Al-An'am · Makki · ayah 96 of 165

Al-An'am 6:96

فَالِقُ ٱلْإِصْبَاحِ وَجَعَلَ ٱلَّيْلَ سَكَنًا وَٱلشَّمْسَ وَٱلْقَمَرَ حُسْبَانًا ۚ ذَٰلِكَ تَقْدِيرُ ٱلْعَزِيزِ ٱلْعَلِيمِ

“[He is] the cleaver of daybreak and has made the night for rest and the sun and moon for calculation.[330] That is the determination of the Exalted in Might, the Knowing.”

Saheeh International

Essence

The One who split the seed also splits the night, and He made the dark for your rest, not as wasted time.

A reflection

Sixteen sunrises, none asking permission

The ayah ends with a signature: that is the measuring of the Mighty, the Knowing. Al-ʿAzīz comes from a root the first hearers pictured as an eagle's nest on the highest crag. Out of every hand's reach, never overpowered. Al-ʿAlīm, the Knowing, completes it. Power that cannot be reached, joined to knowledge that misses nothing.

Think of what that means for dawn. No authority on earth has ever delayed a sunrise by a minute. Emperors could not. Stock exchanges that trade through the night still open to the same grey light. Astronauts on the space station see around sixteen sunrises in a day. One of them once described watching them and realising that not one had asked anyone's permission.

The ego hates that. It likes to believe it runs its own days. Our diaries, alarms and productivity apps give us a feeling of command over time. But the frame inside which all our scheduling happens, the turning from dark to light, is measured by Someone else.

That should humble us, and it should also relieve us. The day is not ours to make. We are only asked to use it well. The weight of holding the sun in its place was never placed on our shoulders.

A sceptic may ask whether a God who signs His work this way is boasting. But a boast is a claim beyond the truth. Here the claim is exactly the truth. He needs no one's applause; He is free of all need (35:15). The signature is there so that we know whom to thank when the light comes back.

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.