It is also self-evident from Arabic usage that Arabs do not describe every created thing that exists as “setting,” nor everything whose existence depends on another. Had Allah’s intimate friend intended this meaning when he said, “I do not love those that set” [al-An‘ām: 76], he would not have waited for the star, the sun, and the moon to disappear. Thus, the invalidity of these philosophers’ appeal to the verse is even more evident than the invalidity of the earlier group’s argument.

More astonishing still is the statement of someone who said in his commentary: “This is the view of the discerning scholars.”

His metaphorical use of the words “falling” and “confines” does not justify changing the established Arabic meaning of “setting.” If he devises a different usage for himself, he has no right to read the Book of Allah Most High according to it, thereby altering or distorting it.

The Qarmatian esotericists invented yet another interpretation, as Abū Hāmid mentioned in some of his works, including Mishkāt al-Anwār (The Niche of Lights): that the stars, the sun, and the moon signify the soul, the active intellect, the first intellect, and the like.

Their specious reasoning is that Abraham, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, is too exalted to say of such stars that they are the Lord of all worlds. They contrast this with their claims concerning the soul, the intellect and the active intellect—which they allege is the lord of everything beneath the sphere of the moon—and the first intellect, which they allege is the originator of the entire world.