The Prophet ﷺ said:

“The seven heavens and the seven earths, in comparison to the Kursī, are like a ring thrown into a vast desert. And the superiority of the ‘Arsh over the Kursī is like the vastness of that desert over the ring.”

Sahih Ibn Hibban, Hadith 361 — narrated by Abu Dharr رضي الله عنه. Tafsir Ibn Kathir

The Prophet ﷺ gave us this comparison so that we could understand how small this world, these heavens, and everything we can see truly are before the vastness of  Allah’s ‘Arsh and Kursī.

The Qur’an mentions the Kursī in Ayat al-Kursī, where Allah says:

Surah Al-Baqarah (2:255)

وَسِعَ كُرْسِيُّهُ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضَ

“His Kursī extends over the heavens and the earth.”

And modern science and technology have shown us just how enormous the universe itself is.

The observable universe is estimated to be approximately:

Diameter: around 93 billion light-years
Radius: around 46.5 billion light-years in every direction from Earth, or from our position as observers.

And this is only what we are able to observe. We do not even know how much larger the universe is beyond what we can see.

Yet all of this is described in the Hadith as being like a ring thrown into a vast desert when compared with the Kursī.

Think about how small we truly are.

And think about how immense our Creator is.

It is something we cannot even fully comprehend.

The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:

“Seven are those whom Allah will shade under His Shade on the Day when there will be no shade except His Shade.”

The seven are:

1. A Just Ruler

2. A Worshipping Youth

3. A Heart Attached to the Mosques

4. Two Who Love Each Other for Allah

5. One Who Rejects Temptation Out of Fear of Allah

6. One Who Gives Charity Secretly

7. One Who Remembers Allah Alone and Weeps

Reference: Sahih al-Bukhari 660; Sahih Muslim 1031.

But there is another point worth reflecting upon.

The Shadow

We all know how vast the ‘Arsh is like a desert compared to the heavens and the earth. So, imagine how immense its shade would be.

But what if that immense shadow were cast over a small ring? Would the ring receive that shadow?

Of course it would.

But what if, on the Day of Judgment, you do not receive the shade of the ‘Arsh?

What would you call that?

Of course: misfortune.

Why?

Because on the Day of Judgment, Allah’s mercy and the shade of the ‘Arsh will be granted to those who are close to Allah.

If a person has distanced himself from Allah in this world, then imagine how far he will be on that Day—so far that he will not be given a place beneath the shade of Allah’s mighty ‘Arsh. Instead, he will be distanced from Allah.

So come under the shade of Allah’s mercy today, before it becomes too late.

This is a strange kind of shadow one in which there is light, and elevation.

Allah has given human beings the choice to attain it.

We have been given the opportunity in this world, before the time comes when there is no longer an opportunity to return.

So let us return to our Allah today.

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The Qur’an tells us that on the Day of Judgment, Allah will not wrong anyone even by the weight of a dharrah and that every person will receive the full consequence of their deeds.

Qur’an 4:40

اِنَّ اللّٰهَ لَا يَظۡلِمُ مِثۡقَالَ ذَرَّةٍ‌ ۚ وَّاِنۡ تَكُ حَسَنَةً يُّضٰعِفۡهَا وَيُؤۡتِ مِنۡ لَّدُنۡهُ اَجۡرًا عَظِيۡمًا‏ 

“Indeed, Allah does not wrong [anyone] even as much as an atom’s weight. And if there is a good deed, He multiplies it and gives from Himself a great reward.”

At first glance, this verse may seem simple. But when we reflect upon the word ذَرَّة (dharrah), a deeper question emerges.

The Qur’an uses dharrah to describe something extraordinarily tiny. In English translations, it is commonly rendered as “an atom’s weight” because the atom was historically understood as an extremely small unit of matter.

But what exactly is the dharrah?

What is its true nature?

And how small can this smallest measure actually be?

This is something we can explore through what humanity has discovered about the fundamental structure of matter.

Our universe is unimaginably vast. We cannot see all of it, nor can we completely understand it. Yet science often tries to understand the whole by first understanding its most fundamental parts.

If we can discover what matter ultimately consists of, perhaps we can begin to answer some of the deeper questions about the universe.

So, rather than trying to understand the entire universe at once, scientists have spent centuries asking:

What is matter ultimately made of?

Here is a brief history.

From Atoms to Quarks — A Short History

• ~400 BC — Democritus: Proposed that matter was made of tiny, indivisible particles called “atomos.”

• 1803 — John Dalton: Developed modern atomic theory, treating the atom as the smallest unit of matter.

• 1897 — J. J. Thomson: Discovered the electron, showing that atoms contain smaller components.

• 1911 — Ernest Rutherford: Discovered the atomic nucleus, revealing that most of the atom is empty space.

• 1917–1919 — Proton: Rutherford identified the proton as a component of the nucleus.

• 1932 — James Chadwick: Discovered the neutron, completing the basic picture of the atomic nucleus.

• 1964 — Murray Gell-Mann & George Zweig: Proposed the quark model, suggesting that protons and neutrons are themselves made of smaller constituents.

• 1968 — SLAC Experiments: Deep-inelastic scattering experiments provided strong evidence for point-like constituents inside protons, supporting the quark model.

• 1970s–1990s: The six known quarks—up, down, strange, charm, bottom, and top—were established through experiments.

The Large Hadron Collider

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN is one of the most powerful instruments ever built to investigate the fundamental structure of matter.

By accelerating and colliding particles at enormous energies, scientists can probe matter at extraordinarily small scales.

In 2012, experiments at the LHC led to the discovery of the Higgs boson, confirming an important missing piece of the Standard Model.

The LHC continues to investigate fundamental particles and whether there is any deeper structure beyond what we currently know.

How Small Have We Reached?

Today, electrons and quarks are considered elementary particles. So far, scientists have found no confirmed smaller components inside them.

Experiments have probed quarks to scales around 10⁻²⁰ metres without finding evidence of internal structure.

But here we reach an important point:

Have we actually discovered the true reality of the dharrah mentioned in the Qur’an?

No.

We have discovered increasingly smaller components of matter, but we still cannot say that we have reached the ultimate smallest unit of existence—or that we have discovered the complete reality of the dharrah.

What we currently know can be represented as:

Atom → Electron + Nucleus → Proton + Neutron → Quarks

But quarks and electrons have not yet been shown to contain smaller particles.

So the search is not necessarily over.

We may have reached the smallest particles currently known to science, but whether something exists beyond them remains an open question in physics.

And this brings us to another profound Qur’anic reality.

Allah says in Āyat al-Kursī (The Verse of the Throne):

— Qur’an 2:255

 وَلَا یُحِیطُونَ بِشَیۡءࣲ مِّنۡ عِلۡمِهِۦۤ إِلَّا بِمَا شَاۤءَۚ

“And they encompass not a thing of His knowledge except what He wills.”

In other words, whatever human beings come to know, they know only as much as Allah allows them to know.

Human knowledge has limits.

We discover, understand, and uncover the universe only within the boundaries Allah allows us to reach.

And perhaps this is exactly what makes the search for the smallest unit so fascinating.

The more deeply we look into creation, the more we realize how little we actually know.

Yet Allah’s knowledge has no such limitation.

This brings us back to the meaning of dharrah.

If something as unimaginably small as a dharrah is still within Allah’s knowledge and justice, then no human action can ever become too small to matter before Him.

The Qur’an says:

“Indeed, Allah does not wrong [anyone] even as much as an atom’s weight.”
 Qur’an 4:40

Every action matters.

Every deed is known.

Nothing is overlooked.

Nothing is lost.

And nothing is beyond His knowledge.

This connects beautifully with one of the Names of Allah:

Al-Laṭīf — ٱللَّطِيفُ

Al-Laṭīf is the One who knows and reaches the most subtle and hidden matters, and who arranges affairs and helps His servants through ways they may not perceive.

The deeper we look into creation, the more we realize how little we actually know.

We have explored the atom.

We have discovered electrons.

We have opened the nucleus.

We have discovered protons and neutrons.

We have gone deeper into quarks.

And yet, we still do not know the ultimate reality of the dharrah.

Perhaps this is a small glimpse into the greatness of Allah:

The smaller the details we discover, the more we begin to realize how vast the knowledge of Allah truly is.

And perhaps this is one reason why He is Almighty.

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Allah says in Quran:

(Qur'an 3:153)

 فَاَثَابَكُمۡ غَمًّاۢ بِغَمٍّ لِّـكَيۡلَا تَحۡزَنُوۡا عَلٰى مَا فَاتَكُمۡ وَلَا مَاۤ اَصَابَكُمۡ‌ؕ وَاللّٰهُ خَبِيۡرٌۢ بِمَا تَعۡمَلُوۡنَ‏ 

"...So He repaid you with grief upon grief, so that you would not grieve over what had escaped you nor over what had befallen you. And Allah is All-Aware of what you do."

At first glance, the phrase "grief upon grief" seems difficult to understand. 

Why would Allah allow one sorrow to be followed by another?

The answer lies in the remarkable way the human mind works.

A Lesson from the Battle of Uhud

During the Battle of Uhud, the Muslims suffered defeat, injuries, and the loss of many companions. While they were overwhelmed with grief, another devastating rumor spread across the battlefield

that Prophet Muhammad ﷺ had been martyred. نَعُوذُ بِاللّٰهِ

This greater sorrow instantly overshadowed every other loss.

Allah then revealed:

«"...He repaid you with grief upon grief so that you would not grieve over what escaped you nor over what befell you." (Qur'an 3:153)»

The Qur'an shows that this painful experience was not meaningless. It redirected the believers from temporary worldly concerns toward what truly deserved their attention.

The Psychology and Science

Modern psychology and neuroscience explain that our emotions are shaped by attention and perception. The brain continuously ranks what it considers most important. When a greater concern captures our attention, the emotional weight of smaller concerns often decreases.

The event itself has not changed.

Our perception of it has.

This psychological principle beautifully echoes the wisdom behind the Qur'anic expression "grief upon grief."

A Deeper Spiritual Insight

Sometimes Allah does not remove our pain immediately.

Instead, He changes what our hearts consider most valuable.

A greater trial can awaken a deeper awareness, causing us to let go of temporary attachments and focus on what truly matters.

This is not merely emotional recovery

it is spiritual transformation.

Lessons from the Verse

- Every trial carries wisdom, even when we cannot immediately see it.

- Allah can transform our priorities through life's hardships.

- Emotional healing often begins with a change in perspective.

- Faith enables the heart to distinguish between temporary losses and eternal realities.

When the inner eye of the heart awakens, a person begins to recognize what is truly worth grieving over and what was never meant to own their heart. That awakening is one of the greatest gifts hidden within Allah's tests.

"If you truly reflect on it, there is no greater loss than losing Allah."

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In today's world, it has become extremely difficult for anyone to maintain a positive mindset because there is a strange kind of negativity spreading everywhere.

No matter how hard a person tries, they cannot fight every negative influence around them. However, they can attract positive energy and make their life better.

But How?

First of all, the human brain cannot generate thoughts completely from nothing. Every thought is triggered by something, a memory, a feeling of sadness or happiness, the influence of the environment, or the people around us.

After hearing this, you might wonder:

"If that's true, then can I not think independently?

 Where did this very question come from? 

If I cannot create thoughts from nothing, then what about my free will?"

To understand this, let's look at Libet's Experiment (1983).

Libet's Experiment (1983)

Libet's experiment was conducted to examine what happens first: the brain's decision or our conscious free will.

Method and Results

1. Participants were asked to move a finger or their hand whenever they wished while their brain activity was recorded using EEG.

2. The surprising result was that the brain had already begun preparing for the action (known as the Readiness Potential) about 500 milliseconds before the participants became consciously aware of their intention, which occurred around 200 milliseconds before the movement.

Conclusion

This experiment sparked a major debate about whether free will is merely an illusion since the brain appears to begin the process before conscious awareness.

However, Benjamin Libet argued that consciousness still possesses a "veto power." In other words, even if the brain initiates an action, a person can still stop or cancel it at the very last moment.

From this, we learn that the human mind is incredibly complex, yet free will still exists.

But how?

The Qur'an provides a profound perspective through Surah An-Nas, where Allah warns us about the whispers (waswasah) of Satan.

Satan has the ability to cast negative thoughts into our minds, but the recitation of Surah An-Nas weakens and silences those whispers.

In Sufi and Islamic spiritual thought, the human mind is often compared to a radio receiver.

According to this analogy, thoughts are not always created entirely within the brain. Rather, they are like radio waves that exist around us or come from various sources, and our minds receive them.

This is why both good and bad thoughts constantly come to us. Our real choice is not whether thoughts appear, but which thoughts we choose to accept and which ones we choose to ignore.

From a scientific perspective as well, a person cannot suddenly create a completely new thought from absolute nothingness. Our thoughts revolve around memories, experiences, and the brain's existing neural networks.

However, we absolutely do have the ability to choose which thoughts we continue thinking about and which ones we stop.

That is why, instead of fighting negative thoughts directly, we should simply allow them to pass.

Otherwise, while trying to battle them, we may unknowingly give them more attention and strengthen them.

It is like a parasite trying to enter your home. If you do not allow it inside, it will eventually leave in search of another host. But if you stop to question it, argue with it, or become obsessed with destroying it, it may enter before you even realize it.

Instead, we should nurture and emotionally invest in good thoughts.

The more we appreciate and strengthen positive thoughts, the more they grow.

Everything has a limited capacity. When positive thoughts gradually occupy more of our mental space, there is naturally less room left for negative influences.

Negative thoughts will still come—they are inevitable—but they will become less frequent and far less significant.

This is because they are built upon deception.

Allah has already warned us that Satan makes false promises and gives false hopes. In the same way, he fills the mind with lies such as,

"Allah is angry with you," or 

"You are beyond forgiveness," or

 "You are worthless."

Therefore, our standard should always be the Qur'an and authentic Islamic teachings.

Whatever conflicts with that standard or fills us with confusion should be rejected, while we should continue searching for what is true.

Because in the end, your intentions decide your destiny. 

 

Allah says in the Qur'an:

(Surah Al-Ahzab 33:51)

وَاللّٰهُ يَعۡلَمُ مَا فِىۡ قُلُوۡبِكُمۡؕ وَكَانَ اللّٰهُ عَلِيۡمًا حَلِيۡمًا‏ 

"And Allah knows what is in your hearts. And Allah is All-Knowing, Most Forbearing."

What does this mean?

Can the heart speak?

Can the heart think?

What are the "words of the heart"?

Today, let us try to decode this reflection.

Is the heart a symbol of purity?

You have probably heard people say:

"My heart does not want this."

This statement represents a want, a desire, an inner instinct, something that a person is willing to spend all of their strength and energy pursuing.

If that desire is positive, it can lead a person toward goodness and righteousness.

If it is negative, it can become a source of harm and destruction.

Perhaps the Qur'an is pointing toward this reality:

The desires, intentions, wishes, and motivations that drive you to act are known to Allah, even if you hide them from the entire world.

Indeed, even if you hide them from yourself.

These feelings are not imaginary.

They are part of human reality.

When you experience fear, grief, excitement, or falling in love, you often feel physical sensations in your chest:

• a heavy heart,
• a racing heartbeat,
• or the famous "butterflies in the stomach."

Modern science has discovered something fascinating.

The field of neurocardiology has shown that the human heart contains a dense network of approximately 40,000 neurons, known as the intrinsic cardiac nervous system.

This system allows the heart to regulate its rhythm, coordinate contractions, and respond to changes in blood pressure and chemical signals with a certain degree of independence from the central nervous system.

The heart and brain are also in constant two-way communication through pathways such as the vagus nerve and the spinal cord.

Interestingly, the heart sends a large amount of information back to the brain, influencing emotional processing and bodily awareness.

Does this mean the heart has a mind of its own?

Science says no.

Thought, reasoning, memory, and consciousness reside in the brain.

However, the strong connection between the heart and the brain helps explain why emotions often feel as if they live in our chest.

When the brain perceives fear, love, stress, or excitement, hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol are released into the bloodstream.

The heart responds immediately:

• the heartbeat changes,
• the chest feels heavy or light,
• and the body enters a new emotional state.

The brain then receives these physical signals back from the body, intensifying our conscious experience of emotion.

Perhaps this is why the language of the heart has existed throughout human history.

From a Qur'anic perspective, the heart represents far more than a physical organ.

It represents our intentions, desires, sincerity, motivations, and spiritual direction.

And Allah knows all of them.

The desires you hide.

The intentions you never speak.

The struggles you cannot explain.

The feelings you cannot even put into words.

Allah knows them all.

Now reflect on this:

If even you do not fully understand the layers of your own intentions, then how deep must Allah's knowledge be?

There are intentions hidden beneath intentions.

Motivations beneath motivations.

Layers within layers that remain unknown even to ourselves.

Yet Allah knows them completely.

Perhaps this is one of the greatest reminders of human weakness and one of the greatest reasons to surrender before Allah.

Because no one knows us the way Allah knows us.

And no one knows what is inside the heart except the One who created it.

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