The servant whose words stumped the angels

Ibn Majah relates that a servant of God said 'my Lord, Yours is the praise as befits the majesty of Your face and the greatness of Your dominion'; the two angels were stumped and did not know how to write it, so they ascended to heaven and said 'our Lord, Your servant has uttered words we do not know how to write' ¹ Ibn Majah 3801.

God said 'write it, then raise it — until I precede it with four words: glory to my Lord the Great, with His praise, as numerous as His creation, and pleasing to Himself, and the weight of His throne, and the ink of His words' ¹ Ibn Majah 3801.

This hadith qudsi is among the finest texts of God's praise in the Sunan; it belongs to the chapters of the angels' direct engagement with human speech, and this browser shows it with the rest of the honourable scribes' and revelation angels' stories ¹.