A Star does Perish

Qur'aanic Verse 53:1:

Transliteration:

1. Waalnnajmi itha hawa

Translation:

1. By the star when it perishes!¹

^{Study Note:}

1. The Arabic word hawa has been used in Verse 20:81in the sense of something getting perished. But, here, the people living at the time the Qur’aan was revealed – and for centuries thereafter – had  difficulty in understanding a star getting perished or destroyed. So those people rendered the said Arabic word as ‘sets’ or ‘disappears’. And they understood the Verse as alluding to a star that disappears from the sky as day breaks. But this obviously is a contrived rendering. At day-break, not one, but all stars [other than the Sun of course] disappear to the naked human eye. It is but an illusion. Now, when human knowledge has taken a quantum jump, we know for a fact that stars do get destroyed! Take a look at this video. Qur’aan is a living Book valid for all times till the Last Day. We cannot hold it hostage to the limited understanding of any people in the past.

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The above is extracted from yet-to-be-published Qur;aanic Studies Manzil VII.

Mohammad Shafi