Al-Ankaboot (The Spider)
Verse 61
Table of Contents
61. “And if you ask them: ‘Who created the heavens and the earth and made the sun and the moon subservient?’ They will certainly say: ‘Allah!’ Whence are they then perverted?”
The Arabic term /’ifk/ means ‘changing something from its real form’, viz. someone changes a fact into something else consciously.
The purpose of ‘making the sun and the moon subservient’ is their subservience in the way which is useful for us.1
In this holy verse, as well as the next verses, the Prophet of Islam (S), and in fact all believers, are addressed and the proofs of Unity through the way of creation, Lordship, and nature, viz. by three different ways, have been stated, and they are admonished that their fate is with Allah Whose effects are found in heavens and souls, not with idols, since idols have no function in this regard.
At first, it refers to the creation of the heaven and the earth and, taking help from their intrinsic beliefs, it says:
“And if you ask them: ‘Who created the heavens and the earth and made the sun and the moon subservient?’ They will certainly say: ‘Allah!’…”
Their answer is such, because neither idolaters nor other than them say that the creator of the heavens and the earth and the subjective factor of making the sun and the moon subservient is some pieces of stone and wood which have been manufactured by their own hands.
In other words, even idolaters had no doubt in the ‘Unity of Creator’. They were polytheists in worship.
They used to say that they worshipped idols for the sake that they would intercede them before Allah, as Surah Yunus, No. 10, verse 18 announces:
“…and they say: ‘these are our intercessors with Allah’…”
They wanted to say that they were not eligible to directly communicate with Allah and they had to relate to Him by the way of idols.
They used to say:
“…We do not serve them save that they make us nearer to Allah…”2
They were inattentive that there is no gap between the Creator and the created, and He is nearer to us than our jugular vein.2 Moreover, if man, who is the best creature in the world of existence, cannot communicate with Allah, what can be his intercessor?
However, after mentioning this clear proof, at the end of the verse the Qur’an questions that after having these evidences how are they returned from worshipping Allah to the worship of some idols made of some pieces of stone and wood?
It says:
“…Whence are they then perverted?”
The Qur’anic term /yu’fakun/ is derived from /’ifk/ which means: ‘changing something from its real form’, and in this connection it is used for falsehood, and also for some apposite winds.
The application of the term /yu’fakun/ in its Arabic passive form, points to this fact that they have not any ability to make decision, as if they were unintentionally drawn toward idolatry!
By the way, the purpose of objecting the sun and the moon is the systems that Allah has arranged for them and by these systems He has sent them in the way of man’s benefits.