ذَٰلِكَ بِأَنَّ ٱللَّهَ يُولِجُ ٱلَّيْلَ فِى ٱلنَّهَارِ وَيُولِجُ ٱلنَّهَارَ فِى ٱلَّيْلِ وَأَنَّ ٱللَّهَ سَمِيعٌۢ بَصِيرٌ · ذَٰلِكَ بِأَنَّ ٱللَّهَ هُوَ ٱلْحَقُّ وَأَنَّ مَا يَدْعُونَ مِن دُونِهِۦ هُوَ ٱلْبَٰطِلُ
Dhālika bi-anna'llāha yūliju'l-layla fi'n-nahāri wa yūliju'n-nahāra fi'l-layli wa anna'llāha samīʿun baṣīr · Dhālika bi-anna'llāha huwa'l-ḥaqqu wa anna mā yadʿūna min dūnihi huwa'l-bāṭilu wa anna'llāha huwa'l-ʿaliyyu'l-kabīr
"So it is; because God makes the night enter into the day and makes the day enter into the night, and because God is hearing, seeing. So it is; because God is the truth itself, and what they call upon besides Him is falsehood itself. And God is the high, the great."
The sense of the root: to enter through a narrow place. Wilāj — an entering; tawlīj — to insert. The lexicographers record the root for narrow passages, such as passing through the eye of a needle.
The choice of word is worth recording, and I give this as an observation: the relation of night and day is described not as an exchange of places but as a seeping of each into the other. The boundary, that is, is not sharp.
At al-Zumar 39/5 the same fact was described with another root: yukawwiru'l-layla ʿala'n-nahāri wa yukawwiru'n-nahāra ʿala'l-layl — ك-و-ر: to wind, to fold. I rely on that treatment.
| Place | Verb | Picture |
|---|---|---|
| al-Zumar 39/5 | Yukawwiru | To wind — one is wound over the other |
| al-Ḥajj 22/61 | Yūliju | To insert — one enters into the other |
Both pictures describe the same fact, and both say that the boundary is not sharp. And I keep here the limit set by the method that was drawn in the al-Zumar section: I draw from these words no firm conclusion about the shape or the motion of the earth. What the verse describes is the unbroken passage of night into day.
The root ح-ق-ق: to be fixed, to stand in place, to be realised. Ḥaqq is that which does not move from its place.
The root ب-ط-ل: to come to nothing, to be void, to perish. The lexicographers explain bāṭil as "that which has no support to hold it up". Bāṭil is what falls of itself.
The opposition of the two roots is built into the meanings of the words themselves, and I record this as an observation about the language: one stands, the other falls. The contrast lies not on the axis of true and false but on the axis of permanence.
And the sixty-second verse is a repetition of the sixth: dhālika bi-anna'llāha huwa'l-ḥaqq — the same sentence, fifty-six verses apart. This is a link that can be verified from the text.