سورة يس

The Messenger (peace be upon him and his family): Abu Dharr al-Ghifari (may Allah have mercy on him) said: I had taken the hand of the Prophet (peace be upon him and his family) and we were both walking together, and we kept looking at the sun until it disappeared. I said: "O Messenger of Allah! Where does the sun disappear?" He said: "In the sky. After that it ascends from one heaven to another until it rises to the seventh heaven, which is the highest of all, until it comes beneath the Throne, then it falls in prostration, and the angels appointed over it prostrate with it. Then the sun says: 'My Lord, from where do You command me to rise? Shall I rise from my west or from my east?' And this is what Allah the Mighty and Majestic says: وَ الشَّمْسُ تَجْرِی لِمُسْتَقَرٍّ لَها ذلِکَ تَقْدِیرُ الْعَزِیزِ الْعَلِیمِ [And the sun runs on to a term appointed for it; that is the ordinance of the Mighty, the Knowing]."

The Messenger (peace be upon him and his family): It is narrated from Abu Dharr (may Allah have mercy on him) that: I was with the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him and his family) in the mosque at sunset. He said: "O Aba Dharr! Do you know where the sun sets?" I said: "Allah and His Messenger know best." He said: "It goes until it prostrates beneath the Throne and asks permission to return, and permission is given to it. And this is the word of Allah the Mighty and Majestic: وَ الشَّمْسُ تَجْرِی لِمُسْتَقَرٍّ لَها [And the sun runs on to a term appointed for it]."

Imam Sadiq (peace be upon him): Abd al-Rahman ibn Sayaba narrates that he said to Imam Sadiq (peace be upon him), "May I be sacrificed for you! Indeed the people say: if someone takes a liking to the stars, it is not permitted to look at them. If it harms my religion, then I have no need of what harms my religion; and if it does not harm my religion, then by Allah, I have a great inclination toward the stars and I love to look at them." The Imam said, "It is not as the people say. Looking at the stars does no harm to your religion." Then he said, "You look at something of which much cannot be grasped, and the little of it brings no benefit — that you may measure the rising of the moon." Then he said, "Do you know how many minutes there are between the sun and the constellation of Virgo (al-Sunbula)? And do you know how many minutes there are between the constellation of Virgo and the Lawh al-Mahfuz (the Preserved Tablet)?" I answered, "No, by Allah, I do not know. I have never heard anything about it from the astronomers." The Imam said, "The distance from each one of these to the one beside it is sixty or ninety minutes." Abd al-Rahman was uncertain. Then he said, "O Abd al-Rahman! This is a calculation such that, if a person knows it and attains it, he can count the reeds of a thicket, and how many reeds lie to the right of that thicket and to its left and behind it and in front of it — such that not a single reed of the thicket remains hidden from him."

Imam Kazim (peace be upon him): Mu'alla narrates that Imam Kazim (peace be upon him) was asked: "How did Allah come to know?" He said: "He knew, and willed, and intended, and determined, and decreed, and executed. He executed what He had decreed, and decreed what He had determined, and determined what He had intended. So His will is from His knowledge, His intention is from His will, His determination is from His intention, His decree is from His determination, and His execution is from His decree. Therefore His knowledge precedes His will, will is in the second rank, and intention in the third rank, and determination is that the decree be executed. Allah the Blessed and Exalted, whenever He wishes, can bring about bada (change of decree) in the things He knows and in the things He has intended for the determination of things. When Allah's decree occurs together with His execution, there is no longer any bada. Thus knowledge of the known is before its existence, will regarding the willed is before its individuation, intending the intended is before its realisation, and the determination of these known things is before their being detailed and brought to individuation and realisation. Decree together with execution is the definitive form of deeds and bodies and perceptibles that are grasped by the senses — those existents which have colour, smell, weight and volume, and all creatures that move, such as humans, jinn, birds, beasts of prey, and other existents perceived by the senses. Allah has bada regarding things which have not yet come into individuation, [but] when the very concept of them, perceptible, comes into being, there is no longer any bada, and Allah does whatever He wishes. By His knowledge He knows things before they come into existence, by His will He makes known their attributes and limits and brings them into being before manifesting them, by His intention He distinguishes them from one another in their colours, attributes and limits, by His determination He measures out their sustenance and knows their beginning and end, by His decree He makes clear their places to the people and guides the people to them, and by His execution He explains their causes and makes His command manifest — ذلِکَ تَقْدِیرُ الْعَزِیزِ الْعَلِیمِ [That is the ordinance of the Mighty, the Knowing]."