Al-Furqan: (45) "Have you not considered your Lord..."

"Have you not considered your Lord, how He extended the shadow..." (and so on) is an explanation of some of the proofs of monotheism, following the explanation of the ignorance of those who turn away from them and their misguidance. The address is to the Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and grant him peace). The interrogative particle (hamza) is for affirmation. "Seeing" here refers to visual sight, as it is the verb that takes the particle ila (to). There is an implicit noun in the phrasing—the original noun was omitted and the possessive adjunct (idafa) took its place—meaning: "Have you not considered what your Lord has made?" This is because the intention is not to see the essence of Allah, the Exalted. The notion that ila is one of the names for ala’ (blessings) is very far-fetched. It is permitted that the "seeing" be intellectual, without an implicit noun, and its connection via ila is to imply the meaning of "attaining" or "reaching"—i.e., "Has not your knowledge reached how your Lord extended the shadow?" The first view is more appropriate.

Some eminent scholars mentioned that it is possible the intended expression was, "Have you not considered the shadow, how your Lord extended it?" but the wording was altered to what is present in this noble structure to indicate that the rational truth understood from this speech—due to the clarity of its argument, which is the indication of its contingency and its arrangement in a beneficial manner through possible causes—is that this is the act of the Wise Creator, just like the observable, visible object; so how much more so for the tangible aspect of it? The learned al-Tayyibi said: "If it had been said, 'Have you not considered the shadow, how your Lord extended it,' the transition would have been from the effect to the Cause, while the current phrasing is the opposite." The context requires this because the speech is in the mode of rebuking the people and exposing their ignorance in taking their desires as a god despite the clarity of these proofs. For this reason, that which indicates His Essence, the Exalted, is placed before His actions in all His other verses: "It is He who made the night for you," "It is He who sends the winds," and "Had We willed, We could have sent..."

Al-Sulami narrated in Al-Haqa'iq from some that there is the address to the general public ("Do they not look at the camels, how they were created?") and the address to the elite ("Have you not considered your Lord?"). In Al-Irshad, it is suggested that the direction of the "seeing" toward Him, the Almighty—even though the goal is to affirm the Prophet’s (peace be upon him) observation of the manner in which the shadow is extended—is to alert that his (peace be upon him) gaze is not limited to the effects and creations he observes; rather, his (peace be upon him) high concern is to know the states of the Glorious Creator, may His majesty be exalted. Perhaps this is the secret of what was narrated from al-Sulami. It is also said that the mentioned expression is to signal that the objective is knowledge of the Lord, a knowledge resembling vision. Al-Tabarsi transmitted from al-Zajjaj that he interpreted the "seeing" as "knowing" and mentioned that the speech is of the qalb (inversion) category, the original being: "Have you not considered the shadow, how your Lord extended it?" There is no need for this, however. Addressing Him by the title of "Lordship" while attaching it to the pronoun of the Prophet (peace be upon him) is for the Prophet’s (peace be upon him) honor and to signal that what follows are the effects of His Lordship and His Mercy, the Almighty.

"How" is in the accusative case, governed by "extended," acting as a state (hal), and it suspends the verb "see" if the sentence is not considered an initial one. In Al-Bahr, it is noted that the interrogative sentence upon which a verb of the heart acts is not left in its literal interrogative sense, though there is debate on this. Some scholars mentioned that "how" is for questioning, but it has become stripped of the question and serves as a state-indicator, like "Look at how you act." Al-Damamini allowed this in this verse, considering it an appositional substitution (badal ishtimal) for the genitive object, but this is far-fetched. It is clear that this view dispenses with the need for an implicit noun, but it does not equate to the far-fetched nature of that interpretation.

The "shadow" refers—according to what a group has narrated from Ibn Abbas, Mujahid, Qatadah, al-Hasan, Ayyub ibn Musa, Ibrahim al-Taymi, al-Dahhak, Abu Malik al-Ghifari, Abu al-Aliyah, and Sa'id ibn Jubayr—to the time between the break of dawn and the rising of the sun. These are the most pleasant times, for the pure darkness repels the senses and obstructs sight, while the sun's rays heat the atmosphere and dazzle the vision. Hence, the shadow of Paradise is "extended," as the Exalted says: "And a shadow extended."

It is also said: The intended meaning is what is formed by the opposition of a dense object—such as a mountain, a building, or a tree—to the sun at the beginning of its rising. "Extending the shadow" is like saying "the narrowing of the opening of the water-skin" (an idiom for the nature of the action). Thus, the meaning is: "Have you not considered the work of your Lord, how He created a shadow—that is, a shading—that was, at the beginning of the sun's rise, extended to whatever Allah, the Almighty, willed?" This was chosen by Sheikh al-Islam, who rebutted the previous view by saying: "It is unsound, because there is no doubt that the intent is to alert people to the greatness of Allah’s power and the perfection of His wisdom in what they witness. Therefore, 'shadow' must refer to what they recognize as a specific state observed in a place where an object stands between them and the sun, distinct from the sun-drenched locations around it. What was mentioned, even if it is technically the shadow of the eastern horizon, is not considered a 'shadow' by them, nor would they describe it with its familiar traits." This contains a manifest prohibition, and it is more apparent, as Abu Hayyan mentioned in his objection to it, that it is not called a shadow. Al-Raghib, whose authority in linguistics is sufficient, said: "The shadow (zill) is the opposite of the sun-drenched area (dah), and it is more general than the fay' (afternoon shadow), for it is said: 'the shadow of the night,' 'the shadow of Paradise,' and it is said of every place the sun has not reached that it is a 'shadow,' whereas fay' is not used except for that from which the sun has moved away." The explicit nature of His saying, "And a shadow extended" in describing Paradise, necessitates that they consider something like what was mentioned as a shadow.

It is also said: It is what exists from sunset until sunrise, a view narrated from al-Jubba'i and al-Balkhi. It is also said: It is what existed on the day Allah created the heaven and made it like a dome and spread the earth beneath it, casting its shadow upon it—this holds no weight. If "Have you not considered" is interpreted as "Have you not known," it leads to difficulty and violates the apparent meaning in applying the rest of the verse to it; the objective intended by the noble structure might be lost, and the notion might occur to some minds that it includes everything to which the term "shadow" applies—the shadow of the night, the time between dawn and sunrise, and the shadow of dense objects. Once one begins to apply the verse to all that, one deviates from it, as is clear. The Sufis have long discussions on this, some of which we will mention, God willing. The majority of exegetes hold to the first view, and the second view is safer from dispute.

His saying, "Had He willed, He could have made it still," is a parenthetical sentence between the conjoined items to alert from the very beginning that ordinary causes—such as the proximity of the sun to the eastern horizon (in the first view) or the standing of the dense object (in the second)—have no real influence. The true influencer is the Will and Power. The object of the Will is omitted, which is the implication of the consequent, as is the constant rule in such structures: "Had He willed to make it still, He would have made it still," meaning: fixed in its state as a shadow forever, as He, the Almighty, did with the shadow of Paradise, or fixed in its state of length and extension. This would be by Him not granting the sun a path to it, by not having it rise and leaving it to erase it, or by not letting the sun change it through its different positions after rising. It is said: By making the sun, after rising, stay in one position—but this is weak.

The term "stillness" is used: it is said because the opposition (which is its vanishing) was gradual, so it was most similar to movement. It is also said: Because the opposition—which is the change of its state according to the change of positions between the shadow and the sun—is seen by the eye as movement and transition. Al-Zamakhshari stated that the "extension of the shadow," which is its spreading and lengthening, is contrasted with His saying "still." Stillness only contrasts with movement; thus, "extension of the shadow" was used metaphorically for movement, through the naming of a thing by its accompaniment or its cause, as al-Tayyibi established. He mentioned that "extension" was used instead of "movement," even though "movement" is more apparent than "extension" in covering expansion and lengthening without illumination. He completed the meaning of the incorporation by His saying, "Then We grasped it to Us with a slight grasping," i.e., gradually and with deliberation, for the sake of knowing the hours and times. In this, there is a glimpse of the meaning of His saying, "They ask you about the crescents; say: they are measurements of time for the people." It is not far-fetched to say that the expression "extension" is used because the shadow mentioned is the shadow of the eastern horizon, and the East and West are considered the two extremities of the earth in length, and the North and South as the extremities in width; or because its appearance on the earth and the length of the inhabited part of it—where those who observe the shadow live—is greater than its width. The first is, as is well known, half a rotation, i.e., 180 degrees, while the second is less than that according to all accounts. Thus, the shadow, in the view of the observers on the inhabited earth, is extended between the eastern and western directions more than between the northern and southern. It is sometimes said that this is because the beginning of the shadow is the first dawn, and its light is seen elongated, extended like the tail of a wolf (dhanab al-sirhan), and one maintains that it does not vanish completely, even if it weakens, but remains until the light of the second dawn extends it, so it is seen as spread out. And Allah knows best.

His saying, "Then We made the sun for it a guide," is conjoined to "extended" and included in its ruling: i.e., then We made the rising of the sun a guide to its appearance to the senses, for the viewer looking at a colored object while the shadow is upon it sees nothing but the object and its color. Then, when the sun rises and its light falls on the object, it becomes apparent to him that the shadow is a quality added to the object and its color. "The opposite reveals the state of its opposite." This was stated by al-Razi, al-Tabari, and others. It is said: It means We made it a guide to its existence, i.e., a cause for it, because its existence is—by custom—dependent on the sun's movement toward the horizon and its proximity to it. The weakness of this is apparent. Or, We made it a sign by whose changing states one infers the states of the shadow, without there being any causality or influence between them at all, according to what the parenthetical conditional sentence dictates. It is strange—and the speech of Allah the Glorious should not be interpreted in such a way—that "on" (ala) is taken to mean "with" (ma'a), i.e., "Then We made the sun with the shadow a guide to Our Oneness," in the sense that We made the shadow a guide and the sun a guide to Our Oneness.

The shift to the pronoun of Majesty ("We made") is to signal the greatness of this act of making, due to the countless benefits it entails, or because of the mentioned act—which is devoid of direct influence despite the consistent rotation witnessed between the shadow and the sun that suggests causality—is from One Who intends to demonstrate the greatness of Power and the subtlety of Wisdom. "Then" is either for sequential rank, the aspect of which is known from what was mentioned, or for chronological sequence, as is the reality of its meaning, based on the duration of time between the start of dawn and the rising of the sun.