وَإِذَا الكَواكِبُ انتَثَرَت
When the stars are scattered.
EXPOSITION
The word intatharat (scattered) suggests the stars will simply drop off their assigned orbits in the heavens and fall away. What triggers this is unknown but we know from science that there are centrifugal and gravitational forces that hold planetary and celestial bodies in orbit. It is therefore not unlikely that there is a dependency between the various events described in the surah and each one triggers another, in a domino-like effect. Thus, When the sky is rent apart (verse 1), there is nothing to hold the motion of the stars in orbit and therefore the stars are scattered (verse 2). This in turn has an effect on the oceans and seas, whose tides, for example, are influenced by the waxing and waning of the moon. And When the seas are merged (verse 3), new lands appear, old ones disappear, and all that is inside the earth is turned upside down, thus the graves are overturned (verse 4).
INSIGHTS FROM HADITH
- In a supplication attributed to Imam al-Ṣādiq (a), he prayed to God: ‘And I ask You by Your name which when placed on mountains would crumble [the mountains] to dust, and when laid on the heavens would split [the heavens] open, and on the stars would [cause them to] scatter.’
[1] Nur, 5/520, quoting from Ṭūsī, Miṣbāḥ al-Mutahajjid.