At-Takwir · Makki · ayah 15 of 29

At-Takwir 81:15

فَلَآ أُقْسِمُ بِٱلْخُنَّسِ

“So I swear by the retreating stars -”

Saheeh International

Essence

Allah swears by stars that seem to turn back and hide: wayward from where we stand, yet never off the course He set.

A reflection

Backwards only from where you stand

Sit in a train at a busy station. The train on the next platform starts to move, and for a moment you are certain it is yours that is moving. Your stomach lurches. Then you look out of the other window and see the platform is perfectly still. What you felt depended entirely on where you were sitting.

Al-khunnas are the stars that draw back. Most classical commentators said the ayah means the five wandering planets the Arabs could see. One classical commentator describes what watchers saw: you see the star reach the end of its constellation, then suddenly it turns back towards the beginning. For a while a planet seems to walk backwards across the sky, then resumes its way. One great theologian called it an astonishing state full of hidden wisdom.

Later astronomers offered explanations for the looping. A later commentator records that the astronomers of his own day even counted the earth itself among the travelling planets. The 'backwards' was partly about the watchers, not only the watched.

That is a humbling thought for the ego. We tend to assume we are the still point and everything else is moving around us. Our view feels like the view. But what looks like disorder from our seat may be a perfectly held course seen from a moving platform.

Allah swears by exactly those lights. Not by what looks orderly to us, but by what looks wayward and is not. He does not need our applause for it. The oath is for us: a reminder that His order holds even where our angle makes it look broken.

Someone may ask why a perfect Lord swears at all. The classical answer is that He swears by His signs, things everyone can see, to direct our eyes to Him. Pride says 'I see the whole picture'. Humility says 'I see it from here'. That second sentence is where faith begins.

The full entry has 5 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.