Commentary on Surah al-Fajr

“In the Name of Allah, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful.”

“By the dawn, * and by the ten nights, * and by the even and the odd, * and by the night as it passes, * is there not in all this an oath sufficient for one of understanding? * Have you not seen how your Lord dealt with Ād—* Iram of the lofty pillars, * the like of which had never been created throughout the lands—* and with Thamūd, who hewed the rocks in the valley, * and with Pharaoh, lord of the stakes? * They all transgressed throughout the lands * and spread much corruption therein, * so your Lord poured upon them a scourge of punishment. * Indeed, your Lord is ever watchful.”

The basmala has already been discussed.

“By the dawn, and by the ten nights, and by the even and the odd, and by the night as it passes”: all of these are oaths—by the dawn, the ten nights, the even, the odd, and the night as it passes. These are five things by which Allah Most High swears.

The first is the dawn: “By the dawn.” It is the radiant light that appears on the eastern horizon shortly before sunrise. The interval between it and sunrise ranges from one hour and thirty-two minutes to one hour and seventeen minutes. This varies according to the seasons: at times, the interval between dawn and sunrise is longer, and at other times it is shorter, depending on the season.

There are two kinds of dawn: true dawn and false dawn. What is meant here is true dawn. True dawn differs from false dawn in three respects:

The first distinction is that the false dawn appears as an elongated streak in the sky, not—