and for this reason, prolonged prayer, charity, the freeing of slaves, and supplication were prescribed during an eclipse to avert punishment, and likewise during other signs that mark the onset of punishment, such as earthquakes, the appearance of celestial bodies, and the like. The moon is the nearest of the celestial bodies that affect the earth through moisture, dryness, and other means.

For this reason, those who sought benefit and harm from celestial bodies based their judgments about events on the moon’s course. When it was in its exaltation, as in Cancer, they considered the time auspicious; when it was in Scorpio, its fall, they considered it inauspicious. Such was its place in their knowledge, and likewise in their practice of magic and other arts: the moon was the nearest source of influence. They even compiled the “Scripture of the Moon” for worshipping it and glorifying it.

Thus, the things from which refuge is sought in this surah follow a perfect order, proceeding from the most general, highest, and farthest to the most specific, nearest, and lowest. They are divided into four categories.

First: the evil of created things in general. Al-Hasan’s statement that this means Iblīs and his offspring, and the statement of others that it means Hell, refer to spiritual and corporeal things that are pure evil for us.

Second: the evil of the darkening one when it enters. This includes whatever in the higher world affects the lower world: the night, the celestial bodies within it, such as the Pleiades, and its ruler, the moon. It also includes the magic of blending (1), which is the highest and most elevated form of magic.