Quran Surfer

The Atom in the Quran: What Does “an Atom’s Weight” Mean?

Read the Quran in English and you will meet the word atom a handful of times. "Whoever does an atom's weight of good will see it." "Not absent from your Lord is any atom's weight within the earth or within the heaven." For a modern reader the word brings to mind physics: nuclei, electrons, the building blocks of matter. So it is natural to ask what the Quran means by it, and whether it is talking about the same thing.

This article looks at the Arabic word behind the translation, the six verses where it appears, what the earliest Muslims understood by it, the much-discussed phrase "or smaller than that", and, most importantly, what these verses ask of the person reading them.

The word: dharrah

The English "atom" translates the Arabic ذَرَّة (dharrah). In the Quran it always appears in the same phrase, مِثۡقَالَ ذَرَّةٍ (mithqāla dharratin), "the weight of a dharrah". Mithqāl means a weight or measure, something placed on a scale.

To the Arabs who first heard the Quran, a dharrah was the smallest thing they could see. The classical dictionaries and commentators give two meanings:

  • a tiny ant, the smallest kind, so light it seems to weigh nothing at all;
  • a speck of dust, the kind you see floating in a beam of sunlight coming through a window.

Both point to the same idea: something so small it is almost nothing. When early translators rendered the Quran into English, they reached for the word their own language used for the smallest possible thing, and that word was "atom". It comes from the Greek atomos, "uncuttable", the name philosophers such as Democritus gave, more than two thousand years ago, to the imagined smallest piece of matter.

So "an atom's weight" is a faithful translation of the meaning, even though the Arabic word is older than modern physics and isn't a technical term.

The six verses

Dharrah appears in six verses of the Quran. Each is worth reading in full.

No injustice, not even an atom's weight

إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ لَا يَظۡلِمُ مِثۡقَالَ ذَرَّةٖۖ وَإِن تَكُ حَسَنَةٗ يُضَٰعِفۡهَا وَيُؤۡتِ مِن لَّدُنۡهُ أَجۡرًا عَظِيمٗا

Inna l-lāha lā yaẓlimu mithqāla dharratin wa-in taku ḥasanatan yuḍāʿifhā wa yuʾti min ladunhu ajran ʿaẓīman

Indeed, Allāh does not do injustice, [even] as much as an atom's weight; while if there is a good deed, He multiplies it and gives from Himself a great reward. (An-Nisa 4:40)

The verse sets two scales side by side. Wrong is never added to anyone's account, not even the smallest amount. Good, on the other hand, is multiplied.

Nothing is hidden from His knowledge

وَمَا يَعۡزُبُ عَن رَّبِّكَ مِن مِّثۡقَالِ ذَرَّةٖ فِي ٱلۡأَرۡضِ وَلَا فِي ٱلسَّمَآءِ وَلَآ أَصۡغَرَ مِن ذَٰلِكَ وَلَآ أَكۡبَرَ إِلَّا فِي كِتَٰبٖ مُّبِينٍ

... And not absent from your Lord is any [part] of an atom's weight within the earth or within the heaven or [anything] smaller than that or greater but that it is in a clear register. (Yunus 10:61)

The first part of this verse is just as striking: "you do not do any deed except that We are witness over you when you are involved in it." The verse moves from our own deeds, which Allah sees as we do them, to everything in creation, down to the smallest particle and beyond.

عَٰلِمِ ٱلۡغَيۡبِۖ لَا يَعۡزُبُ عَنۡهُ مِثۡقَالُ ذَرَّةٖ فِي ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَلَا فِي ٱلۡأَرۡضِ وَلَآ أَصۡغَرُ مِن ذَٰلِكَ وَلَآ أَكۡبَرُ إِلَّا فِي كِتَٰبٖ مُّبِينٖ

... [Allāh is] the Knower of the unseen. Not absent from Him is an atom's weight within the heavens or within the earth or [what is] smaller than that or greater, except that it is in a clear register. (Saba 34:3)

Here the same words answer people who denied that the Hour would ever come. If nothing in the heavens and the earth escapes His knowledge, bringing people back to life and judging them is no difficulty.

False gods own nothing, not even an atom

قُلِ ٱدۡعُواْ ٱلَّذِينَ زَعَمۡتُم مِّن دُونِ ٱللَّهِ لَا يَمۡلِكُونَ مِثۡقَالَ ذَرَّةٖ فِي ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَلَا فِي ٱلۡأَرۡضِ

Say, [O Muḥammad], "Invoke those you claim [as deities] besides Allāh." They do not possess an atom's weight [of ability] in the heavens or on the earth, and they do not have therein any partnership [with Him], nor is there for Him from among them any assistant. (Saba 34:22)

Whatever people turn to instead of Allah, whether idols, saints or anything else, owns nothing at all, not even the weight of a speck of dust.

Every deed will be seen

فَمَن يَعۡمَلۡ مِثۡقَالَ ذَرَّةٍ خَيۡرٗا يَرَهُۥ وَمَن يَعۡمَلۡ مِثۡقَالَ ذَرَّةٖ شَرّٗا يَرَهُۥ

Fa-man yaʿmal mithqāla dharratin khayran yarah. Wa man yaʿmal mithqāla dharratin sharran yarah.

So whoever does an atom's weight of good will see it, and whoever does an atom's weight of evil will see it. (Az-Zalzalah 99:7-8)

These are the best known of the six, the closing verses of Surah Az-Zalzalah. The surah describes the earth shaking on the Last Day and "reporting its news", then ends with these two lines. When the Prophet ﷺ was once asked about a matter on which nothing specific had been revealed, he answered with these verses, calling them comprehensive and unique: a rule that covers everything (Sahih al-Bukhari 2371).

The mustard seed

The Quran uses a second image for the smallest amount: the weight of a mustard seed (mithqāla ḥabbatin min khardal).

And We place the scales of justice for the Day of Resurrection, so no soul will be treated unjustly at all. And if there is [even] the weight of a mustard seed, We will bring it forth. And sufficient are We as accountant. (Al-Anbya 21:47)

Luqmān uses the same image when he teaches his son that a wrong the size of a mustard seed, hidden inside a rock or anywhere in the heavens or the earth, will be brought out by Allah, "Indeed, Allāh is Subtle and Aware" (Luqman 31:16). The atom and the mustard seed make the same point in two pictures: nothing is too small to count.

"Or smaller than that"

Two of the verses, 10:61 and 34:3, go one step further. Nothing escapes Allah's knowledge, "not an atom's weight ... or smaller than that (wa lā aṣghara min dhālika) or greater".

Many modern readers have been struck by this. For centuries, "atom" meant the smallest thing there could be, the uncuttable piece. Then, from the end of the nineteenth century, physicists found that the atom is made of smaller parts: the electron in 1897, the nucleus in 1911, and later the protons and neutrons inside it, and the quarks inside those. Some writers present "smaller than that" as the Quran pointing to these subatomic particles.

It is worth being careful here, in both directions.

What the verse is saying. Its subject is Allah's knowledge, and the phrase "smaller than that or greater" is a way of saying everything: the smallest thing you can think of, anything smaller, and anything larger. Classical commentators read it this way long before anyone split an atom, and that meaning is clear and complete without any science.

What is still remarkable. The Quran's wording never claims the dharrah is the smallest thing there is. Where the language of the time could easily have said "down to the smallest particle", it leaves the door open: there is smaller still, and He knows it. A reader today can notice that nothing in these verses is contradicted by what we now know about matter.

Why scholars urge caution. The Quran describes itself as guidance, not as a textbook of physics. Scientific theories change, and many scholars have warned against tying a verse's meaning to the science of a particular decade, because when the theory moves on, the verse can seem to have been "wrong" when it was only our reading that was. It is safer to let the verses say what they plainly say and to treat any fit with modern science as a reflection, not a proof.

What the verses ask of us

Whatever one makes of the physics, every one of these six verses is really about people: what we do, what we owe, and whom we rely on.

Never think a good deed too small. If an atom's weight of good will be seen, then a smile, a kind word, a coin given quietly, a few verses read before sleep all count. The Prophet ﷺ said, "Protect yourselves from the Fire, even with half a date" (Sahih al-Bukhari 1417), and "Do not belittle any good deed, even meeting your brother with a cheerful face" (Sahih Muslim 2626).

Never think a wrong too small. The same scale weighs the other side. A cutting remark, a small dishonesty or a promise quietly broken is not "nothing". It too will be seen, unless it is repented of and forgiven.

Trust that nothing is wasted. For someone who feels unseen, whose patience and effort no one notices, 4:40 and 10:61 are a comfort. Allah does no injustice, not even an atom's weight, and the good is multiplied.

Rely on Allah alone. If everything besides Him "does not possess an atom's weight" (34:22), then hope and fear belong to Him, not to people, wealth or anything else.

Read the verses

You can read every verse in this article in Arabic, with transliteration and translation, and listen to its recitation:

Surah Az-Zalzalah is short enough to learn by heart in a sitting, and its last two verses are a reminder worth carrying through the day.

Sources

  • The Quran, in the Saheeh International translation
  • The commentaries (tafsīr) of al-Ṭabarī and Ibn Kathīr on 4:40, 10:61, 34:3 and Surah Az-Zalzalah
  • Sahih al-Bukhari 1417 and 2371, and Sahih Muslim 2626

For questions of belief and religious practice, please ask a qualified scholar.

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