29هُوَ الَّذي خَلَقَ لَكُم ما فِي الأَرضِ جَميعًا ثُمَّ استَوىٰ إِلَى السَّماءِ فَسَوّاهُنَّ سَبعَ سَماواتٍ ۚ وَهُوَ بِكُلِّ شَيءٍ عَليمٌMuhammad AsadHe it is who has created for you all that is on earth, and has applied His design to the heavens and fashioned them into seven heavens;1 and He alone has full knowledge of everything.The term sama' ("heaven" or "sky") is applied to anything that is spread like a canopy above any other thing. Thus, the visible skies which stretch like a vault above the earth and form, as it were, its canopy, are called sama: and this is the primary meaning of this term in the Qur'an; in a wider sense, it has the connotation of "cosmic system". As regards the "seven heavens", it is to be borne in mind that in Arabic usage - and apparently in other Semitic languages as well - the number "seven" is often synonymous with "several" (see Lisan al-'Arab), just as "seventy" or "seven hundred" often means "many" or "very many" (Taj al-'Arus). This, taken together with the accepted linguistic definition that "every sama' is a sama' with regard to what is below it" (Raghib), may explain the "seven heavens" as denoting the multiplicity of cosmic systems. - For my rendering of thumma, at the beginning of this sentence, as "and", see surah 7, first part of note 43.