Al-Furqan · Makki · ayah 61 of 77

Al-Furqan 25:61

تَبَارَكَ ٱلَّذِى جَعَلَ فِى ٱلسَّمَآءِ بُرُوجًا وَجَعَلَ فِيهَا سِرَٰجًا وَقَمَرًا مُّنِيرًا

“Blessed is He who has placed in the sky great stars and placed therein a [burning] lamp and luminous moon.”

Saheeh International

Essence

Blessed is the One who raised towers in the sky, hung a burning lamp there, and set beside it a moon that lights the night.

A reflection

Towers we did not build

Tabāraka alladhī jaʿala fī al-samāʾi burūjā: blessed is He who placed in the sky burūj. The lexicons picture a burj as a tower on a city wall: tall, clear against the sky, seen from far away. One early commentator took the word here as palaces in the sky. Others took it as the great stars, or the stations they move through. One commentary holds the views together: the great stars may themselves be those towers.

The Quran uses the same word for human towers. Death will reach you, it says, even in lofty towers (4:78). We build burūj too. Here the ego meets the ayah.

Picture a restaurant at the top of a new glass tower, sixty floors up. A couple at a window table look down on the whole city, every street lit. It feels like the summit of human achievement. Then one of them looks up. There is not a single star. The city's own light has wiped out the sky.

Our towers are real achievements, and the pride in them is understandable. But they are built of borrowed materials, on borrowed ground, under a sky we did not raise. The architect of the tallest building on earth cannot place a single star.

A reader may wonder why Allah opens with His own blessedness. Is that self-praise? The word answers for itself. Tabāraka speaks of good that settles and grows, and of being exalted above everything. That good does not stay with Him. It settles into creation, and the towers, the lamp and the moon are that good made visible. They were hung there for us.

The ayah turns the eye from our skyline to His. Step outside on a clear night, away from the glare. The towers we did not build are still there.

The full entry has 6 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.