His saying, exalted and majestic is He:

"And a sign for them is the night; We strip from it the day, and when they are in darkness." "And the sun runs to its resting place; that is the decree of the All-Mighty, the All-Knowing." "And the moon We have measured its phases until it returns like an old palm branch." "Neither does the sun overtake the moon, nor does the night outpace the day; and each in an orbit is swimming."

These verses Allah, exalted and majestic is He, has made as evidence for His power and the necessity of His divinity. And "We strip" means: We peel and remove, so it is a metaphor. And "in darkness" means: they are entering into darkness. And a group has inferred from this verse that the night is the original and the day is an incidental branch upon it, and there is a consideration in that.

And "the resting place of the sun" - according to what has been narrated in the hadith from the Prophet, blessings and peace be upon him, through Abu Dharr, may Allah be pleased with him - "is between the hands of the Throne, where it prostrates every night after its setting." And in another hadith, "It prostrates in a muddy spring, and there is a great obligation upon it there." And a group said: Its resting place is on the Day of Resurrection when it is rolled up, so it runs to that resting place. And another group said: Its resting place is a metaphor for its hidden aspects; because it runs at all times to a limited extent in which it sets. And it was said: Its resting place is the last of its risings in the two transitions because they are the ends of its risings. So when its arrival is established, it turns back; otherwise, it does not cease its movement for the blink of an eye, and Ibn Qutaybah inclined towards this. And a group said: Its resting place is its stopping at noon every day, and the evidence of its stability is the standing of the shadows of things at that time.

Ibn Abbas, Ibn Mas'ud, Ikrimah, 'Ata ibn Abi Rabah, Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Ali, and Ja'far ibn Muhammad, blessings be upon them, read: "There is no resting place for it."

And Nafi', Ibn Kathir, Abu 'Amr, Al-Hasan, and Al-A'raj read: "And the moon" in the nominative, conjunction of a sentence to a sentence. And another valid interpretation is that "And a sign for them" is an introduction and its predicate is omitted, as if it said: In existence and in observation, then it explained that with two sentences of introduction and predicate and introduction and predicate, the night is one, and the moon is the second. And the others read "the moon" with an implied verb that is explained by "We have measured it," and this is the reading of Abu Ja'far, Ibn Muhaisin, and Al-Hasan - with a difference from him. And "phases" is in the accusative as an adverb, and these phases are known among the Arabs, and they are twenty-eight phases, which the moon passes through every night less than one, according to what they claim. And its return is its thin crescent, and then it resembles the old palm branch, which is the branch of the palm tree that has the clusters of fruit, for it bends and turns yellow when it ages, and it comes to resemble the crescent the most. This was said by Al-Hasan ibn Abi Al-Hasan, and existence testifies to it. And Sulayman Al-Taymi read: "like the old palm branch" with a kasrah on the 'ayn. And "the old" means: the ancient one that has passed a long time.

'And 'it is appropriate' here is used in what cannot be contradicted; for it has no power over anything else. The majority read: 'the preceding of the day' with the addition, and 'Ubadah' read: 'the preceding of the day' without the tanwin on the qaf and with 'the day' in the accusative, as mentioned by Al-Zahrawi, who said: he omitted the tanwin for ease. And 'the celestial sphere' - as narrated from Ibn Abbas, may Allah be pleased with both of them - is a moving circle like the spindle's whorl, in which are all the stars. And 'they swim' means: they run and float. Al-Makki said: when it was attributed to the action of one who has reason, it was gathered with the waw and the noon.