What does “Alamin”, the worlds, mean in “Lord of the worlds”?

“Alamin” means far more than the heavens and the earth. The word covers every form of existence and everything that can be known, and because each thing is known in countless ways, there are countless worlds.

“Lord of the worlds” are the first words with which the Holy Qur’an describes God. The Arabic word “Alamin” is far wider than “heaven”, and “heaven” is already wider than the sky above us. It does not just mean planets or stars. It covers every form of existence, every way of being and every direction of human thought.

The word is linked to “knowledge”. A world is whatever can be known. As soon as someone comes to know something, it becomes a world for that person. The more people seek and gain knowledge, the more worlds open up. For God, everything is a world, what is, what is not and what may be. That is why the word is in the plural.

A simple example shows how far this reaches. Take a microphone on a table. One person sees it from the front, another from the side. One knows exactly how it works, another hardly at all. Each one connects something different with the word “microphone”. It is a single device, yet every person carries a picture of it of their own. So for hundreds of people, one microphone becomes a multitude of worlds.

So when God is called “Lord of the worlds”, He is Lord over all of this. He is Lord over every thing, over every way of knowing it and over everyone who knows. The answer Moses (as) gave Pharaoh in the verses above points in the same direction. God is the Lord of all that exists and of everything in between.