Tafseer of The Criterion · Al-Furqaan · 25:47
And it is He who has made the night for you as clothing and sleep [a means for] rest and has made the day a resurrection.
Important: The Arabic source text is always authoritative. This translation is a study aid and has not been verified by scholars — do not use it as a basis for religious proof or for deriving rulings (ahkam). When in doubt, always consult the Arabic text and a qualified scholar.
Allah — exalted be His praise — says: He who stretched out the shadow and then made the sun an indicator for it, is the One who made for you — O people — the night as a garment. Allah — exalted be His renown — said جَعَلَ لَكُمُ اللَّيْلَ لِبَاسًا because He made it for His creatures as a shelter in which they take refuge and find rest; thus it became for them a covering with which they cover themselves, just as they cover themselves with the clothing in which they are clothed. And His word وَالنَّوْمَ سُبَاتًا — He says: And He made sleep for you a rest by which your bodies revive and your limbs are stilled. And His word وَجَعَلَ النَّهَارَ نُشُورًا — Allah — exalted be His praise — says: And He made the day an awakening and a coming-to-life — from the usage "the dead one rose" (nashara), as the poet al-Aʿshā said:
"Until the people, by what they saw, say: O wonder at the dead one who rises!"
And to this belongs the word of Allah: وَلا يَمْلِكُونَ مَوْتًا وَلا حَيَاةً وَلا نُشُورًا.
And Mujāhid said, in the explanation of this, what Muḥammad ibn ʿAmr related to me: he said: Abū ʿĀṣim related to us, he said: ʿĪsā related to us; and al-Ḥārith related to me, he said: al-Ḥasan related to us, he said: Warqāʾ related to us — both of them from Ibn Abī Najīḥ, from Mujāhid, concerning His word وَجَعَلَ النَّهَارَ نُشُورًا — he said: "One disperses about in it."
Al-Qāsim related to us, he said: al-Ḥusayn related to us, he said: Ḥajjāj related to me, from Ibn Jurayj, from Mujāhid — likewise.
We have chosen the view that we have chosen in the explanation of it, because it follows upon His word وَالنَّوْمَ سُبَاتًا in the night. Since the matter is so, it is fitting to describe the day as a time of awakening and rising from sleep, all the more so because sleep is the brother of death. What Mujāhid said is also not far from correctness; for Allah informed that He made the day a livelihood, and therein the dispersing for livelihood takes place. But nushūr is the verbal noun of the act of the one who says nashara — "he rose"; it has more kinship with rising from death and sleep. As there is a sound narration from the Prophet ﷺ that he used to say at the break of day and upon rising from sleep: "All praise is due to Allah, who gave us life after He had caused us to die, and to Him is the resurrection (al-nushūr)."
