The Seven Heavens سَبْعًا شِدَادًا

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Endorsed by the Quranicpedia Review Board · يونيو 2026

In Sūrah An-Naba the Qur'an names the heavens above us as "seven mighty heavens" — saban shidāda (78:12) — one of a recurring set of signs that present the cosmos as an ordered, deliberately built creation pointing to its Maker.

Overview

Among the signs of creation that open Sūrah An-Naba, God asks, “And We built above you seven mighty heavens?” (78:12). The phrase is part of a rapid sequence of rhetorical questions — the earth made a resting place, the mountains as pegs, the pairs, sleep, night and day, and then the seven heavens with a blazing lamp (78:6–13). The “seven heavens” is a motif that runs through the Qur'an as an emblem of the cosmos built in ordered layers.

Etymology and meaning

The Qur'anic phrase is سَبْعًا شِدَادًا (saban shidāda) — “seven strong” or “seven mighty.” Sab‘ is the number seven; shidād is the plural of an adjective meaning firm, strong, sturdily built. The image is of seven heavens raised as a solid, well-secured structure overhead. Elsewhere the same seven are described as built “in layers” (ṭibāqan, 67:3, 71:15), reinforcing the sense of ordered, stacked construction.

Qur'anic references

78:12 — “And We built above you seven mighty heavens”
67:3 — “who created seven heavens in layers”
71:15 — “Do you not see how God created seven heavens in layers”
65:12 — “It is God who created seven heavens, and of the earth the like of them”
2:29 — “then He directed Himself to the heaven and fashioned it into seven heavens”
23:17 — “And We have created above you seven paths”

Significance

In Sūrah An-Naba the seven mighty heavens are not offered as a stray cosmological detail but as evidence within an argument. The sūrah opens with people disputing “the great announcement” — the resurrection — and answers by pointing to the ordered world: the same God who raised seven firm heavens and set a blazing lamp among them is able to raise the dead on the Day of Decision. The heavens’ firmness (shidād) and their construction “in layers” (67:3) underscore the theme: this is a built, governed cosmos, not a chance one. In 67:3 the listener is invited to look up and search the sky for any flaw or rift — and find none — so that the order itself becomes a witness to the Maker.

References