al-Shams 91:6

Wa'l-arḍi wa mā ṭaḥāhā "And by the earth, and by the one who spread it out."

Root: ط-ح-و / ط-ح-ي. A word that occurs only here in the Qurʾān. The lexicographers give its sense as to spread, to lay out, to spread flat, to stretch and widen. Ṭaḥā'l-shayʾa — he spread a thing out, made it flat and broad. Some lexicographers say the root also carries the sense "to drive, to push away"; in that case a picture emerges of the ends of the earth being pushed outward from the centre and so widened.

That the word occurs in one single place in the Qurʾān makes it harder for exegesis — there is no second use to compare it with. For its sense, therefore, one has to look at the other words with which the Qurʾān describes the same work:

• دَحَا (daḥā) — al-Nāziʿāt 79/30: "And after that He spread out the earth." The word is very close to ṭaḥā in both sound and sense; the lexicographers count the two as near neighbours.
• فِرَاش (firāsh) — al-Baqara 2/22: "He made the earth a bed for you." Root: to spread, to lay out.
• مِهَاد (mihād) — al-Nabaʾ 78/6: "Have We not made the earth a cradle?"
• بِسَاط (bisāṭ) — Nūḥ 71/19: "And God has made the earth a carpet for you."
• ذَلُول (dhalūl) — al-Mulk 67/15: "It is He who made the earth submissive to you."

Five separate words, one single idea: the earth has been made ready to be lived upon.

In al-Baqara these two words had stood side by side: "He who made the earth a bed (firāsh) for you, and the sky a building (bināʾ)" (al-Baqara 2/22). Verses 5 and 6 of al-Shams repeat the same pair, in the same order, but in verbal form: banāhā (He built it) and ṭaḥāhā (He spread it out).

The difference between the two texts is interesting. In al-Baqara the pair is presented as a proof — "serve your Lord… who made the earth a bed and the sky a building" — that is, as the ground of the command to serve. In al-Shams the same pair comes as an oath: not the ground of the ruling but the thing sworn by in laying the ruling down.

What is common is that both build the same picture: man is inside a room that has been prepared. The floor beneath him laid, the roof above him raised. As in al-Baqara, so here the expression describes not the shape of the earth but its function; a "bed" is not flat either — it conforms to the ground it is spread on.

The function of this picture within the sūra is as follows: the room is ready, the one who made it ready is known, and in the next verse the one who will sit inside the room will be named. The seventh verse passes to the soul. Verses five and six, that is, describe the place where man will be set.

When sky and earth are named together in the Qurʾān the order is generally "the heavens and the earth". So it is here: first the sky (5), then the earth (6). But looked at as part of the whole series, this is seen to be a step in the narrowing — the sky is farther, the earth nearer. The order agrees with the movement from far to near that the sūra has been keeping up from the start.