أَلَم تَرَ أَنَّ اللَّهَ يولِجُ اللَّيلَ فِي النَّهارِ وَيولِجُ النَّهارَ فِي اللَّيلِ وَسَخَّرَ الشَّمسَ وَالقَمَرَ كُلٌّ يَجري إِلىٰ أَجَلٍ مُسَمًّى وَأَنَّ اللَّهَ بِما تَعمَلونَ خَبيرٌ
Have you not regarded that Allah makes the night pass into the day and makes the day pass into the night; and He has disposed the sun and the moon each moving for a specified term, and that Allah is well aware of what you do?
EXEGESIS
Yūliju (makes pass into) is in the fourth form of Arabic verbal forms for the root verb walaja, and means to cause something to enter into a narrow or straitened thing, or into a confined or straitened state. Here, the meaning of the verb, in relation to the night and the day, is their diminution when one is made to enter into the other.
EXPOSITION
In the previous verse, mention was made of the extent of God’s power in that the creation of all creatures and their resurrection is like creating and resurrecting one single person. In the following verses mention is made of additional manifestations of God’s power, such as this verse, Have you not regarded that Allah makes the night pass into the day …, and verse 31, Have you not regarded that the ships sail at sea by Allah’s blessing, that He may show you some of His signs?
God has created the earth in a manner whereby the length of the day and night changes in terms of increase and decrease in hours due to seasonal variations at all the points of the earth, save two points. These are the exact equator where the hours of the night and day are the same throughout the year, and the true north and south poles where night and day extend continuously for six months respectively. The rest of the points on the earth’s surface have differing lengths of night and day due to seasonal variations.
As the earth rotates on its axis every 24 hours and orbits the sun annually, God orchestrates a seamless transition between day and night. Throughout the earth’s daily rotation, one side of the planet is illuminated by the sun, creating daytime, while the other side experiences the absence of sunlight, resulting in night-time. The annual revolution around the sun influences the earth’s seasonal variations and alters the duration of daylight and darkness over the course of the year. This intricate dance between earth’s rotation and revolution results in a constant interplay between day and night, with seamless transitions, and creates seasonal variations that significantly impact life on our planet. The passing of the night into day and vice versa perhaps points to the manner in which the human being experiences the light of day and the darkness of night, which is via gradualism. This is because night and day progress little by little. Thus, by the passing of night into day, the darkness advances in the horizon gradually, just as light advances gradually when the day passes into night. This gradual shift allows all living beings time to adjust to the upcoming changes in light and darkness.
This captivating phenomenon is described in the Quran through various expressions and perspectives, showcasing God’s power and control over creation. The Quran highlights that it is God who governs the alternating cycle of night and day (23:80), who determines their changing durations (73:20), who causes them to envelop one another in a perpetual sequence (39:5), and who makes the night pass into the day and makes the day pass into the night, as in this verse. A significant aspect of these expressions is that, while they describe a natural phenomenon, they directly attribute it to God’s actions. This is not merely because God is the creator of these processes but because He is ever-present within them. These phenomena occur at every moment through His direct power and decision, emphasising the intimate connection between the divine and the natural world.
Then God mentions yet another spectacle in this verse, which once again demonstrates the signs of His power and might. God has ordained the sun and the moon to follow their respective orbits with precision, neither lagging nor exceeding the paths designated for them. However their orbits are not perpetual and everlasting; rather they are bound by a predetermined time frame, as the verse says, each – meaning the sun and the moon – are moving for a specified term (13:2, 35:13, 39:5), where the specified term is the end of the world (dunyā) and the beginning of the transition into the afterlife (ākhirah). Thus the solar system, like all other systems, is a limited one. It will terminate when it reaches its determined limit. It is also suggested that the specified term for the sun and the moon means the end of the yearly cycle for the sun and the end of the monthly lunar cycle for the moon, which are the specified terms for them, respectively.
And that Allah is well aware of what you do: this is understood to be joined to the initial part of this very verse where it says Have you not regarded, thereby rendering the implied meaning, Have you not regarded … that Allah is well aware of what you do, whereby He shall requite you according to what He is well aware of in respect of your deeds. This is because the Prophet’s disbelieving contemporaries were behaving contrary to their knowledge. They knew and appreciated that this wonderful system, which mesmerises and baffles the human intellect, is not save the creation of Allah, the glorified, whom they revered and venerated since the time of the founder of the Kaaba, Prophet Abraham (a). Whoever witnesses this system undoubtedly concludes as such, and the addressees too knew and concluded accordingly, however they refused to admit what they observed and understood, which was evidenced by their abandoning the worship of one God and resorting to the worship of idols. The terminal part of this verse also reinforces what the terminal part of the previous verse said, which is that Allah is all-hearing, all-seeing. Such a God was surely well aware of what His creatures did. Furthermore, such a finely tuned system cannot have come about and cannot function seamlessly without knowledge, expertise, and awareness.
[1] Munyah, 21/149; Arabic-English Dictionary of Qur’anic Usage, p. 1045.
[2] Munyah, 21/149.
[3] Tibyan, 8/285; Munyah, 21/149.
[4] Munyah, 21/149.
[5] Munyah, 21/149.
[6] Munyah, 21/149.
[7] Qummi, 2/167; Munyah, 21/150.
[8] Munyah, 21/149.
[9] Tabrisi.J, 3/285.
[10] Munyah, 21/150.
[11] Tabrisi.J, 3/285; Mizan, 16/234.
[12] Mizan, 16/235; Tibyan, 8/285.
[13] Tibyan, 8/285.
[14] Munyah, 21/150.
[15] Mizan, 16/234.
[16] Mizan, 16/234.