The Quraysh said to the Jews, "Give us something to ask this man about."They replied, "Ask him about the spirit."So they asked him about the spirit, and Allah revealed, "They ask you about the spirit. Say, the spirit is from the affair of my Lord, and you have been given only a little knowledge" [Isra 17:85].They said, "We have been given abundant knowledge, the Torah, and whoever has been given the Torah has been given a great deal of good."Then this was revealed, "Say, if the sea were ink for the words of my Lord, the sea would run dry before the words of my Lord were exhausted, even if we brought the like of it in addition" [Kahf 18:109].
قالت قريش ليهود: اعطونا شيئا نسأل عنه هذا الرجل، فقال: سلوه عن الروح. قال: فسألوه عن الروح، فأنزل الله {ويسألونك عن الروح قل الروح من أمر ربي وما أوتيتم من العلم إلا قليلا} [سورة الإسراء: ١٨٥] قالوا: أوتينا علما كثيرا: التوراة، ومن أوتى التوراة فقد أوتي خيرا كثيرا، فأنزلت: {قل لو كان البحر مدادا لكلمت ربي لنفد البحر قبل أن تنفد كلمت ربي ولو جئنا بمثله مددا}.
Tirmidhi (3140), Ahmad (2309), and Nasai in al-Kubra (11252) narrated it, and Ibn Hibban (99) and Hakim (2/531) graded it sahih, all of them through the route of Yahya bin Zakariya bin Abu Zaida, from Dawud bin Abu Hind, from Ikrima, from Abdullah bin Abbas, who said, then he mentioned it. Its isnad is sahih. Tirmidhi said, "Hasan sahih." Hakim said, "Sahih in isnad."It appears from this that this verse and the verse in Surah Isra were revealed at two different times, and the companion combined them in a single hadith.His statement, "as ink for the words of my Lord", refers to the speech of Allah, which is among His attributes. It is uncreated, having neither beginning nor end, like the rest of His attributes such as knowledge, power, mercy, and wisdom. It cannot be bounded by any limit. Whatever vastness or greatness hearts may conceive, Allah is above that, and likewise with all the other attributes of Allah, the Exalted.