بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
Surah Ar-Rahman: (Allah) Most Gracious! (1) It is He Who has taught the Qur’an. (2) created man: (3) and taught him speech (and Intelligence) (4) The sun and the moon follow (defined) courses (in space); (5) And the Stars and the trees are in obediance. (6) And the Firmament (space) He has (formed and) raised high, and set up its balance, (7) In order that ye may not transgress (due) balance (on earth). (8) So establish measure with justice and fall not short in the balance. (9)
Allah, al Rahman, in the first verses tied three topics together, He tied the knowledge that is in the Quran with the creation of man, and then the speech He (swt) taught him. The knowledge in the Quran, is related to the creation of man in how man is given knowledge by Allah, which is through revelation and inspiration received in man’s heart, this is related to his speech because man speaks according to what is placed in his heart, so in Allah teaching and inspiring the Quran He is teaching man new speech. When we look at how these things work in the human body, as Imam Malik said, Knowledge is a light placed in the heart by Allah, this is a physiological statement, Allah gives man knowledge according to what He is doing in life, so this light is the source of speech taught to man by Allah, (we have explained in detail in our other works how the body uses light through the nervous system of the heart and brain).
The sun and the moon and the path they are on is tied to all of this because Allah inspires man’s self through the influence of these celestial bodies in space on earths atmosphere, this is a process that begins at the subatomic level because the sun and moon exert electro-magnetic fields on our planet which affect the planet from the quantum level, ultimately they inspire and influence both man and what he speaks because our ecosystem is part of a bigger picture.
By simile the trees of earth are numerous and countless like the stars, this is there relationship in this picture that Allah is painting for us, in this verse Allah is mentioning the most distant thing from us in space and the closest thing to us on earth in relation to the context of the surah, this is because He is drawing a picture of how the ecosystem of outer space and the ecosystem on earth are connected through quantum fields like the electro-magnetic forces of the sun hitting the earth, all these objects are influencing each other and ultimately us.
Allah says, after referring to how the sun and the moon influence man through their defined paths in space, that it is not just them that do this with their quantum fields, but both the stars and the trees also. This is because He mentioned their obedience to him in the verse, meaning their role in the balance that Allah set up in space, they are part of the greater ecosystem and He uses them to inspire man from the quantum level of the Universe. The stars are each like our sun, while the trees are crucial to life on earth and it’s atmosphere, they are the last piece in this puzzle and in contrast to the sun and moon one of the smallest part in it that has a significant influence on our planet.
This picture of space and earth needed to first be drawn because it leads to what is in the next verses where Allah talks about how He created space and placed a balance and harmony in it, Allah then says the depth of space and it’s balance is related to the balance on earth, “the Firmament (space) He has raised high, and set up its balance, In order that ye may not transgress (the due) balance” on earth, meaning they are connected to each other. Allah is saying this order we see in space through the movement of the sun and moon it is also present on earth in it’s atmosphere and ecosystem that the trees help create and maintain.
Allah is teaching us that the balance He placed in the Universe and on earth create a balance in man’s self because the surah begins by teaching us about the ways in which man is inspired in life and learns knowledge. So inspiration and mans speech being mentioned after each other is a reference to his psychology and state of mind, hence the order and balance that exist in space and nature is why man can feel harmony and be at peace with earth and it’s natural ecosystem.
Allah then warns that if man destroys that balance in nature it will then cause his self to become unbalanced, because the balance that exists in nature it now no longer exists so it can not help man’s self stay balanced as he lives his life. This is why after mentioning the balance in space, in the next verse Allah warns man about destroying the balance that exists on earth, “and fall not short in the balance”.
These verses first required knowledge of the universe in order to understand them because they were intended for a time when man would have the ability to destroy the balance on earth.
Method – How This Tafsir Was Written: This tafsir was written according to the themes of each verse which outlined the topics Allah was mentioning, this then made the picture Allah was drawing for us very clear. Allah taught the Quran through revelation which was revealed to mans heart, how man is able to receive revelation in scientific terms I have written about in detail elsewhere, but understanding the how makes the connection between each verse very clear and the larger picture obvious. Allah in these verses goes from talking about giving man revelation to teaching him speech because this knowledge relates to how each person is inspired in his everyday life by various sources, his daily inspiration is the source of what he chooses to speak about to others.
This is related to the sun and moon because Allah in surah al shams (91) explains how He inspires man through them, but in this surah He talks about how the ecosystem of space is connected to the ecosystem of earth, the trees essentially create our ecosystem for us through the oxygen they produce and atmosphere they clean. The subtext of the Quran here is how this influence occurs through the quantum universe, it’s forces and particles, Allah explains in the verse of light (24:35) that He inspires mankind through these means.
After then drawing this picture for us Allah tells us the important lesson we should learn, that if we ruin the ecosystem of earth we will imbalance man in his life and self permanently, we will not only ruin how he is inspired we will degrade his intelligence which we will see and witness in his speech and vocabulary. This is because if the ecosystem that Allah created to keep man balanced and in harmony with the universe can no longer function in this role, man will suffer psychologically and spiritually, which will decrease his capacity, intelligence and speech, all these are related to each other physiologically, the most obvious way is in mans breadth of knowledge and capacity for things.
Mankind has witnessed all this already, with the dumbing down of man over the past one hundred years as he destroyed the earth, we witnessed this in the way language has changed during this time, linguists, historians and academics have all attested to this change in their works. We no longer have the capacity to speak as our grandfathers and their fathers once did with the same breadth and vocabulary, we have shortened our sentences because our mental capacity lacks the strength it once had, and man gains his strength from nature.
Sunnah Muakada 