The Worm's Remembrance

There is, in the books of tafsīr, the account of Musa (peace be upon him), at the moment Allah (swt) commanded him to go and call Pharaoh to the truth. Musa had no standing at all in the eyes of the ruling authorities, and he carried a stutter besides — it was as if a man raised in the desert, unable even to speak fluently, had been sent to reason directly with a modern head of state. At that moment a thought crossed his heart: he was ready to sacrifice himself for the task, but who, he wondered, would look after his family if something happened to him?

Allah (swt), knowing exactly what was in Musa's heart, told him to strike a particular rock with the staff in his hand. He struck it, and it cracked open to reveal another rock within it, of a different kind, nicely and beautifully formed, and he was told to strike that one too. It opened in turn to reveal a small worm, with food in its mouth, eating — and Musa heard it making dhikr, tasbīḥ, of Allah (swt): a miracle, that Allah (swt) let him hear it. The Arabic word for the creature, dūdah, means simply a worm. The objection might be raised: how could a worm possibly make tasbīḥ in any way that could be known?

The worm's tasbīḥ affirmed that Allah (swt) is free of every shortcoming, and acknowledged His greatness and His power: that He is the One who sees it at all times, who hears its remembrance of Him, and who knows exactly where it lives and exactly what it needs. It professed belief in Allah (swt), absolute trust in Him, and belief in every one of His perfect attributes; its heart, it said, was filled with faith in Him, and it asked that its heart be kept steady upon His path.

Allah (swt) says that there is not a single thing on earth whose rizq He does not guarantee, and not a single thing on earth that does not make dhikr of Him, glorify Him, in ways unheard by human ears — this worm was one such creature, making its own remembrance in the depths of a rock. Ibrahim (peace be upon him), like every human being, carried what may be called irādah juzʾiyyah, a small, partial will, so that it can seem, to him and to anyone else, that he is the one in charge of his own rizq; in reality this is not so. Everything comes from Allah (swt).