Surah Al-An'am 6:77
ﱭ ﱮ ﱯ ﱰ ﱱ ﱲ ﱳ ﱴ ﱵ ﱶ ﱷ ﱸ ﱹ ﱺ ﱻ ﱼ ﱽ ﱾ ﱿ
And when he saw the moon rising, he said, "This is my lord." But when it set, he said, "Unless my Lord guides me, I will surely be among the people gone astray."
Tafsir of Al-An'am 6:77
Tafsir
Ruh al-Ma'ani
Verse range: 6:77
{And when he saw the moon rising} Meaning: Beginning to rise and spreading its light. It is possible, as Al-Azhari said, that it is derived from *al-bazgh*, which is splitting; as if it splits the darkness with its light. It is said, "The canine tooth *bazagha* (appeared)," and "The farrier *bazagha* the beast" when he draws its blood. It is also said, "The blood *bazagha*," meaning it flowed. Based on this, the rising of the moon can be likened to what was mentioned, and the words of Al-Raghib are explicit in this regard. The apparent meaning of the verse is that this vision occurred after the setting of the stars.
{He said, "This is my Lord"} This is the response to "When," and it follows the pattern of the preceding discourse.
{But when it set} Just as the star set.
{He said, "Unless my Lord guides me} To the path of truth from which there is no deviation.
{I will surely be among the misguided people"} For anything whose state is such is not fit for divinity. This is an exaggeration by him, peace be upon him, in his fairness. Within it, as Al-Zamakhshari said, is an alerting of his people that whoever takes the moon as a god—while it is a peer to the stars in setting—is misguided. The insinuation regarding their misguidance here, as Ibn al-Munir mentioned, is more explicit and stronger than his first statement, {I do not like those who set}. He, peace be upon him, only progressed to this because the argument had already been established against the opponents by the first reasoning, so he became emboldened to criticize their belief. Had this been said at the beginning, they might have turned away and not listened to the reasoning; thus, he did not intimate that they were in misguidance until he was confident of their inclination to hear the complete purpose and their listening to him until the end. Evidence of this is that he, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, progressed in the third instance to explicitly declare his dissociation from them and state clearly that they were in polytheism, once the argument was fully established against them, the truth shone forth, and it reached the peak of clarity.
In this sentence, there is proof from more than one perspective that his reasoning, peace be upon him, was not for his own sake, but rather an argument against his people; likewise with what is to come.
To interpret this as meaning that he, peace be upon him, found himself incapable and thus sought the aid of his Lord, the Almighty and Majestic, in attaining the truth, or that what will follow is an indication of the attainment of certainty through evidence, is strictly contrary to the apparent meaning. Furthermore, it has been said that the attainment of certainty through evidence does not negate the act of arguing with the people. Moreover, the apparent meaning—according to what the Sheikh al-Islam said—is that he, peace be upon him, was at that time in a location where, on its western side, there was a towering mountain by which the stars and the moon would be obscured at the time of the noon of the day or shortly thereafter. The star was close to it, and its eastern side was exposed, or otherwise, the rising of the moon occurred after the setting of the star, then its setting occurred before the rising of the sun, as his statement, the Exalted, indicates.