“By those who recite the Reminder: indeed, your God is surely One—the Lord of the heavens and the earth and all that lies between them, and the Lord of all eastern points. Indeed, We have adorned the lowest heaven with the adornment of the stars.”

“By those who recite the Reminder”: they are the angels, who recite the remembrance of Allah. It was also said that they are the groups of Quran reciters. (1) All of this is an oath by which Allah Most High has sworn, and the statement affirmed by the oath is His saying: “Indeed, your God is surely One.” It was also said that an implied expression is understood: “By the Lord of those ranged in rows, those who drive forcefully, and those who recite the Reminder.” This is because the disbelievers of Makkah said, “Has he made the gods into one god?” So Allah swore by these that “indeed, your God is surely One.”

“The Lord of the heavens and the earth and all that lies between them, and the Lord of all eastern points”: that is, the places where the sun rises. [It was said that He meant by this both the eastern and western points, as He says elsewhere: “So I swear by the Lord of all eastern and western points.” (Surah al-Ma‘arij, 40)] (2)

If it is asked: In one passage He says, “the Lord of all eastern and western points”; in another, “Lord of the two easts and Lord of the two wests” (Surah al-Rahman, 17); and elsewhere, “Lord of the east and the west” (Surah al-Muzzammil, 9). How are these verses to be reconciled?

It is said: As for His saying, “Lord of the east and the west,” He means the two directions: the east is one direction and the west another.

His saying, “Lord of the two easts and Lord of the two wests,” means the place where the sun rises in winter and the place where it rises in summer; and by the two wests, He means the place where it sets in winter and the place where it sets in summer.

By His saying, “the Lord of all eastern and western points,” Allah Most High means that He created for the sun 360 openings in the east and 360 openings in the west, corresponding to the number of days in the year. Each day, the sun rises from one of these openings and sets in one of them, and it does not return to the opening from which it rose until that same day in the following year. These, then, are the eastern and western points. It was also said that every place upon which the sun rises is an eastern point, and every place upon which it sets is a western point—as though He meant the Lord of everything upon which the sun rises and sets.

“Indeed, We have adorned the lowest heaven with the adornment of the stars.” ‘Asim, in the transmission of Abu Bakr, recited “with an adornment” with nunation, and “the stars” in the accusative case; that is, “by Our adorning the stars.” (3) Hamzah and Hafs recited “with an adornment” with nunation, and “the stars” in the genitive case, as an apposition; that is, “with an adornment—the stars,” meaning that We adorned it with the stars. The other reciters read, “with the adornment of the stars,” without nunation, as a possessive construction.

Ibn ‘Abbas said: With the light of the stars.