الكواكب

Root ك و ك ب

Planet

جَنَّ  

Root: ج ن ن

Veil, conceal, cover, hide.

رَءَا

Root ر أ ى

It signifies seeing with the eye, arouse attention, consideration. It also signifies mental perception, conception, notion, idea. It is in any case related to physical senses. When it has one complement it means seeing with  eye; with two complements it  means knowing, have knowledge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

فَصَّلنَا

Root   ف  ص  ل

The basic concept infolded in this root is to make things distinct from each other. This facilitates people to easily comprehend and perceive things.

Divide and put apart, separation, partition, segregate one from the other; the limit or boundary to separate two lands/things.

Plural.

Root: ن  ج  م

Star

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It may be remembered that sky is only one; it was converted/ appropriated/ proportioned into seven layers. Therefore, whenever there is a mention of between skies and earth, dual هُما has been used. In between is with relation to one layer, nearest one, and earth. Stars are not the object of sky of earth. But Planets are the objects of sky of earth, our solar system.

Root: ن  ث ر

Basic perception/ concept infolded in the root is scatter, sprinkle, disperse, throw dispersing.

فُجِّرَت

ف ج ر

clave, cut or divide; water burst or pour through; and when water flows out of its bounds {sea etc} it scatters.

انكدرت

Root  ك  د  ر

become turbid, duskiness or dinginess; of a hue inclining to black and dust color.

طُمِست

Root    ط  م  س

effaced or obliterated, extirpated the trace or mark thereof; deprived of light.

نُسِفت

Root  ن  س  ف

Dust

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

: Meanings

 

            The Arabic word occurs for the first in Quran Majeed in Ayah 06:76:

It is ordinarily translated as under:

YUSUF ALI: When the night covered him over, He saw a star:
PICKTHAL: When the night grew dark upon him he beheld a star.
SHAKIR: So when the night over-shadowed him, he saw a star;

{Reference Compute CD "Alim" by ISL Software Corporation, USA}

It has conspicuously been stated that what Sydena Ibrahim عليه السلام saw he saw it after darkness of the night had spread/overtaken the surroundings. In the darkness of night one does not see a single star in the sky but quiet a large number of stars are visible to the naked eye, but  he saw one كوكبا.

Grand Qur'aan  came in 7th century but people have known the distinction between stars and planets from couple of centuries BC. The basic difference between both, as we know, is that stars emit light but planets do not have their own light, they reflect light. How both could have same meanings and termed as stars?

After the Sun and the Moon, planet Venus is the most shining object. It is visible on sky three hours before sunrise and for three hours after sunset. After these three objects, planet Jupiter is the brightest object. It is three times brighter than the brightest star Sirius. Because of its prominence, the Romans had given it name Jupiter after the name of their bigger god, idol.

A word is needed to convey and transmit a specific perception or verbal mirroring of an object. Words serve as a medium to communicate perceptions. It is for this reason that, a language will be considered rich, clear, perspicuous, eloquent, distinct, free from admixture, void of indistinctness or without concealment, apparent like the daybreak and divested of the froth, if its words have the capability of transporting the perception from one mind to a listener and reader, in a manner that it generates in the recipient mind exactly the same neurological process of observation and interpretation and creates a true copy of that perception.

The Arabic Mubeen of Quran Mubeen, the language {لسان} of the Last Messenger صلى الله عليه وسلم  has the capacity of transmitting and making the perception reach to the listener and reader, in the aforesaid manner. Therefore plural الكواكب Root ك و ك ب  , can never be translated as “star” since Grand Quran has made a clear distinction between the celestial bodies. Therefore, it is unfair with the Arabic Language which is proud of vastness of its vocabulary and concepts.

 

 

 

Al Qurtabi says : و رأي المشتري أو الزهرة

And saw Jupiter or Venus

Al Jalalain says: هو الزهرة

He said "That is Venus"

       Who was right and specific?

        The difference between Venus and Jupiter is that Venus after three hours of sunset disappears from the sky and is not visible till three hours before sunset. Jupiter, when it is visible from earth, does not disappear but remains visible on the sky. And Quran e Majeed tells that the planet which was seen by Ibrahim عليه السلام had then disappeared from their sight; " And when it disappeared". It is thus evident that seeing the Venus appearing on the sky, he had drawn the attention of people around him towards Venus. Thus it is also clear that he had pointed towards Venus after quite some time of sunset on that night but within three hours of the sunset.

       Quran e Majeed has drawn a vivid distinction between planets and stars. It says:

"And Allah is the One Who has appointed for you stars  so that with that you people may guide/find direction in the dark {unmarked} spaces of land and sea.

 We have made distinct Our Ayat so that people may know/get informed" {Refer 06:97}

"And with one star they get the direction/destination/guidance" {Ref 16:16}

 

            Quran e Majeed claims about itself that it is "", i.e. a statement of absolute fact. It once said that He has appointed stars {it is plural} and then it is said people get direction with one star {it is singular}. Quran e Majeed was meant not only for those Arabs who were to listen it first but for the entire humanity in time and space. Therefore its language is such that it contains and narrates a fact in such a manner that it should seem and could have been perceived as an absolute truth by its first listeners and prove to be an absolute fact for the posterity for whom the knowledge of the universe will keep unfolding. The above statement of the Quran e Majeed is a fact from whatever angle it may be seen. In common knowledge people perceive that North/Pole Star is one but that is not the fact. Today North Star is Polaris but in 7500 there will be some other Star as Pole Star and in 15000 another one will take this place and after 9000 years today's North Pole Polaris will again be stationed there. Let us verify the fact with thanks from Encarta:

"North Star or Polestar, conspicuous star in the northern hemisphere, located closest to the point toward which the axis of the earth is directed, thus roughly marking the location of the north celestial pole. A polestar has been used by navigators throughout recorded history for charting navigation routes and is still used for determining true azimuth and astronomic latitude. The positions of the celestial poles change as the earth's axis moves with the earth's precessional motion (see Ecliptic), and as the north celestial pole assumes different positions relative to the constellations, different stars become the North Star.

During the past 5000 years the line of direction of the North Pole has moved from the star Thuban, or Alpha (a) Draconis, in the constellation Draco, to within one degree of the bright star Polaris, also known as Alpha (a) Ursae Minoris, in the constellation Ursa Minor (Little Dipper), which is now the North Star. Polaris is a binary star of second magnitude, and is located at a distance of about 300 light-years from the earth. It is easy to locate in the sky because the two stars opposite the handle in the bowl of the dipper in the constellation Ursa Major (Big Dipper), which are called the Pointers, point to the star Polaris. See Big Dipper; Constellation; Little Dipper.

In the year 7500 the brightest star in the constellation Cepheus, Alpha (a) Cephei, will mark the pole, and in the year 15,000 the star Vega, in the constellation Lyra, will be the North Star. About 9000 years after that, Polaris will again become the North Star"{"North Star." Microsoft® Encarta® 2006 [DVD]. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation, 2005}

 

Quran e Majeed has made a distinction between stars and الكواكب since it has never said that people can get guidance/direction from الكواكب, Planets. are not the celestial objects of the sky of earth. And Quran e Majeed neither said that the sky of earth is adorned with , stars. On the contrary it has said:

"We have adorned the one sky of world with the attraction/beauty of Planets" {37:06}

 

            Vivid distinction between and الكواكب  is also visible from their end.:

"And when the planets will scatter"

"And when the glaciers will scatter/overflow" {Ref 82:02-03}

 

“” and “فُجِّرَت” have the commonality of “scatter”. And both reflect light and absorb light.

 

And the end of Stars is this:

"And when the stars fall losing their luster/light" {Ref 81:02}

 

"And then when the stars become scattered"

"When the mountains are scattered (to the winds) as dust" { Ref  77:08, 10}

"And the mountains shall be crumbled to atoms, Becoming dust/Gases scattered" {Ref 56:05-06}

 

  And we know stars are massive shining sphere of hot gas {dust like}.

 

          

              Quran e Majeed said:

"We have adorned the one sky of world with the attraction/beauty of Planets" {37:06}

 زينةٍ  is necessarily something in which there is an attraction. Anything which does not absorb attention/attraction cannot be called زينةٍ. And we all know that man has always attraction and interest in the planets. America deserves world wide appreciation for what its NASA is doing with the funding of its people from which the entire humanity benefits. It has not yet confirmed the number of planets in our solar system. But Quran e Majeed has indicated its number, excluding earth, as 11.

"When Yousaf عليه السلام told his father "Dad! I keep seeing 11 planets, the sun and moon, I see them like those who have attraction in coming nearer for me" {Refer 12:04}

 

               Father advised him not to narrate it to his 11 brothers to avoid inspiration of any jealousy in them by the Satan. Indeed this dream reflected metaphorically a fact that had to happen in the life of Yousaf عليه السلام when his father, mother and 11 brothers were to come near to him/join him in Egypt after his separation and having been taken by a caravan and sold by them to an advisor/ minister of the king of Egypt. There is a similarity between the planets and 11 brothers of Yousaf عليه السلام. They did not have their own light. They reflect light. 11 brothers have become famous only because of Yousaf عليه السلام.

              But the fact remains that he had seen 11 planets. The question is can we see/perceive even in dream a thing which does not exist in reality somewhere? What he had seen also had proven a reality. Can neurons create and pass on a signal for storage in the memory without existence of a thing somewhere?

              One thing is certain that Messengers of Allah never see a dream which does not exist as a fact in the past, present or future. He has seen 11 planets, excluding the earth. We will find them sooner or later; it is the promise of Allah:

"We will keep making it visible to the eyes of those who do not accept Quran, the signs/knowledge in the Universe and in their own bodies till it becomes evident for them that this Quran is a statement of proven fact" {Refer 41:53}

May I suggest to NASA that whenever they find the 10th and 11th planet, it should be named after two brothers of Yousaf عليه السلام, one from his own mother and the second from his second mother which may be proposed by our cousins, Bani Israel living in Israel. I suggest to all Muslim communities/countries to recognize Israel as there lives Bani Israel whom Quran e Majeed addresses directly. When Allah, his Last Messenger and the Last Book recognizes them, why Muslim countries should not recognize them as a nation and obviously a nation lives in a geographical territory?