Allah the Exalted alone existed in eternity, with nothing before Him and nothing alongside Him. Eternity belongs to Him alone; everything besides Him is created and preceded by non-existence. He created the Throne and the water as the first of creation, and His mighty Throne stood over the water before all else came to be. Then He commanded the Pen, which wrote the decrees of every creature and every event in the Preserved Tablet fifty thousand years before the heavens and the earth were made.

The Creation of the Heavens and the Earth

Afterwards He created the heavens, the earth, and all that lies between them in six successive days by a wisdom of His own. He spread out the earth as a settled dwelling, raised the heavens as a guarded canopy without pillars, and adorned the lowest heaven with lamps, planets, and stars that run to an appointed place.

The Creation of the Angels

Before mankind He created the angels brought near, from pure light untouched by any admixture, giving them a nature of unbroken obedience and ceaseless praise without weariness or slackening. They glorify Him night and day, never disobeying what He commands and doing what they are ordered.

The Creation of the Jinn and Their Settling on the Earth

He also created the jinn long ages before Adam, from a smokeless tongue of flame, and settled them upon the earth to inhabit it.

When the jinn had settled there, wide corruption, unlawful bloodshed, and mutual wrongdoing spread among them. So Allah sent a host of angels to drive them out and banish their devils to the islands of the seas and the edges of the mountains, clearing the ground for the creation of man and his stewardship on earth, to establish the worship of Allah.