The Words of Allah (RICC Khutbah)

05-01-2026 mamdouh.salama@comcast.net The Words of Allah (RICC Khutbah) Every one of us started as one cell placed in the womb of our mother. Today, our bodies contain nearly thirty-six trillion cells. And inside every single one of those cells… there is a text. A text written in a four-letter alphabet. A text that carries the full instructions to build, maintain, and sustain the most complex system we have ever observed, the human body. Think about that. Your body carries tens of trillions of copies of this text; one in every cell. So, the question is unavoidable: Who wrote it? This is not a new question. More than fourteen centuries ago, the Qur’an directed our attention to this reality, not in the language of laboratories, but in a language whose depth we are still uncovering. In Surah Al-Kahf and Surah Luqman, Allah presents a powerful image: An image of oceans as ink, and trees as pens, writing what He calls: “The Words of Allah” الله تاملك. Allah says: “Say. "If the sea were ink for (writing) the Words of my Lord, surely, the sea would be exhausted before the Words of my Lord were exhausted, even if we brought (another sea) like it for its aid."” (Al-Kahf 18:109) “And if all the trees in the earth were pens, and the sea, with seven more seas to replenish it, (were ink), the words of Allah would not be exhausted...” (Luqman 31:27) Classical tafsir explains that the “Words of Allah” refer to His knowledge, His decree, and His creative command. Everything that exists comes into being through His command: Kun/نك, "Be," and it becomes. “The Originator of the heavens and the earth. When He decrees a matter, He only says to it: "Be!", and it is. (Al-Baqarah 2:117) 1

This command is not just an event. It is a transition from non-existence to ordered existence. Allah tells us that we will come to recognize this truth through the study His creation: “We will show them Our Signs in the horizons and withing themselves, until it becomes clear to them that this (the Qur'an) is the truth …” (Fussilat 41:53) Today, one of the clearest windows into this reality is found in what lies within us, our own cells. Modern genetics reveals that life is built on information. Inside every cell is DNA, composed of four letters: A, T, C, and G. These letters are arranged in precise sequences and these sequences function as a biological code, directing the development and functioning of every living cell. So, life is not just chemistry. It is structured, meaningful information. To appreciate the scale of this information, consider this: The human body contains roughly thirty-seven trillion cells. Each cell contains a full copy of DNA. If you were to write out the genetic code of every cell in one human body, you would be writing approximately 90 sextillion [9 x 10²¹; 9 billion trillion) letters. Now return to the image Allah gave us: Oceans as ink and trees as pens. This is not a metaphor, or it is precise? To print the DNA of a single human being, you would need 60 billion liters of ink, equivalent to the volume of roughly 24,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools. The total volume of all the oceans on Earth is about 1.3 sextillion liters. Now consider this: More than one hundred billion human beings have lived on this earth. Writing the DNA of humanity alone would require more than five times the volume of all the oceans combined. And this is only humans. When you include animals, plants, insects, and bacteria; each with its own unique genetic “text”, the amount of information expands beyond comprehension and the amount o fink you would need far more than seven times the water of all Earth's oceans. The same applies to trees. To print the DNA of every cell in a single human body on paper, you would need far more trees than currently exist on Earth. You would need forests multiplied beyond this planet. This is not exaggeration. It is the natural consequence of the complexity of life. So, when Allah says: “The Words of Allah will not be exhausted”. This is not poetic language alone. It is a reality that we are now beginning to grasp. And there is something even deeper. All life shares the same four-letter genetic language. This unity points to a single Author. But the diversity of life points to an 2

inexhaustible creative power. This directly refutes the idea that life is the result of blind, unguided processes. This idea may account for the ink, but it cannot account for the text. Ink does not write itself. Paper does not produce meaning on its own. A book does not write itself simply because ink and paper are present. A book always points to an author. And so does life. The Qur’an gives us a profound example of this when it describes Prophet Isa (peace be upon him): “The angels said: "O Maryam (Mary), verily, Allah gives you the glad tidings of a Word from Him whose name is the Messiah Isa (Jesus), the son of Maryam …” (Al-Imran 3:45) Every human being, in a sense, is a “word”, authored by divine command. But Prophet Isa is singled out because his creation bypassed paternal genetic contribution entirely. His biological text was authored directly by the Creator's command, نك without the usual biological process. Prophet Isa is a testament to the Author's power to intervene directly in the very code He established, a singular word in a language that only Allah writes. Prophet Isa is not divine, but he is text that was uniquely authored. Realizing that every one of us is a “word” written by Allah, does your life reflect the One who wrote you? The Qur’an is also the Words of Allah. But it is not meant to be admired from a distance. It is meant to be lived. When you stand in prayer and say: “ You alone we worship, and You alone we ask for help” Are these just words, or are they the reality of your life? We have been shown the signs within ourselves, now we must respond. Not by admiration but by transformation. One last point as clarification, while we are the created words of Allah, the Quran is not created words of Allah but it is a “Spirit of Divine Command ‘, as Allah describes it: “And thus We have revealed to you (O Muhammad) a Spirit of Our Command. You did not know what is the Book, nor what is Faith? But We have made it (this Qur'an) a light wherewith We guide whom We will of Our slaves” (Ash-Shura 42:52) 3

We began with an image: Oceans of ink, forests of pens and Words that cannot be exhausted. We now realize that this is not distant imagery. It is a reality embedded within creation itself. But the most important question is not scientific. It is personal. If every one of us is a “word” written by Allah, then what does your life say? Does it reflect the One who wrote you? Or does it contradict Him? We have been shown the signs within ourselves, now we must respond. Not by admiration but by transformation. O Allah, spread your mercy upon us, shower us with Your blessings, increase our knowledge, grant us forgiveness, and reward us by the company of Your prophets in the highest place in Heaven, Al-Ferdous Al-Aala. O Allah, forgive our parents and all our friends and relatives who have passed away and make their graves a garden from heaven and grant them the Ferdous Al-Ala. O Allah, we have many of our friends and relatives who are sick. O Allah grant them full and speedy recovery. O Allah, guide our children, protect them and make them righteous. O Allah we have many of our brethren, who are subjected to injustice and oppression, O Allah, heal their trauma, protect the helpless, fulfill their needs, and grant them lasting peace and prosperity O Allah, we ask you in this blessed hour with every name you have elected for yourself that none of us leave this gathering, except his pains have been relieved, his worries have been removed, his debts have been paid, his weaknesses have been concealed, his sins have been forgiven, and his needs have been fulfilled, 4

The Boundary of Chance: Why Life Cannot Be an Accident To understand why the "Words of Allah" require a Divine Author, we must look at the mathematical limits of the universe itself. In information theory and statistics, researchers use a concept called the Universal Probability Bound to determine if an event is so unlikely that it can be ruled out as a physical impossibility. 1. The Mathematical Limit Think of the universe as a giant lottery. For an event to happen by "chance," there must be enough time and opportunities for it to occur. Mathematicians calculate this limit by multiplying: • The number of atoms in the observable universe (approx. 1080). • The number of seconds since the Big Bang (approx. 1017). • The maximum speed at which physical events can happen. The result is a "Universal Probability Bound" of approximately 1 in 10150. If the odds of an event happening are lower than this number, the event is considered statistically impossible within the entire history of our universe. 2. DNA and the "Impossible" Chance When we apply this bound to the "text" of life, the materialist argument collapses. To get even a single, relatively short functional protein (the building blocks directed by DNA) by shuffling amino acids at random, the odds are roughly 1 in $10164. This number is trillions of times smaller than the Universal Probability Bound. In other words, even if the entire universe were a laboratory, and every atom in it was constantly "typing" random genetic letters since the beginning of time, it would still never produce the coherent "sentences" required for a single living cell. 3. Specified Complexity: Patterns vs. Instructions Scientific accuracy requires us to distinguish between two types of order: • Ordered Patterns: Like a snowflake or a salt crystal. These are repetitive and dictated by simple laws of physics. They are like writing "AAAAA" over and over. • Specified Complexity: Like a computer code or a genetic sequence. These are non-repetitive and carry specific instructions. This is like writing a masterpiece of poetry. Matter can produce patterns (the ink can spill in a shape), but matter cannot produce instructions (the ink cannot write a manual). The genetic code is a system of instructions. 5

The Refutation This mathematical reality offers a "hard" scientific shield for your thesis. If the probability of life's information arising from matter is 10-164, and the limit of the universe is 10-150, then life is not a "lucky accident", it is a deliberate text. The "Sea of Ink" is not just a poetic metaphor for a large amount of data; it is a description of a Transcendental Vocabulary. The Author of the "Word" operates beyond the probabilistic limits of the material world, authoring life into existence through a command that precedes the physical "ink" itself. Summary "By applying the Universal Probability Bound, we see that the information encoded in DNA exceeds the creative capacity of the physical universe. While matter provides the medium, it lacks the 'probabilistic resources' to generate the message. Thus, every strand of DNA serves as a mathematical proof of a Creator whose 'Words' are the foundational reality upon which all matter is built." In human languages, a word is a symbol that points to a thing. But in the Divine language, the Word is the creative force that brings the thing into being. The genetic code isn't just a description of life; it is the "Command" (“Amr”) manifest in chemistry. 6