Ya-Sin · Makki · ayah 38 of 83

Ya-Sin 36:38

وَٱلشَّمْسُ تَجْرِى لِمُسْتَقَرٍّ لَّهَا ۚ ذَٰلِكَ تَقْدِيرُ ٱلْعَزِيزِ ٱلْعَلِيمِ

“And the sun runs [on course] toward its stopping point. That is the determination of the Exalted in Might, the Knowing.”

Saheeh International

Essence

The sun is named for a horse that will not stand still, yet it runs to a resting place the Mighty, the Knowing measured.

A reflection

A measure that has never once slipped

On the first snowy morning of winter, a railway timetable that took a team of planners a year to build collapses by half past seven. Points freeze, one train fails, and every connection downstream unravels. By nine the departure boards are a column of red. The plan was excellent. It simply met a morning it had not measured.

The ayah ends with a phrase about measuring. Dhālika taqdīru al-ʿazīzi al-ʿalīm: that is the determining of the Mighty, the Knowing. The root of taqdīr is measure: everything given its exact amount and limit. The lexicons picture a horse whose hind hooves land exactly where its forefeet stepped, as if every stride were measured.

The commentaries draw out why both names are needed. The Mighty, one says, is the One who cannot be opposed or resisted. The Knowing knows every movement and every pause. Another adds that He laid the whole thing down to a pattern with no discrepancy and no clash.

One commentator lists what that measuring achieves. The sun crosses a slightly different line each day for half a year. Were it to pass over the same line every day, he observes, that land would scorch while the rest stayed cold. Its daily setting gives eyes and bodies rest; its daily rising keeps the world from ruin by endless dark.

Here the ego is put in its place. We are proud of our measuring: schedules, forecasts, five-year plans. Most of them fail at the first unexpected morning. His measure has run every day of human history without a single correction.

The name al-ʿAzīz comes from a root the lexicons picture as an eagle's nest on the highest crag, out of every hand's reach. That is where this measure sits. No one has ever reached up and adjusted it.

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.