The Perishing Star

In the Name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful

The Perishing Star

Extract from Chapter 53 of QUR’AANIC STUDIES – A Modern Tafsir PART II:

 53:1. By the star when it perishes!¹

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1. The Arabic word hawa has been used in Verse 20:81 in the sense of something getting perished. But, here, the people living at the time the Qur’aan was revealed – and for centuries thereafter – had difficulty in understanding a star getting perished or destroyed. So those people rendered the said Arabic word as ‘sets’ or ‘disappears’. And they understood the Verse as alluding to a star that disappears from the sky as day breaks. But this obviously is a contrived rendering. At day-break, not one, but all stars [other than the Sun of course] disappear to the naked human eye. It is but an illusion. Now, when human knowledge has taken a quantum jump, we know for a fact that stars do get destroyed! Watch this video! Qur’aan is a living Book valid for all times till the Last Day. We cannot hold it hostage to the limited understanding of any people in the past.

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Mohammad Shafi

Friday, the 13^th of July 2018.

The Perfect Artiste

In the Name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful

Extract from QUR’AANIC STUDIES – A Modern Tafsir PART II:

7. Waalssama-i thati alhubuki

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51:7. By the heaven full of perfectly defined pathways²

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2. One might well have seen a circus artiste keeping onlookers spellbound with his artistry of playing with 3 or 4 balls with his two hands continuously for a few minutes without the balls crashing against one another or without their being floored. But the artiste is a human being after all. He can sustain the show only for a limited period and with limited number of balls. But consider the superhuman Artiste Who has been sustaining such a Show for an infinitely long time now and with innumerable balls [heavenly bodies] billions of times bigger than the poor circus artiste can ever handle. We are witness to this Show day in and day out without being ever spellbound by it or without ever giving recognition to the Great Artiste! The Show is brought about by the interplay of innumerable centripetal and centrifugal forces. The mathematical precision with which this is done is simply mind-boggling.

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Mohammad Shafi

Friday, the 15^th of June 2018.

Lord of the Easts

In the Name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful

Excerpt from Chapter 37 of QUR’AANIC STUDIES – A Modern Tafsir:

5. Rabbu alssamawati waal-ardi wama baynahuma warabbu almashariqi

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5. (And the One Whom you should worship is the) Lord of the heavens and the earth and what is in between, and Lord of the easts! ²

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2. The Sun has many planets other than the earth. All these planets have rotational movements around their respective axes. So, like the earth, these other planets have their respective easts. Besides, there are innumerable stars out there in the vast cosmos. And these stars, like our own Sun, may also have their respective planets revolving and rotating around them. All these planets should therefore be having their own respective easts. ‘Lord of the easts’ is Lord of all these innumerable planets. The planets are of course included in the Arabic expression wama baynahuma contained in the earlier part of this Verse, but by mentioning ‘easts’ Allah Ta’ala has brought to light the factual positions of the planets, orbiting the Sun and other stars that were unknown to mankind at the time the Qur’aan was revealed. [The people then thought that the Sun moved round the earth.] This also shows the need for interpreting Qur’aanic Verses in the light of knowledge gained by mankind from time to time. Those who advocate sticking to the interpretation at the time of revelation are advocates of stagnation.

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Mohammad Shafi

Friday, the 8^th of December 2017.