{وَلَقَدْ زَيَّنَّا السَّمَاءَ الدُّنْيَا بِمَصَابِيحَ}

This discourse is intended to urge [the reader] to contemplate the power [of Allah] and to express gratitude. In terms of guidance, it demonstrates that the creation of the heavens is of the utmost beauty and splendor, following the statement that they are free from any trace of flaw or deficiency. The sentence is initiated with an oath to highlight the perfection of the concern for its content. That is, "And by Allah, We have adorned the lowest heaven" — meaning the one that is closest to you compared to the others; its proximity is in relation to what is below it, whereas in relation to those around the Throne, it is the opposite.

{بِمَصَابِيحَ} is the plural of misbah (lamp). It is a metaphor for the stars. It is either a collective plural, or the word masabih is used primarily as a metaphor for the stars. Some linguists interpret it as the "place of the lamp," which would then be a metaphor upon a metaphor; there is no need for this, as they themselves state that a misbah is the lamp itself. The use of the indefinite form is for magnification—that is, with great lamps that are not like the lamps you know. It has been said that it is for the sake of variety, but the first [explanation] is better. It is apparent that what is meant are the stars that illuminate the night like a lamp, whether they are planets or fixed stars, based on the fact that they are all in orbits and trajectories of varying proximity and distance.

The thickness of the lowest heaven and the claim that the heaven is the orbit (falak) is a view contrary to what is known from the predecessors; it is merely a statement made by those who wished to reconcile the words of the early philosophers with the words of the Sharia, so it became widespread among Muslims and was believed by those who believed it. It is reported from ‘Ata that the stars are in lanterns suspended between the heaven and the earth by chains of light in the hands of angels; based on this, "We have adorned the heaven with lamps" is like the saying of one who says: "I adorned the ceiling with lanterns." This is clear, but the report is hardly authentic.

He who believes that the lowest heaven is the sphere of the Moon, and the remaining six are the spheres of the remaining planets in the famous order, and that the fixed stars have a specific sphere known in the language of the Sharia as the Kursi—or he who allows that these [stars] might be in the sphere of Saturn (which is the seventh heaven), or that some are in one sphere and others in another above it, or that each is in a sphere and a heaven other than the seven—need not worry that restricting the number to a few negates the existence of many. It is said: The specification of the heaven with the adornment of them is because they are seen only upon it, and the substance of what is above it is not seen, or it is in consideration of the understanding of the common people, for it is impossible for them to distinguish between one heaven and another. They see the stars as glittering jewels on the azure carpet of the nearest orbit.

As for those who consider what the astronomers follow today—that the stars are wonders of power, moving in the sea of space in a specific manner necessitated by wisdom, and their paths within it are their orbits, and they move as they move in a vacuum or something similar, with forces by which they are attracted and bound—they have their own individual movements and others besides. They are not fixed, as is commonly thought, in solid, transparent bodies—neither heavy nor light—called orbits or heavens. They are disparate in proximity and distance, with a total disparity, even if they all appear close due to a reason hidden from them until now, to the point that there are some whose rays do not reach us except in several years, despite the sun’s rays reaching us in eight minutes and thirteen seconds, with the distance between us and the sun being thirty-four million farsakhs (a million being a thousand thousand).

It is said: It is permissible that what is meant by the "lowest heaven" is a specific layer in this space, and by "lamps" are the stars within it themselves, having adorned that layer with them just as one might adorn the space of a house with birds flying and hovering within it. Or, it may refer to all the stars seen, even if they are above it, and their adornment by that [adornment] is by manifesting them within it, as mentioned previously. You know that whoever attempts to apply the verses and reports to what the philosophers said absolutely, has attempted something that is hardly attainable for him. Allah—Exalted is He—and His Messenger (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) are more deserving to be followed. Indeed, the interpretation of transmitted texts is only necessary if rational evidence is established that contradicts what the transmitted text indicates. Most of the philosophers' evidence is based on an inability to prove it correctly—the very thing that contradicts the evidence of the people of Sharia, as is not hidden from one who has been illuminated by His lamps.

{وَجَعَلْنَاهَا رُجُومًا لِّلشَّيَاطِينِ} The pronoun refers to the "lamps" according to the apparent meaning, not to the "lowest heaven" in the sense of "We made from it—meaning from its direction—as has been said." Rujum is the plural of rajm, which is a verbal noun used to name that with which one is stoned (thrown at); thus, it took on the status of concrete nouns, and therefore it is pluralized, even though the origin of verbal nouns is that they are not pluralized. It is said that here it is also a verbal noun meaning "stoning."

The "devils" intended are those who steal the hearing, and their being stoned, according to what is famous, is by the falling of shooting stars caused by the stars. Many commentators have gone with this, and it is based on what the early philosophers established: that the stars themselves do not fall, but what falls are fiery flames generated from parts ascending to the sphere of fire, due to the stars heating the earth. Thus, the attribution of the act [of stoning] to them is a metaphor, or it is a metaphor through intermediaries. Al-Shihab said: There is no obstacle to the falling object itself being of the same genus as the stars, even if it contradicts the belief of the philosophers and astronomers. However, the divine texts contain that which confirms [that they are] missiles for the devils.

I say: It is not hidden that this basis also does not hold except by establishing the "sphere of fire," which you see they only infer from the occurrence of these shooting stars. The predecessors of the Ummah do not say this, and neither do the people of the new philosophy. These people have not yet verified the nature of these shooting stars, but they incline toward the view that they are bodies that separated from the stars—which they claim are worlds containing mountains and the like, just as the earth does—and exited for some reason beyond the limit of the forces attracting them to what they separated from, and did not reach the limit of the earth's gravitational pull, so they remained rotating at the edge of the earth's sphere and the air surrounding it. When they happen to enter the earth's atmosphere during their movement, they burn, either wholly or partially, just as some bodies protected from the air burn if the air strikes them. Sometimes they reach the limit of the earth's attraction in some of their movements and fall upon it. Some of them claim regarding the stones falling from the atmosphere, which they call aerolites (meaning stones of the air), that they are from those bodies. All of that is a myth and a conjecture based on corrupt thoughts.

The most that can be said about these shooting stars is that it is possible they originate from bodies of the same genus as the stars, possessing a burning power (whether every luminous thing is burning or not), and are formed in the atmosphere of this observed space. However, due to their extreme smallness, they are not seen, even with telescopes, until they approach by falling and become visible. In their fall, they may encounter bodies ascending from the earth and burn them; perhaps the fire reaches very close to the earth, and perhaps the stones are formed from that. Furthermore, reason allows that they may have a rotation in some form, so they return after the falling observed of them, or they vanish after their falling, and Allah the Exalted creates others from matter known to no one but Him, the Mighty and Majestic.

The pronoun in "We have made them" (ja’alnaha), even if it returns to the "lamps," only returns to them in consideration of the genus, not the specific nature of them being what adorns the lowest heaven. It is similar to [the phrase] "None is granted a long life, nor is his life lessened" (wa ma yu’ammaru min mu’ammarin wa la yunqasu min ‘umurihi), and "I have a dirham and its half" (wa ‘indi dirhamun wa nisfuhu). This is because the adornment is in consideration of visibility, and these bodies have no visibility before they fall. If one considers their being "lamps," "planets," or "stars" in terms of their visibility in themselves and to those who approach them (without the specificity of them being visible to us), and in terms of them being an adornment to the heaven in a general sense, then the matter is very clear.

It is possible they originate from the observed lamps that adorn the heaven, by detaching from them while they are in their places—the flames being the shooting stars—and that is nothing but like a spark taken from a fire while the fire remains fixed. This is what Al-Jubba'i and many others held. It is possible that each of them has the capacity for this to detach from it, or that the capacity is for some and not others; this is due to the lack of knowledge regarding the realities of the celestial bodies and their internal conditions. The speech is similar to your saying: "The prince settled such-and-such a tribe at such-and-such a frontier and made them fire rifles at anyone who approaches it." It does not necessitate that every one of them has the capacity for firing. Then, it does not necessitate that everything observed as a shooting star is a spark from the lamps; rather, it is permissible that some—that with which the devils are struck—are from them, and some are from phenomena that occur in the atmosphere from friction or the like. The disparity of the shooting stars in scarcity and frequency might be due to the disparity of atmospheric events or the disparity of [the devils'] eavesdropping.

There is no text in the verses or reports that shooting stars are only for the purpose of stoning the devils. Thus, it is possible that most shooting stars are from atmospheric phenomena. As for comets, in the opinion of the predecessors, they are, in themselves, stars other than their tails—very many stars that rotate, not as other stars rotate, so they approach at times and move away at others, exiting the orbits of the planets to where they are not seen at all, according to the philosophers of the current era. They have speech regarding them longer than their tails.

The Imam Al-Razi presented questions and doubts in this section and answered them with what he answered, and we have done the like in what has passed in a more perfect manner, so let that be remembered. We have elaborated on the speech regarding what pertains to this station, but take from both places what is pure and leave what is murky after reflecting properly and contemplating. It is said: The meaning of the verse is that "We have made them as conjectures and stoning with the unseen for the devils among mankind," who are the astrologers who believe in the influence of the stars on happiness, misery, and the like. We have refuted them with every refutation in what has passed, so return to it if you desire, for it is very precious.

{وَأَعْتَدْنَا لَهُمْ} — We have prepared for the devils.

{عَذَابَ السَّعِيرِ} — The punishment of the blazing fire, which is kindled and ignited in the Hereafter after they have been burned in the world by the shooting stars. It is not prevented by the fact that they were created from fire, for they are not only fire; rather, it is the most dominant of their elements, so it is of them, like earth is of the children of Adam, and they are affected by it. Moreover, it is a fire stronger than their fire. The verse is used as evidence that the [Hell] fire is created now, and that the devils are legally responsible (mukallafun).