al-Nabaʾ 78:12-13

Wa banaynā fawqakum sabʿan shidādā · Wa jaʿalnā sirājan wahhājā "And We built above you seven firm [heavens]. And We made a blazing lamp."

Root: ب-ن-ي. To build, to construct. بِنَاء — a building. بَنَّاء — a mason, a builder.

This verb was used of the sky at al-Baqara 2/22: "and the sky a building" (wa'l-samāʾa bināʾ). What was recorded there was this: the sky is named not "void" but a structure that has been built.

Here the same root comes as a verb. And it adds one more thing to the tableau: this is the plainest proof of the dwelling reading recorded above. After the cradle, the peg and the covering, the verb that comes is "we built".

فَوْقَكُمْ — "above you". An adverb, and it states position. This word completes the tableau: below, a cradle; at the sides, pegs; above, a building.

سَبْعًا — a number; the noun it qualifies (samāwāt) has been elided and the adjective left standing. This is a common abbreviation in Arabic.

The number seven was treated at al-Baqara 2/29. What was recorded there was this: there are two readings — seven as a number, or a seven that conveys multiplicity — and which is meant is not certain. It was also stated there that to produce a modern list of the kind "the seven heavens are such and such layers" is not exegesis but forcing.

The same note holds here; it is not repeated.

شِدَاد — firm.

Root: ش-د-د. The concrete sense of the root is to bind, to bind tightly. شَدَّ — he bound, he tightened. شِدَّة — tightness, hardness, severity. أَشَدّ — firmer, stronger.

And the root's sense of "binding" fits the dwelling tableau: a tent is pitched by being tied, fastened with pegs, its ropes drawn taut. Shidād means that which does not slacken.

A link with the next sūra. At al-Nāziʿāt 79/27 the same root will come again in connection with the sky:

"Are you harder to create, or the sky? He built it." (al-Nāziʿāt 79/27)

The word there is أَشَدُّ خَلْقًا — the same root. And the verb that follows is بَنَاهَا — the same root as the banaynā of this verse.

Two neighbouring sūras use the same two roots for the sky: ب-ن-ي and ش-د-د. This is a verifiable datum and one of the most concrete signs of the kinship of the two sūras. This link will be returned to in the section on al-Nāziʿāt.

سِرَاج — Root: س-ر-ج. A lamp, a torch, an oil lamp. An instrument that burns and gives light.

The word is used of the sun in several places in the Qurʾān:

"And He set among them a lamp and an illuminating moon." (al-Furqān 25/61)

"And He made the sun a lamp." (Nūḥ 71/16)

"And [We sent you] as an illuminating lamp." (al-Aḥzāb 33/46 — of the Prophet)

Now an observation about the language, and a note to be attached to it.

In the Qurʾān the sun is named سِرَاج (a lamp); the moon is named نُور (light) or مُنِير (illuminating). Al-Furqān 25/61 uses both in one sentence: sirāj for the sun, munīr for the moon. Yūnus 10/5 makes the distinction as well: "He made the sun a radiance (ḍiyāʾ) and the moon a light (nūr)."

In Arabic a sirāj is an instrument that is kindled: it burns, it is consumed, it gives heat. Nūr is light itself and requires no burning.

I record this distinction, but I do not offer it as a claim of a scientific miracle — and I must write the ground for that:

That the sun burns and the moon does not is something known to the naked eye. One cannot look at the sun; one can look at the moon. The sun gives heat; the moon does not. A seventh-century Meccan knew this, and Arabic's having two separate words amounts to no more than that observation being recorded in the language.

The fit here, that is, is the apt use of words — which does say something about the quality of a text. But to say "the Qurʾān announced that the sun burns by nuclear fusion" is to make the verse say what it does not say, and it is forbidden in Method.

وَهَّاج — Root: و-ه-ج. The blazing of a flame, giving a hot light. وَهَج — the heat and light of a flame together.

The word is on the فَعَّال pattern; in Arabic this pattern conveys intensity: doing much, doing continually.

And what the word relates is the togetherness of light and heat. Wahhāj is used not when a thing merely shines but when it burns.

This accords with the sun's function in the sūra: in the eleventh verse the day was named "livelihood"; livelihood wants heat and light. In the fifteenth verse grain and plants will come forth; both need the sun.

The word appears to occur only here in the Qurʾān. I do not offer this finding as the result of an exhaustive search; what I record is that the word is rare.