This is perhaps the first full thread in the Religion forum that I have read with great interest... thanks to the very well informed responses and logical arguments from all participants - mashaAllah, some of you have a lot of knowledge to share.
I just wanted to drop by to say that I completely agree with psyah's assertion that the language in the Holy Quran is truely magnificent and something which is beyond our intellectual capacity since Allah talks about latent phenomena which we understand gradually over time through manifest clues and signals which get unearthed only when we as humans are able to develop advanced tools and techniques to get to a higher understanding. However, while developing these higher levels of understanding, we can never be sure that we’ll reach the absolute truth of a latent phenomenon.
These ayats in particular are very superlative in their language – consider the different forms of motion that are implied: “Tajri” : runs… “Yasbahoon”: swim / float etc. and the “Kul fee falak” which roughly translates to “all in circle” or “something that repeats itself”… and one can only say SubhanAllah on the syntax of this statement as it reads the same forwards and backwards in terms of the alphabet that is used in the statement: “K, L, F, Y, F, L, K”.
I’m seriously not at the same level of understanding of the Holy Quran as many of you here, but it is the unparalleled sophisticated language of verses like these that make it a true wonder.
Its the hadith that has a very confusing tone. When taking the ayat and the hadith in conjunction the only understanding I can come to is that Allah SWT has created the suns orbit (or routine) as such to rise from the east and set in the west for an appointed term i.e. till the beginning of the day of judgement, this is when its fixed term comes to an end and it breaks its orbit (or normal routine).
well there is no other explanation. The hadith, well explains all in a really 6th century way. It seems as if when the sun sets, it literally has set someplace and is asking the permission of God to rise again. Maybe if the arabs new about the americas in the far far west it would have been different. anyhow, there are a few points in the hadith. Like "the sun prostrates underneath the throne of God". Throne of God is not a tangible throne rather a symbol of authotity/rule/power whatever you wana call it. And we know that trees, plants etc all prostrate God in their own way.
Brother, the context of the last part of verse 40 is not 37 but clearly the first part of verse 40 itself. The sun does not overtake the moon NOR does the night overtake the day. In essence, its simply referring to the obvious fact that day and night cannot happen at the same time, each has its own time and neither can contravene.
W/Salam sNOVA
You see I may not have made my point clear enough ...
The idea that both cannot happen at the same time is false. Dusk and Dawn are neither day nor night and you see many times the moon in plain view during the day. The verse does not associate the moon with night this will be a fallacy to suggest this. It also contradicts reason as we see the moon disassociated many times from the night sky.
Rather, if we look at verse 37 we can see that ...
If the day is stripped away we are left with night. In verse 40 we are told that the night does not "overpower" the daylight.
We can conclude therefore that the daylight can and does overpower the darkness, because of verse 37. It stands for reason that if what dominates is taken away then the result is the residual.
i.e. night is not a substance like daylight but merely the absence of daylight. The proof that I have that connects these two verses together is:
a) The whole section begins with "And a sign ... until the next section "
b) It is on the same topic, i.e. night and day
c) It is about simliar behaviour - night is caused by the absence of sun, whereas day is caused by it's presence.
d) The part that deals with the sun and moon in verse 40 are dealt with in verses 38 and 39, making a complete argument. Verses 37-39 set the conditions, verse 40 is the conclusion.
What the comparison is being made between the sun-moon couplet and the night-day couplet however, is still at large.
Note: I am choosing to use the word 'overpower' instead of 'outstrip'
Amazing facts ...
The moon and sun are two very differently sized objects, why is it that the distance of the moon from the Earth is such that when it comes across the sun it completely covers not being too big or too small?
The moon always has one face to the Earth, which means it's own axial rotation is exactly coordinated with it's orbit around the Earth.
In order to get this perfection, the Earth, the Moon and the distance of the Sun would have been very carefully calculated. It is a three way iteration.
This is perhaps the first full thread in the Religion forum that I have read with great interest... thanks to the very well informed responses and logical arguments from all participants - mashaAllah, some of you have a lot of knowledge to share.
I just wanted to drop by to say that I completely agree with psyah's assertion that the language in the Holy Quran is truely magnificent and something which is beyond our intellectual capacity since Allah talks about latent phenomena which we understand gradually over time through manifest clues and signals which get unearthed only when we as humans are able to develop advanced tools and techniques to get to a higher understanding. However, while developing these higher levels of understanding, we can never be sure that we’ll reach the absolute truth of a latent phenomenon.
These ayats in particular are very superlative in their language – consider the different forms of motion that are implied: “Tajri” : runs… “Yasbahoon”: swim / float etc. and the “Kul fee falak” which roughly translates to “all in circle” or “something that repeats itself”… and one can only say SubhanAllah on the syntax of this statement as it reads the same forwards and backwards in terms of the alphabet that is used in the statement: “K, L, F, Y, F, L, K”.
I’m seriously not at the same level of understanding of the Holy Quran as many of you here, but it is the unparalleled sophisticated language of verses like these that make it a true wonder.
Peace Lucid Chaotic
We can do with your great insight here ... MashaAllah
well there is no other explanation. The hadith, well explains all in a really 6th century way. It seems as if when the sun sets, it literally has set someplace and is asking the permission of God to rise again. Maybe if the arabs new about the americas in the far far west it would have been different. anyhow, there are a few points in the hadith. Like "the sun prostrates underneath the throne of God". Throne of God is not a tangible throne rather a symbol of authotity/rule/power whatever you wana call it. And we know that trees, plants etc all prostrate God in their own way.
There may be more to say on this ... InshaAllah ... I'll put up some thoughts only and you can make up your own minds.
I can understand your frustration, my dear "Muslim" friend sNOVA.
I have seen various Christians scratching their heads trying to interpret THEIR religious books as well. Their problem is even more complicated by the fact that they don't even know who actually wrote these supposedly books of God.
So much so that some of them have now come to realize that actual Christian Jesus may not even have existed in the first place!
So as I said, I understand your frustration, dear self-proclaimed "Muslim".
I can understand your frustration, my dear "Muslim" friend sNOVA.
I have seen various Christians scratching their heads trying to interpret THEIR religious books as well. Their problem is even more complicated by the fact that they don't even know who actually wrote these supposedly books of God.
So much so that some of them have now come to realize that actual Christian Jesus may not even have existed in the first place!
So as I said, I understand your frustration, dear self-proclaimed "Muslim".
this is hilarious!!:D so why dont YOU proclaim what i am, dear self-proclaimed Mr.Knowledge it all. lay off
How can I proclaim who you are, o self-proclaimed "Muslim"? I am no prophet.
But I have seen many charlatans pretending to be Muslim and then attacking Islam.
Even though the moon and sun are in “cycles” of their own. It could be that this a simpler statement that may not have been so obvious in those times. That the sun is not allowed to overlap the moon. i.e. that it is not allowed to appear over the moon like the moon can at times appear over the sun.
On a more modern note the sun zipping through the atmosphere will carry with it the moon. It will not be able to outrun the moon. i.e. the moon’s “cyclic course” is hinged with the gravitational lock that the sun has on it.
1 - Close consecutivenss between rain drops, as if they were falling almost together or right after the other.
2 - Hanging of a rope around he neck of a person coupled with another.
3 - Two things in continuation without interruption.
4 - Overtake as if you catch up with someone or something or attain something as if in revenge or some stage in a certain quest for something.
5 - To follow up with amends to some previous error or to follow up on something.
6 - There are other meanings however they seem less relevant.
After looking at all these meanings and with todays knowledge of moon phases, what makes sense to me is we know the sunlight is always reflected on the moon surface (the side which faces earth) yet the moon is not always visible to us because of its position relative earth in its revolution. Like a new moon and full moon are both when the moon is fully in front of our line if sight yet the position of the earth relative to the moons orbit either conceals it or reveals it. So the sun does not at anytime hide the moon from us or over power or overtake it. Its the earth position relative to the moons orbit which causes it.
Now how would the Sahaba RA have understood this, I still wonder. What meaning would they have taken away from it. I guess the more classical tafsirs such as Kathir would be closest to it though we may today understand the verse with a whole new perception, OR NOT?
In my earlier response I wrote “atmosphere” out of hasty error I meant “galaxy”
As for the key … to the meaning of verse 40 I believe lies in what is not being said:
The sun cannot Tudrik the moon, but it does not say that the moon cannot Tudrik the sun.
Also, the night cannot **Saabik **the day, but it does not say that the day cannot Saabik the night.
Clearly from verse 37 the day seems to be talked about as something less permanent than night. Which must mean that Saabik could take a meaning similar to **overlay **it’s so obvious to us today that day overlays the night, but night does not overlay the day rather night is simply the removal of daylight.
In a similar sense … Verse 38 and 39 talk of the sun running a course, but the moon travelling in leaps and bounds, which create observable phenomena of phases. So we know that the sun cannot ‘tudrik’ the moon, but how can the moon ‘tudrik’ the sun, and how will these conditions allow us to understand them with a view the knowledge people had then and today?
It must be therefore that ‘tudrik’ refers to “ecplise” … because an eclipse is the moons path which comes in the way of the suns path as seen by the eye. Also, it is a condition that can never take place for the sun to eclipse the moon … The lunar eclipse is more of a coloured shadow and it is the Earth that eclipses the moon in reality.
So the sun can never eclipse the moon, and the night can never overlay the day.
Now each in their own “cyclic patterns”
Would hence mean that even though the moon CAN eclipse the sun and the day CAN overlay the night … these conditions cycle on and off because they are not permanent ones, each thing will happen on a routine basis.
As for the night, I can understand the concept of night is not possible with the creation of day. However how is one to precede the other as implied in the verse. Day is associated when a side of the earth is facing the sun, not the approach of sunlight otherwise an eclipse can be thought of as night but its is not. What I am missing here is that is a solar eclipse visible from every point facing the sun or is the sun eclipsed in only a few regions? If that be the case, then it makes more sense.
As for the moon overtaking the sun, I do understand your point however I don’t think the companions could have held such a view. I think this would have been one of the verses of the Quran that would not be clear to them as compared to us for it does say in the Quran that in it there are verses which are clear (ones pertinent to Aqidah) and there ones which are not clear (these verses are precisely the ones that misguided people lean upon to go astray). Take this verse for example, one could easily take older translations of Quran and compare them against modern scientific data and prove them to be false. Whereas the one trying to genuinely understand these verses would lean more upon the Quranic language and verify the lexicon against modern scientific data much like we are in this thread to gain a better understanding of it.
As mentioned earlier by someone in this thread, verses like these were appetite wetters for the muslim ummah. Once we gain a proper understanding of it, it allows us to appreciate the superlative linguistic quality of Allah SWT words in the Quran, where such vast phenomenon unearthed after centuries of research have been so concisely put in the Quran using language which is centuries old.
I think what I meant is the use of the word overlay for SAABIQ would be ambiguous. Day does not overlay the night in the sense that they happen on opposite sides of the earth. The earths revolution is responsible for exposing either half the earth for its experience of either day or night.
The events which we call night or day are mutually exclusive otherwise people could mistake a solar eclipse for a night.
Aaah … you see that is my point entirely … I believe day does overcome the night, and the “contra-condition” does not apply.
Night is not the opposite of the day, night is the absence of day. Let’s get rid of the sun for a moment. How much of the Earth will be in night? The correct answer should be all of it. As night time is not like a shadow … because shadows imply that the universe is light and the object blocking the light creates a shadow. Rather night is the permanent condition and light has to be given to create day.
What is given can be taken away and hence the light is superimposed on the night to give us day. However, darkness cannot be superimposed on day to give us night. Darkness is not a something it is simply the absence of something.
But we look in terms of hue, saturation or intensity of course every time you layer darkness on light you will get light it is like a transparent layer in a graphics application. The white background being light and the transparent being dark.
The darkness has no affect on the brightness but brightness is affected by removing the light.
