Ar-Rahman · Madani · ayah 5 of 78
Ar-Rahman 55:5
ٱلشَّمْسُ وَٱلْقَمَرُ بِحُسْبَانٍ
“The sun and the moon [move] by precise calculation,”
Saheeh International
Essence
The Arabs named the sun for restlessness, like a horse that will not stand still, and this ayah shows it running to an exact count.
A reflection
The restless thing that is never late
A collector shows his dinner guests a watch with a perpetual calendar and a moon-phase dial. It cost more than his first house. Hundreds of hand-finished parts, and it will show the correct date for a century without adjustment. He is proud of it, and with reason.
Every function on that watch copies something the sky does for nothing. The day, the month, the moon's waxing and waning. The finest instrument a person can buy is an imitation of this ayah.
The sun and the moon, by reckoning. The concise commentaries gloss it plainly: they run in succession, by a precise reckoning that does not vary and does not falter. One major commentary adds a thought experiment. Suppose every natural philosopher in the world agreed together to hold the sun and moon to their exact paths, at their exact speeds. They would fail, and in the end they would have to say: Allah moves them as He wills.
And the sun, in the language of the first hearers, is named for restlessness. The root means shifting and never settling. The thing that never stands still keeps the most exact appointment in creation.
That should deflate a particular kind of pride. We are proud of being punctual, organised, in control of our diaries. Most of us cannot keep a resolution for a fortnight. The sun has kept every sunrise anyone has ever recorded, and it takes no credit for any of them.
A sceptic may ask why its Maker points this out. Not for applause: He is free of all need (35:15). It is for the man checking his watch, who has forgotten what it is copying.
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