who, by Allah’s command, watch over us. They gather at the dawn prayer and at the afternoon prayer; then those who spent the night among you ascend to Allah, Exalted is He. He asks them—though He knows best—“How did you leave My servants?” He poses the question to manifest their honor and publicize their merit, not out of ignorance, for He knows the hidden and the even more concealed. Yet, to highlight their virtue He inquires, “How did you leave My servants?” They reply, “We came to them while they were praying and left them while they were praying,” for they arrive at the beginning of the night and at the beginning of the day, alternating attendance at the dawn and afternoon prayers: some descend while others ascend. Allah, Glorified be He, fixed the times of their ascent and descent to these two prayers because of their excellence: the afternoon prayer is the middle prayer, and the dawn prayer is the witnessed one.

2. Among their merits as well is what Jarīr ibn ʿAbdullāh al-Bajalī (may Allah be pleased with him) narrated: they were with the Prophet ﷺ when he looked at the full moon on the fourteenth night and said, “You shall surely see your Lord just as you now see this moon”—meaning that on the Day of Resurrection the believers will behold Him in Paradise as clearly as they behold the full moon on its fourteenth night. The point is not that Allah resembles the moon, for “there is nothing like unto Him”; rather, He is far greater and more majestic. The Prophet ﷺ said in an authentic report: “His veil is light; were He to remove it, the splendor of His Face would burn everything His gaze reaches among His creation.” Thus the comparison concerns the act of seeing itself: just as we see the moon on the night of