Tafseer of The Winnowing Winds · Adh-Dhaariyat · 51:7
By the heaven containing pathways,
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.
The discourse on the explanation of His statement, the Exalted: وَالسَّمَاءِ ذَاتِ الْحُبُكِ ("By the heaven full of [the Exalted's] paths") (7).
Allah, glorified be His remembrance, says: By the heaven of beautiful creation. And by His word ( ذَاتِ الْحُبُكِ ) He means: full of paths. The vaulting of every thing is called its ḥubuk; it is the plural of ḥibāk and ḥabīka. One speaks of the crimping of curly hair as ḥubuk; and for the sand when the still wind passes over it, and for standing water, and for an iron coat of mail, the term applies: ḥubuk. To this belongs the saying of the rajaz-poet:
"It is as though the weaver has clothed her with a carpet into which a wrought pattern of paths is woven — the quivering and the successive onward-going have made it fade." (1)
And in the spirit of what we have said about this, the exegetes (ahl al-taʾwīl) have spoken, even though the wordings of those who say it differ.
* Mention of who said that:
Abū Ḥuṣayn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad ibn Yūnus related to me, saying: ʿAbthar related to us, saying: Ḥuṣayn related to us, on the authority of ʿIkrima, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās, concerning His word ( وَالسَّمَاءِ ذَاتِ الْحُبُكِ ); he said: full of beautiful creation.
Ibn Bashshār related to us, saying: ʿAbd al-Raḥmān related to us, saying: Sufyān related to us, on the authority of ʿAṭāʾ ibn al-Sāʾib, on the authority of Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās ( وَالسَّمَاءِ ذَاتِ الْحُبُكِ ); he said: her beauty and her evenness.
Ibn Ḥumayd related to us, saying: Ḥakkām related to us, on the authority of ʿAmr, on the authority of ʿAṭāʾ, on the authority of Saʿīd ibn Jubayr ( وَالسَّمَاءِ ذَاتِ الْحُبُكِ ); he said: her ḥubuk is her beauty and her evenness.
He said: Ḥakkām related to us, saying: ʿAmr related to us, on the authority of ʿUmar ibn Saʿīd ibn Masrūq, the brother of Sufyān, on the authority of Khaṣīf, on the authority of Saʿīd ibn Jubayr ( وَالسَّمَاءِ ذَاتِ الْحُبُكِ ); he said: full of adornment.
Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Bazīʿ related to us, saying: Bishr ibn al-Mufaḍḍal related to us, on the authority of ʿAwf, on the authority of al-Ḥasan, concerning His word ( وَالسَّمَاءِ ذَاتِ الْحُبُكِ ); he said: she is woven with beautiful creation, she is woven with the stars.
Ibn Bashshār related to us, saying: Hawdha related to us, saying: ʿAwf related to us, on the authority of al-Ḥasan, concerning His word ( وَالسَّمَاءِ ذَاتِ الْحُبُكِ ); he said: she is woven with beautiful creation, she is woven with the stars.
Ibn Bashshār related to us, saying: ʿUthmān ibn al-Haytham related to us, saying: ʿAwf related to us, on the authority of al-Ḥasan, concerning His word ( وَالسَّمَاءِ ذَاتِ الْحُبُكِ ); he said: full of beautiful creation, she is woven with the stars.
Yaʿqūb related to me, saying: Ibn ʿUlayya related to us, saying: ʿImrān ibn Ḥudayr related to us, saying: ʿIkrima was asked about His word ( وَالسَّمَاءِ ذَاتِ الْحُبُكِ ); he said: full of beautiful creation. Have you not looked at the weaver, when he has woven the garment, that he says: how beautifully has he woven it (ḥabaka).
Yaʿqūb ibn Ibrāhīm related to me, saying: Ibn ʿUlayya related to us, saying: Ayyūb related to us, on the authority of Abū Qilāba, on the authority of a man from the companions of the Prophet ﷺ, on the authority of the Prophet ﷺ; he said: "Verily, after you comes the liar who leads astray, and verily his head displays from behind ḥubuk, ḥubuk" — he means by ḥubuk: the crimping [of the hair].
Ibn Ḥumayd related to us, saying: Mihrān related to us, on the authority of Sufyān, on the authority of ʿAṭāʾ ibn al-Sāʾib, on the authority of Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās ( وَالسَّمَاءِ ذَاتِ الْحُبُكِ ); he said: her evenness is her beauty.
He said: Mihrān related to us, on the authority of ʿAlī ibn Jaʿfar, on the authority of al-Rabīʿ ibn Anas ( وَالسَّمَاءِ ذَاتِ الْحُبُكِ ); he said: full of beautiful creation.
He said: Mihrān related to us, on the authority of Saʿīd, on the authority of Qatāda, he said: her ḥubuk are her stars. And Ibn ʿAbbās used to say: ( الْحُبُكِ ) is full of beautiful creation.
Bishr related to us, saying: Yazīd related to us, saying: Saʿīd related to us, on the authority of Qatāda, concerning His word ( وَالسَّمَاءِ ذَاتِ الْحُبُكِ ): that is, full of beautiful creation. And al-Ḥasan used to say: her ḥubuk are her stars.
Ibn ʿAbd al-Aʿlā related to us, saying: Muḥammad ibn Thawr related to us, on the authority of Maʿmar, on the authority of Qatāda ( ذَاتِ الْحُبُكِ ); he said: full of beautiful creation.
Muḥammad ibn ʿAmr related to me, saying: Abū ʿĀṣim related to us, saying: ʿĪsā related to us; and al-Ḥārith related to me, saying: al-Ḥasan related to us, saying: Warqāʾ related to us — both of them — on the authority of Ibn Abī Najīḥ, on the authority of Mujāhid, concerning His word ( وَالسَّمَاءِ ذَاتِ الْحُبُكِ ); he said: firm in her construction.
It was related to me on the authority of al-Ḥusayn, he said: I heard Abū Muʿādh say: ʿUbayd informed us, saying: I heard al-Ḍaḥḥāk say concerning His word ( وَالسَّمَاءِ ذَاتِ الْحُبُكِ ); he says: full of adornment. And it is also said: her ḥubuk is like the paths of the sand, and like the paths of the coat of mail, and like the paths of the water when the wind stirs it and weaves it into paths.
Yūnus related to me, saying: Ibn Wahb informed us, saying: Ibn Zayd said concerning His word ( ذَاتِ الْحُبُكِ ); he said: the firmness. ḥubikat means: she is made firm. And he recited the word of Allah, glorified and exalted: وَبَنَيْنَا فَوْقَكُمْ سَبْعًا شِدَادًا ("And We have built above you seven firm [heavens]").
ʿAlī related to me, saying: Abū Ṣāliḥ related to us, saying: Muʿāwiya related to me, on the authority of ʿAlī, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās, concerning His word ( وَالسَّمَاءِ ذَاتِ الْحُبُكِ ); he said: full of beautiful creation; and it is said: full of adornment.
And it has been said: by this the seventh heaven is meant.
* Mention of who said that:
Ibn Bashshār related to us, saying: ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Mahdī and Abū Dāwūd related to us, both of them saying: ʿImrān al-Qaṭṭān related to us, on the authority of Qatāda, on the authority of Sālim ibn Abī al-Jaʿd, on the authority of Maʿdān ibn Abī Ṭalḥa, on the authority of ʿAmr al-Bikālī, on the authority of ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr ( وَالسَّمَاءِ ذَاتِ الْحُبُكِ ); he said: the seventh heaven.
Al-Qāsim ibn Bishr ibn Maʿrūf related to me, saying: Abū Dāwūd related to us, saying: ʿImrān al-Qaṭṭān related to us, on the authority of Qatāda, on the authority of Sālim ibn Abī al-Jaʿd, on the authority of Maʿdān, on the authority of ʿAmr al-Bikālī — thus said al-Qāsim — on the authority of ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr something similar.
------------------------
Footnotes:
(1) The rajaz-poet describes the back of a wild she-ass of the wild asses, upon which there is wrought-work, drawing, stripes, and paths, as though a weaver — the one who weaves garments — had clothed her with a wrought carpet in which straight, colored stripes run. The meaning of the third verse is: that the stripes on her back gleam as though they were gilded when she moves and continues her gait. The proof in these verses lies in his word "ḥibāk"; and ḥibāk is the stripe in the sand or in the garment or in the hair, and its plural is ḥubuk with two ḍammas. Equivalent to it is ḥabīka, with the plural ḥabāʾik. The author has adduced these three verses of the broken rajaz at His word, the Exalted: "wa-l-samāʾi dhāti al-ḥubuk"; and these are the paths of light that one sees in the heaven in the absence of the moon, which is called the Milky Way; or they are the spheres in which the heavenly bodies revolve. The third verse stood in the original corrupted, thus: * adhhabahā al-ḥuqūq al-dīn al-dāk *. We searched long for it and did not find it, and then corrected it as you see. Al-khufūq is: the movement and the agitation. And al-darāk is: the successive onward-going.
