Bishr ibn ʿUmāra narrated to us, saying: Abū Rawq narrated to us, from al-Ḍaḥḥāk, from Ibn ʿAbbās, who said: Gabriel said to Muḥammad: "O Muḥammad, say: { All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds }." Ibn ʿAbbās said: He says: Say: All praise is due to Allah, to whom belongs all creation—all the heavens and whoever is in them, and all the earths and whoever is in them and whatever is between them, of what is known and what is not known. He says: Know, O Muḥammad, that this Lord of yours—nothing resembles Him. (1)

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The discourse regarding the interpretation of His statement: {the worlds}.

Abū Jaʿfar said: And al-ʿālamūn is the plural of ʿālam, and al-ʿālam is a collective noun that has no singular from its own word, like al-anām (mankind), al-rahṭ (a group), and al-jaysh (an army), and similar names that are set for a group with no singular from their own word.

And al-ʿālam is a name for categories of nations, and every category among them is an ʿālam, and the people of each generation of every category among them are the ʿālam of that generation and that era. So mankind is an ʿālam, and all the people of an era among them are the ʿālam of that era. The jinn are an ʿālam, and likewise all other kinds of creation: every kind among them is the ʿālam of its era. For this reason, it was pluralized and said: ʿālamūn, while its singular is itself a collective noun, because the ʿālam of each era among them is the ʿālam of that era. And from that is the saying of al-ʿAjjāj:

• For Khindif is the head of this world * (2)

So he made them the ʿālam of his era. And this statement that we have made is the statement of Ibn ʿAbbās and Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, and it is the meaning of the statement of the generality of the exegetes.