The Language of Thunder

And what is the sound of lightning? Thunder. What is thunder? Thunder is a tasbīḥ of Allah.

Allah (swt) says that the thunder is making tasbīḥ. That sound of thunder is tasbīḥ of Allah; it is a glorification of Allah. Now tell this to a scientist; he is going to say: what is this nonsense you are talking about? You do not know; let me explain to you what thunder is. He will tell you that thunder is the sound waves that come from the lightning: when the lightning strikes, it causes a vacuum in the air, and that shock wave travels through the air, and that is what you hear in the form of thunder.

Well, tell him: that is right. And then give him an example. Tell him: imagine there is an ant, a kingdom of ants. These ants are scientists like you, and they want to do research on human beings. They heard that there is a creation out there called human beings. So this advanced kingdom of ants wants to study this creature called a human being, and they send an ant — a reporter — to report about this human being.

This ant goes up to this human being and studies him, writing down all the observations. The human being who was sitting turns out to be a Muslim, and he says: subḥān Allāh. So the ant writes its observations: the mouth opened and the tongue moved and air came out, and that is the voice we heard; it was due to the movement of the tongue and the lips and the air coming out of the mouth in the form of sound waves that travelled through the air. And she will go down to the ant kingdom and report these findings. The ant will say: I heard a voice coming out of that human being; the mouth was moving and the tongue was moving, and the sound wave came out and travelled through the air.

That is the extent of the knowledge of the ant, because it does not understand the language of the human being. But the human being — what was he saying? He was saying subḥān Allāh. But the ant is not able to understand it, so it describes it as the physical motions that it can see.

The same thing with us human beings: we describe the physical phenomena of thunder, or any other sounds we hear in nature, because we are incapable of understanding the language of the thunder. We are incapable of understanding the language of the birds, or the language of the bees, or the language of any other beast that Allah (swt) created. So we describe it in a scientific fashion and way — and in reality, it is tasbīḥ. It is tasbīḥ. Yusabbiḥu al-raʿdu bi-ḥamdih — the raʿd is making tasbīḥ.

The unique thing with Dāwūd (peace be upon him) and his son Sulaymān is that they understood the language of the animals and the birds. And Dāwūd had another quality that his son Sulaymān did not have: when Dāwūd would make tasbīḥ, the creation around him would join him in tasbīḥ. It is a miracle; Allah (swt) gives the anbiyāʾ miracles. Dāwūd would make tasbīḥ, and the mountains are making tasbīḥ with him, and the birds are making tasbīḥ with him.