on matters are known at that moment.
Mankind experiences life through time and because of this fact Allah said about Himself He is the passing of Time, this is how His qualities are known, had time been something we invented Allah would not have said He is time itself, He would not have said He is something that man imagines.
Imam Shafii (ra) said; “The Arabs in the time of ignorance, when they were stricken with difficulty, adversity, or tragedy, used to say: “O, the vicissitudes of time!” (Vicissitude means a change in circumstance or fortune) In this way, they would attribute those events to time and curse it on that basis. However, the doer is none other than Allah Almighty, so it was as if they were cursing Allah, for He is, in truth, the one who brought about that situation. It is in consideration of this meaning that cursing time has been prohibited.”
Thus, Allah said to the Arabs: “The son of Adam offends Me when he curses time, for I am (the Passing of) time (Dhuhr). In My hand is the affair (change in the universe). I alternate the night and the day (I move the universe and create the reality, the life you experience).” (Bukhari (4826) and Muslim (2246))
So, what does this have to do with verse 23:116, understanding how the universe works means you understand how your reality exists and Allah is teaching us that through this knowledge you will come to know Him. Allah says He is exalted above the universe, this means He doesn’t rely on the things our body relies on to exist or to know the world around us, which means He has no organs, a body, isn’t in need of Atoms, particles, the laws of the universe that created and sustain them and He doesn’t need the passing of time to exist, and this last point is something enormous in physics because the Atoms and particles we are created from need the passing of time to interact with each other otherwise no sub atomic, atomic, chemical or biological reactions would occur, life can’t exist without time.
He doesn’t need anything in the universe so the manner of His existence is absolutely exalted above our existence in every way. This is what one word, “exalted” above, means in the Quran when talking about Allah and it has everything to do with all things mentioned after it in the verse.
Imam ‘Ali Ibn Abi Talib (died 40 AH), may Allah raise his rank, the eminent and renowned companion and one of the most distinguished in teaching Tawhid (Islamic Creed) said: “Allah is eternally existent and place is not, and He still exists as He eternally was (without a place or time, after He created those things)”. Narrated by Abu Mansur al-Baghdadiyy in his book ‘al-Farq baynal-Firaq’”.
Sayidina Ali ibn Abi Talib (ra) also said: “He who claims that our Lord is limited is ignorant about the Creator who is worshipped” (Hafidh Abu Nu’aym, Hilyatul-Awliya).
Imam Ja’far as-Sadiq (died 148 AH), may Allah raise his rank, said: “He who claims that Allah is in anything or on anything or from anything commits shirk (a type of blasphemy). Because, had He been on anything, He would have been carried, had He been in anything, He would have been contained, and had He been from anything, He would have been a creation” (originated). Narrated by Imam al-Qushayriyy in his book ‘ar-Risalah’.