Tafseer of The Cattle · Al-An'aam · 6:76
So when the night covered him [with darkness], he saw a star. He said, "This is my lord." But when it set, he said, "I like not those that disappear."
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.
Explanation of the words of the Exalted: فَلَمَّا جَنَّ عَلَيْهِ ٱللَّيْلُ رَءَا كَوْكَبًا قَالَ هَٰذَا رَبِّي فَلَمَّآ أَفَلَ قَالَ لَآ أُحِبُّ ٱلْآفِلِينَ (When the night covered him, he saw a star. He said: This is my Lord. But when it set, he said: I do not love those that set) (76).
Abū Jaʿfar said: The Exalted, mentioned be His name, says: when the night enshrouded him and concealed him from sight.
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Of this one says: "janna ʿalayhi al-layl" and "jannahu al-layl" and "ajannahu" and "ajanna ʿalayhi." When one adds "ʿalā," the expression with the alif is more eloquent than without the alif: "ajannahu al-layl" is more eloquent than "ajanna ʿalayhi," and "janna ʿalayhi al-layl" is more eloquent than "jannahu." All of this is acceptable and transmitted from the Arabs. "Jannahu al-layl" is in the language of [the tribe of] Asad = and "ajannahu" and "jannahu" in [the language of] Tamīm. The verbal nouns of "janna ʿalayhi" are "jannan," "junūnan," and "janānan," = and of "ajanna" it is "ijnānan." And one says: "so-and-so came in the jinn (darkness) of the night." And "the jinn" (the jinns) are so called because they conceal themselves (istajannū) from the eyes of the children of Adam and are not seen. And of everything that conceals itself from the gazes of people, the Arabs say: "qad janna" (it has become hidden). Of this is the word of the Hudhalī poet:
And many a water have I reached, shortly before sleep, when the pitch-black darkness had already covered it.
And ʿUbayd said:
And many a wasteland where the owl screeches together with the echo, terrifying when the night covers it, dreadful.
And of this comes: "ajnantu al-mayyit," when you hide the dead in the grave, and "jannantuhu"; and that is comparable to "junūn al-layl," in the meaning of: I covered it. And of this the shield is called "mijann," because it conceals (yajunn) the one who protects himself with it, covering and veiling him.
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And His word "he saw a star" means: he beheld a star when it rose = "he said: This is my Lord." From Ibn ʿAbbās the following has been transmitted concerning this:
13462 - Al-Muthannā related this to me, he said: Abū Ṣāliḥ related to us, he said: Muʿāwiya ibn Ṣāliḥ related to me, on the authority of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭalḥa, on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās, concerning His word: And thus did We show Ibrāhīm the kingdom of the heavens and the earth, that he might be of those who are certain, by which He means the sun, the moon, and the stars = "when the night covered him, he saw a star. He said: This is my Lord," and he worshipped it until it disappeared; and when it disappeared, he said: I do not love those that set = When he saw the moon rising, he said: This is my Lord, and he worshipped it until it disappeared; and when it disappeared, he said: If my Lord does not guide me, I shall surely be among the people who go astray = When he saw the sun rising, he said: This is my Lord, this is greater, and he worshipped it until it set; and when it set, he said: O my people, I am innocent of what you associate as partners.
13463 - Bishr related to us, he said: Yazīd related to us, he said: Saʿīd related to us, on the authority of Qatāda: "When the night covered him, he saw a star. He said: This is my Lord. But when it set, he said: I do not love those that set," he knew that his Lord is everlasting and does not disappear. And he continued reading until he came to: This is my Lord, this is greater, he saw a creation that was greater than the two earlier creations and more luminous.
And the occasion for what Ibrāhīm said was the following:
13464 - Muḥammad ibn Ḥumayd related this to me, he said: Salama ibn al-Faḍl related to us, he said: Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq related to me = according to what has been transmitted to us, and Allah knows best = that Āzar was a man from the inhabitants of Kūthā, a village in al-Sawād, the black land of al-Kūfa. And the king of the East at that time was Nimrūd. When Allah willed that He would send Ibrāhīm [— peace be upon him, the friend of the Merciful — as a proof against his people], and as a messenger to His servants — and there was between Nūḥ and Ibrāhīm no prophet except Hūd and Ṣāliḥ —, and when the time of Ibrāhīm drew near with which Allah willed what He willed, the astrologers came to Nimrūd and said to him: Know that we find in our knowledge that a boy will be born in this village of yours, who will be called "Ibrāhīm," who will abandon your religion and break your idols, in such-and-such month of such-and-such year. When the year arrived that the astrologers had described to Nimrūd, Nimrūd sent for every pregnant woman in his village, and he kept her imprisoned with him = except for the mother of Ibrāhīm, the wife of Āzar, for he did not know of her pregnancy; and that was because she was a young woman, as they say, who did not recognize the pregnancy in her belly, and because of that which Allah willed to accomplish with her child. = He wished to kill every boy who was born in that month of that year, out of fear for his kingship. So no boy was born by a woman in that month of that year, but he gave the order to slaughter him. When the mother of Ibrāhīm felt the labor pains, she went at night to a cave that was in her vicinity, and she gave birth to Ibrāhīm therein, and she cared for him as one does with a newborn. Then she closed up the cave over him, and then returned to her house. Afterwards she came to visit him in the cave to see how he was faring, and she found him alive, while he was sucking on his thumb. They claim — and Allah knows best — that Allah had placed Ibrāhīm's nourishment therein, in what he obtained by his sucking. And Āzar had, as is claimed, asked the mother of Ibrāhīm what had happened with her pregnancy, and she said: I gave birth to a boy, but he died! And he believed her, and remained silent about her. And a day was, as is mentioned, for Ibrāhīm in his youth like a month, and a month like a year. Ibrāhīm did not remain longer than fifteen months in the cave, until he said to his mother: Take me out, so that I may look! And she took him out in the evening, and he looked, and he contemplated the creation of the heavens and the earth, and said: "Truly, the One who created me, provided for me, fed me and gave me drink, is my Lord; I have no god except Him!" Then he looked at the heaven and saw a star, and said: "This is my Lord," and he followed it with his gaze until it disappeared; and when it set, he said: "I do not love those that set." Then the moon rose, and he saw it ascending, and said: This is my Lord, and he followed it with his gaze until it disappeared; and when it set, he said: If my Lord does not guide me, I shall surely be among the people who go astray! And when the day broke over him and the sun rose, he deemed the sun tremendous, and he saw something that was greater in light than everything he had seen before, and said: This is my Lord, this is greater! And when it set, he said: O my people, I am innocent of what you associate as partners. Truly, I have turned my face to Him who created the heavens and the earth, as a ḥanīf, and I am not of the polytheists (mushrikīn). Then Ibrāhīm returned to his father Āzar, while his orientation had become upright, and he had come to know his Lord, and had freed himself from the religion of his people, except that he did not openly confront them with that. And he (Āzar) made it known that he was his son, and the mother of Ibrāhīm made it known to him that he was his son, and she made known to him what she had done concerning him, and Āzar rejoiced over that and was exceedingly glad. And Āzar made the idols of his people that they worshipped, and then gave them to Ibrāhīm to sell them; and Ibrāhīm went off with them, as is mentioned, and said: "Who buys what harms him and does not benefit him?", so that no one bought them from him. And when they would not be sold by him, he went with them to a river and stuck their heads down into it, and said: "Drink!", mocking his people and the error in which they were, until his disapproval of it and his mockery of it spread among his people and the inhabitants of his village, without, however, this having reached king Nimrūd.
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Abū Jaʿfar said: A group from outside the experts of transmission has disapproved of this statement that is transmitted from Ibn ʿAbbās and from those from whom it is transmitted, namely that Ibrāhīm said to the star or to the moon: "This is my Lord." They said: it is not permissible that Allah should have let a prophet whom He sent with the messengership live through a moment while he was an adult, without acknowledging Allah as One, knowing Him, and freeing himself from all that is worshipped besides Him. They said: and if it were permissible that a time should have come over him in which he was an unbeliever in Him, then it would not be permissible that He should single him out for the messengership, for there would then be no reason in him that would not also be present in another of the unbelievers in Him; and there is between Allah and none of His creatures a kinship by which He would favor someone by singling him out with the honor. They said: He has only honored whom He has honored of them because of that person's own excellence, and He has rewarded him because he deserved the reward, with the honor that He bestowed upon him. And they claimed that Allah's report about what Ibrāhīm said upon seeing the star, the moon, or the sun: "This is my Lord," did not stem from ignorance on his part that it was impossible for this to be his Lord; rather, he said that by way of denying that this should be his Lord, and by way of rebuking his people in their worship of the idols, since the star, the moon, and the sun were brighter, more beautiful, and more radiant than the idols, and despite that ought not to be worshipped, and moreover set and disappeared and were not everlasting; and the idols, which stand below them [in beauty] and are smaller in size than they, have all the more right not to be worshipped and not to be gods. They said: and he said that to them only by way of objection, as one of two disputants says to his interlocutor, refuting him in a false statement that he brought forward, with a false statement, by way of demanding from him a distinction between the two corrupt statements in his eyes, of which his opponent holds the one to be correct and claims the falsity of the other.
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And others of them said: no, that took place from him in the state of his childhood, and before the proof was established against him. And that is a state in which there is neither unbelief nor belief.
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And yet others of them said: the meaning of the word is only: "is this my Lord?", by way of denial and reproach, that is to say: this is not my Lord. And they said: the Arabs sometimes do something like this, and then drop the alif that indicates the meaning of the question. And they claimed that to this belongs the word of the poet:
They reassured me and said: O Khuwaylid, do not be afraid! And I said, while not recognizing the faces: Is it they, is it they?
He means: is it they? They said: and to this belongs the word of Aws:
By your life, I do not know, even though I was knowledgeable: Shuʿayth ibn Sahm, or Shuʿayth ibn Minqar?
In the meaning of: is it Shuʿayth ibn Sahm? He dropped the alif, and more such cases. And as for the masculine form of "hādhā" (this) in His word: When he saw the sun rising, he said: This (hādhā) is my Lord, that is only in the meaning of: this rising thing is my Lord.
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Abū Jaʿfar said: And in the report of Allah, the Exalted, about what Ibrāhīm said when the moon set: If my Lord does not guide me, I shall surely be among the people who go astray, there lies the proof of the incorrectness of these statements that these people have put forward, and that the correct view in this matter is: the acknowledgment of the report of Allah, the Exalted, that He has communicated about him, and the turning away from all that lies outside of that.
And as for His word "when it set" (falammā afala), its meaning is: when it disappeared and went away, as:
13465 - Ibn Ḥumayd related to us, he said: Salama ibn al-Faḍl related to us, he said: Ibn Isḥāq said: "al-ufūl" (the setting) is the going away.
Of this one says: "afala al-najm, yaʾfulu and yaʾfilu, ufūlan and aflan," when it sets; and of this is the word of Dhū al-Rumma:
Lights, not those that are guided by stars, nor those that set and slip away.
And one says: "ayna afalta ʿannā," in the meaning of: where have you disappeared from us?
