Part 20

Look now at the progress of the sun in its orbit during a year, and its rising and setting every day along a

route that its Lord determined for it, so that it will never exceed it or fall short of it. Had it not been for its rising and setting we would not have known day from night, nor would it be possible for us to know time. There would be permanent darkness over the world, or there would be eternal light; it would not be possible to assign a time for sleep and rest and another time for work. See how the Hearer, the Omniscient determined for the sun two long journeys, an ascending journey until it reaches its zenith, and a descending one until it reaches its lowest trough; and its orbit is a little different every trip, until it has gone a whole cycle. This movement results, by the will of the Lord, the Able, in the succession of seasons: summer, winter, autumn and spring. Once its route descends from the zenith of the sky the air cools and winter arrives; then, when it takes the zenith of the sky the heat blazes; when, on the other hand, it is between the two extremes, the weather is moderate. Much of the welfare of men, animals and plants emanates from the succession of those four seasons; they are the basis for the diversity of foods, the shapes and colours of plants, and the foods, meat and benefits of animals. And that does not exhaust their functions.

Think of the moon and its amazing wonders: how Allah exhibits it first as a narrow thread, then its light increases gradually, and it waxes night by night, until it waxes into a full moon, when it reaches its maximum phase; then it begins to decrease in size until it reaches its first phase. In all this, there are diverse benefits for humans in their living, worship and rituals; it is the basis for calculating months and years. Mankind has used it to organize things, besides many other benefits that no one but Allah can keep count of.

In general, no star or planet is created by the Lord Almighty without many good reasons: its particular

dimensions, colour and location in the heavens, its proximity or remoteness from the zenith of the sky, its proximity or remoteness to the star or planet next to it are all determined for precise purposes. To have a sense of that in general, compare the facts of the sky to the organs of your body: the diversity, the difference in structure of the adjacent organs, and the distance of the far ones; their shapes, dimensions, and variety of benefits and functions, contrasting all that with the enormity of the sky and hugeness of its stars and planets and signs! Astronomers are agreed that the sun is more than a hundred and sixty times bigger than the earth, that many of the stars that we see are at least as big as the earth, which is enough to imagine their remoteness and height.

There is in this connection a tradition reported by AlTirmidhee on the authority of Abu Hurairah’, Wie tien eee i ott ere e ve 2% BAUS gelee YS Sy ple BE Fs SIG YojWN Gy Sh “That the distance between the earth and the sky

takes five hundred years to traverse, and that there is the same distance between each two skies,’

You see a certain star as stationary, while from its first appearance to its full appearance it has run along its orbit a hundred times or more than the running of the earth, in that mere moment. That is because if the star were a hundred times bigger than the earth, for instance, and it traversed in a moment a certain distance, it had run in that moment a hundred times the diameter of the earth, and that is so in every moment all the time. All this happens while man is unmindful of the wondrous events

' Reported by Al-Tirmidhee (3298), Ahmad (2/370) and Al-Baihagee in AlAsmaa wa Al-Sifat, pp. 399-400; rated as ‘weak’ by Al-Albanee in his evaluation of the traditions of ‘Al-Sunnah’ of Ibn Abee Aasem (1/254).

that are taking place. It has been said that if you utter the words ‘no, yes’ the sun has traversed along its route in the time that elapsed between the two words a distance of five hundred years of man’s movement. The Almighty holds the heavens, with their stupendous size and the size of the bodies they contain, in their places without pegs to hold them from above or supports from below.”

One may cite in support of this the following verses from the Qur’an:

Fuh elo Risdebevad Ni BENS

“He has created the heavens without supports that you can see, and has cast into the earth firm hills, so that it quakes not with you; and He has dispersed therein all kinds of beasts. And We send down water from the sky and We cause plants of every goodly kind to grow therein. This is the Creation of Allah. Now show me that which those you worship beside Him have created. Nay, but the wrongdoers are in error manifest!” (31: 10-11)

*The Almighty says in the Quran:

“Allah it is Who raised the heavens without visible supports, then mounted the Throne.” (12: 2) In this connection modern science says that every star or planet has a mass-centre inside it, that although stars and planets are in continuous movement, the distances between their mass-centres are invariable, which indicates that there is in every case an invisible gravity column that holds them so as to preserve the mass-centres of the sky’s bodies at fixed distances from each other, despite the movements of all those bodies, This must remind us of the expression in the above verse:

53 pepe } “without visible supports.”

Two kinds of looking

In the above and similar verses looking has two senses: there is “looking” with the eye, the external organ, by which one may see for instance the blue of the sky, its stars, its height and vastness. In such vision man is equal to other species, and so it is not the vision that man is exhorted to practice. In the other sense, “looking” is to go beyond the first external vision to see with the mind’s eye, so that the heaven’s gates are opened to the observer; he wanders among its territories and lands, and associates with its angels. It is then that gates are opened for him, one by one, until his mind’s journey carries him to the Throne of the Compassionate, where he envisions its huge and great size, its majesty, glory and elevation; he envisions the seven heavens, and the seven earths, whose mass is, compared to the Throne’s, like a ring to a desert; he envisions the angels circumambulating the Throne, with their hymns of praise and glorification of the Lord rising in chorus. He sees with the mind’s eye the commandments of the Lord descend from above, managing the worlds and directing the Almighty’s soldiers, whose swarms no one can count but their Lord and King. He realises how directives descend to determine the reviving of multitudes of creatures and the perishing of other multitudes; the honouring of some and the suffering of others; the enthroning of someone and the dethroning of another; the transporting of a blessing from one place to another place; and the fulfilling of all sorts of needs, in all their variety and abundance: the rescue of a bankrupt, the enrichment of an indigent, the healing of an invalid, the saving of someone stricken with disaster; the forgiveness of a sin, the resolution of a crisis, the supporting ofa persecuted one, the guiding of a lost one, the educating of an ignorant one, the reclamation of an escaped slave, the safety of a terrified one, the succour of a succour seeker;

the empowering of a feeble person, the support of a distressed one, the help of someone who is handicapped, the revenge on an oppressor, the stopping of aggression; all decrees towards the establishing of justice, sympathy, wisdom and mercy, covering all corners of the world. No call distracts Him from another call, the great succession of pleas and petitions do not confuse Him, no matter how numerous, diverse, or simultaneous. He does not complain at the insistence of insistents, and His bountiful bestowings do not decrease the riches of His treasure by a fraction, for there is no god but He, the Proud, the Wise.

Conceiving this, the believing heart is prostrated in the presence of the Compassionate, bending in awe of Him, subservient to His might; bound to His hegemony; it will prostrate in front of the King, the True, the Clear, a prostration that is never interrupted until the day of recompence. All this the heart does while it is still in its place, at home, and not leaving its residence which is a most marvelous wonder of the Lord’s and an over whelming occurrence. Blessed be the journey, a most rewarding trip, lifting the human and blessing his life and rewarding him amply and ensuring good consequences. It is the trip that revives souls and wins the key to happiness; fills the minds and hearts with peace, not borne with hardship like other trips.

The wonder of variation in the stars’ movements

Reflect now on the variation in the movement of stars and planets, and all the amazing wonder implied in this. See how some stars never travel but in company with others, never striking a lonely path; it is always a collective progress; others rush alone, free from any ties with companion or partner. Even if they by coincidence happen to be in company with other travellers, they join them for

a night and then again separate themselves the next night — they seem to be intimate pals for one night, but then separate like utter strangers. Each star has two absolutely and vastly different movements, a general movement that the whole constellation follows, and a special movement that the single star follows along its orbit. This has been likened to an ant that moves left round a grind-stone that turns right: the ant is in this case moving in two different directions, one on its own, and one forced on it, being bound to the grind-stone that pulls it in a direction other than its own. Like the ant, a star is proceeding from interval to interval in one direction, while the whole field of its progress is proceeding in a different direction.

So ask the heretics, the deniers, what nature is that which determined that? What astrological power dictated it? Why do not all the stars follow identical routes, progressing according to one system, one plan, one movement and one route? Is it not the work of Him whose wisdom overwhelms minds; whose artifices and creations bear witness to His being the Creator, the Originator, the Shaper, like to Whom there is no one else; He Who did everything with care, who excelled in every thing He crafted; the Omniscient, the Wise Who creates then disposes; Who measures, then guides. All this is one of His signs that point to Him, a wondrous making of His that is a plain message to the thinking minds which will guide those who travel towards Him; a sign that all that is in the universe is a humble creation, firmly controlled and managed. It is as the Almighty says in the Qur’an: