he is, in fact, cursing the One who brings those events about while imagining that “Time” is responsible. Yet it is Allah who truly acts—He is the Creator of all things and the absolute Disposer of every affair, as He said:

“I am Time; in My hand lies the command: I alternate its night and its day.”

Likewise, the Most High says:

“Say, ‘O Allah, Lord of all sovereignty, You give sovereignty to whom You will and You take sovereignty from whom You will; You exalt whom You will and You abase whom You will. In Your hand is all good; surely You have power over all things. You cause the night to enter the day and You cause the day to enter the night; You bring forth the living from the dead and You bring forth the dead from the living, and You provide for whom You will without measure.’” (Āl ʿImrān 3:26–27)

And He says:

“He is the One who made the sun a radiant splendor and the moon a light, and determined for it phases so that you may know the number of years and the reckoning. Allah created all of this only in truth; He sets forth the signs in detail for a people who know. Indeed, in the alternation of night and day and in all that Allah has created in the heavens and the earth are signs for a people who are mindful.” (Yūnus 10:5–6)

That is, He differentiated between the sun and the moon in their luminosity, their form, their timing, and their course. He made the sun a blazing radiance—its rays a clear, brilliant proof—whereas He made the moon a light, weaker than the sun’s brightness and deriving its illumination from it. He also ordained for the moon distinct phases: on the first night of the month it rises small and slender, emitting little light because of its closeness to the sun and the small portion of it that faces her. Its brightness increases according to its degree of opposition to the sun. Thus, on the second night it stands twice as far from the sun as it did the first night, and its light is therefore roughly double; and the farther it moves away, the more its light grows until it becomes full on the night when it completely opposes the sun in the east—the fourteenth night of the month. Thereafter it begins to wane as it draws near the sun from the other side, until the end of the month when it disappears, only to return as it began at the start of the next month. By means of the moon the months are known; by means of the sun the nights and days are known; and by both together the years and seasons are reckoned.

For this reason the Exalted One says, “He is the One who made the sun a splendor and the moon a light and determined for it phases so that you may know the number of years and the reckoning” (Yūnus 10:5); and He says, “We have made the night and the day two signs. We effaced the sign of the night and made the sign of the day illuminating, so that you may seek bounty from your Lord and so that you may know the number of years and the reckoning. We have explained everything in detail.” (al-Isrāʾ 17:12) And He says, “They ask you about the new moons. Say, ‘They are time-markers for people and for the pilgrimage.’” (al-Baqarah 2:189)

We have discussed all of this at length in our Tafsīr.

Among the heavenly bodies are those that move; these are called al-sayyārāt (“the moving planets”) in the terminology of the scholars of celestial motions. The science of their movements is for the most part sound, whereas the so-called “science of judgments”—judicial astrology—is largely false and consists of claims lacking any proof. The seven moving planets are: the moon in the lowest heaven; Mercury in the second; Venus in the third; the sun in the fourth; Mars in the fifth; Jupiter in the sixth; and Saturn in the seventh. The remaining heavenly bodies they refer to as the “fixed stars,” which, according to them, reside in the eighth sphere—what many later scholars call the Kursī.

Others, however, maintain that all the stars are in the lowest heaven, with nothing to prevent some of them from being situated above others, and