His saying, exalted and majestic is He:

﴿Do those who plotted evil deeds feel secure that Allah will not cause the earth to swallow them, or that the punishment will not come upon them from where they do not perceive?﴾ ﴿Or that He will not seize them during their movements, so they will not be able to escape?﴾ ﴿Or that He will not seize them in a state of fear? Indeed, your Lord is certainly Kind and Merciful.﴾ ﴿Have they not seen what Allah has created of anything whose shadows incline to the right and to the left, prostrating to Allah while they are humbled?﴾

This verse is a threat to the people of Makkah, and they are the ones referred to as " , "the ones

And this diminishment is directed by the warning towards two meanings: one of them is that He destroys them and takes their souls in a state of fear, meaning individually, diminishing them by that thing after another. No one claims that he is safe from this. It is as if this warning is only about the punishment of what they will face after death; otherwise, all nations would perish in this manner. This is supported by His saying: ﴿Indeed, your Lord is surely Kind and Merciful﴾, meaning that this third rank of warning contains kindness, mercy, and a delay for the repentant to repent and for the returning to return. The second meaning is what Al-Dahhak said: that a group or a town is taken by punishment while another is left, and then likewise until all perish. A group said: the fear here is from fear, meaning He takes them after a fear that befalls them and punishes them with it.

Qadi Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said: And in this, there is a pretense.

And His saying: ﴿Have they not seen what Allah has created of anything﴾, Ibn Kathir, Nafi, Abu Amr, and Ibn Amer read: "Have they not seen" with the 'ya', in the form of the absent. Likewise in Al-Ankabut, it is in accordance with His saying: ﴿Or He takes them﴾ and His saying: ﴿Or comes to them﴾ and His saying: ﴿They do not perceive﴾. Al-Tabari preferred this. Hamzah and Al-Kisai read: "Have you not seen" with the 'ta' from above in both instances, and this is the reading of Al-Hasan, Al-A'raj, and Abu Abdur-Rahman. This can carry two meanings: one meaning is that it means: Say to them, O Muhammad, have you not seen, and the second meaning is that it is a general address to all of creation that he began with the saying mentioned earlier. And Asim read in An-Nahl with the 'ta' from above, and there was a difference regarding him in Al-Ankabut. And His saying: ﴿Of anything﴾ [An-Nahl: 35] is a general term for everything that is implied by the description in His saying: ﴿Its shadows incline﴾, because that is a description of what is presented for reflection in all entities that have shadow. The vision here is the vision of the heart, but the consideration by the vision of the heart is only in things that are seen by the eye. Abu Amr alone read: "It inclines" with the 'ta' from above, and this is the reading of Isa and Ya'qub. The majority read: "It inclines". Abu Ali said: If the action is advanced to such a gathering, then the masculine and feminine forms in it are both good. And "the shadow inclines": it returns opposite to what it was at noon, because the sun from the time of its rising to the time of noon is indeed in the negation of the general shadow before its rising. When it sets, the return of the general shadow begins, and it continues to grow until the sun sets and it encompasses. The extended shadow in Paradise is not mentioned by Allah as a shade because it does not return after it has gone. Likewise, the saying of Humayd ibn Thawr:

"Neither the shade of the cool morning can you endure, nor the shade of the cool evening can you taste."

So it is upon the path, and likewise the saying of Alqamah ibn Abadah:

"Pursuing the shades of shadows in the evening, on paths as if they were clouds."

And likewise the saying of Imru' al-Qais:

"The shadow inclines upon it."

And as for Al-Nabighah al-Ja'di, he said:

So the peace of Allah comes upon them. And the shade of the Garden of Paradise is abundant.

He has allowed for the saying that the shade is where there is no return. And Ru'bah ibn al-Ajjaaj said: It is said after noon: shade and shadow, and it is not said before it except shadow only. It is said: the shadow returned if it went back from decrease to increase. It is transitive with the hamzah, as His saying, glorified and exalted is He: "What Allah has given to His Messenger" [Al-Hashr: 7]. It is also transitive with the doubling, so it is said: Allah has given him back and He has returned him. And it is said: he has returned willingly. And the term shade is only used after noon in the well-known speech of the Arabs. However, this verse's consideration is from the beginning of the day to its end. So the verse is as if it is in some interpretations based on the allowance of the speech of the Arabs and its requirement to place "they return" in place of "they move" and "they lean." And he added the shades to a singular pronoun based on the wording of "what" or the wording of "something," which is in meaning for all. And Al-Thaqafi read: "Its shades" with the first lam opened and the second one and the dhad pronounced with a dammah.

And His saying, glorified and exalted is He: "On the right and the left," he has singled out "the right" while it is intended for the plural, as if it is for the genus. What is meant is: on the right and the left sides, as the poet said:

The ones who arrive and Thaim in the heights of Saba Have had the skin of the buffaloes bite their necks.

Another poet said:

In the two stones of the shameless, if it has led me, A calamity of two cubs in the jaws.

And the intended lesson in this verse is every person and body that has a shadow, like mountains, trees, and others. And what is arranged in it of rights and lefts is only for humans. However, the mention of the rights and lefts here is in the sense of metaphor for non-humans, meaning: you estimate it as having a right and a left, and you estimate it facing any direction you wish, then you look at its shadow and see it leaning either to the right or to the left. And this is in all corners of the world. This is a way that generalizes the words of the verse, and in it is allowance and expansiveness. And whoever said that the right is from the morning of the day until noon, then from noon until sunset is from the left - and this is the saying of Qatadah and Ibn Jurayj - then what is arranged for him in what he has estimated is facing the south. And the consideration in this verse for me is only in the direction of the south. And what some people have said that "the right is the first push of the shadow after noon, then the other to sunset is from the left" - and for this reason he gathered the lefts and singled out the right - is a mixture of speech that invalidates from various angles. And Ibn Abbas, may Allah be pleased with him, said: If you pray Fajr, what is between the sunrise and its sunset is a shadow. Then Allah sent the sun upon him as a guide, and he took the shadow to himself.

Qadi Abu Muhammad, may Allah have mercy on him, said:

And on this, the first shadow of the sun is to the right, facing south. Then the deviation begins, so it is to the left, because they are many movements and fragmented shadows. Thus, there are many left shadows. The shadow on the right is continuous and general for everything. In this saying, there is a figurative expression regarding the shade. Based on what we have estimated of facing south, the shadow will always move from the right to the zenith. When it moves after the departure of the right side entirely, its movement becomes from the left. A group said: the shadows here refer to the people, and it is intended that they themselves. The Arabs sometimes express people by the shadow. From this is the saying of Abadah ibn al-Tayyib: (p-365)

If we descend, we set up the shade of the tents ∗∗∗ ∗∗∗ and the meat is cooked for the people.

And the tents are indeed set up, and from this is the saying of another:

They follow the shady areas in the evening.

That is, the shady areas of the people. All of this is ambiguous and not explicit, although Abu Ali has established it.

And the interpreters disagreed regarding this prostration. A group said: it is a true prostration of worship. Al-Tabari mentioned from al-Dahhak who said: when the sun sets, everything prostrates before the qiblah, whether it is vegetation or trees. That is why the righteous preferred to pray at that time. Mujahid said: it is only the shadows that prostrate, not the people. Another group said - among them is Al-Tabari - that it expressed submission and obedience, and the inclination of the shadows and their rotation by prostration. Just as it is said to the one who gestures with his head towards the ground in a submissive manner: he is prostrating. From this is the saying of the poet:

Both of them fell down, and their heads prostrated ∗∗∗ ∗∗∗ just as a Christian prostrated who did not bend.

And "the one who is humbled": the one who is submissive and modest. From this is the saying of Dhī al-Rummah:

So there remained only a humbled one in a place ∗∗∗ ∗∗∗ and a one who is hidden in a land other than yours in a burrow.