Al-Ma'aarij (The Ascending Stairways)

40. Therefore, I swear by the Lord of all the points of sunrise and sunset in the east and the west that surely We are All-Able

41. To replace them by others better than them and We are Invincible.

Instances of the singular form of “east and west” are also attested in the Holy Qur’an, as in: “And to Allah belong the east and the west”1 .

The expression at times appears in the dual form, as in:

“The Lord of the two easts and the Lord of the two wests”2 .

The plural form also appears, as in the blessed Verse in question. Some narrow-minded people have considered these expressions to be contradictory, whereas they harmoniously point to one point: the sun rises from a new point and sets in another new point each and every day, hence there are as many sunrises and sunsets as the number of the days of the year.

Furthermore, two easts and two wests are distinguished amongst so many easts and wests: the summer and winter solstices when the sun reaches its zenith in the tropic of Cancer and the tropic of Capricorn. Besides these two distinct solstices, there are two spring and autumn equinoxes when the day and the night are equal.

Some maintain that

“the Lord of the easts and the Lord of the wests”

alludes to the same phenomenon, a point which is noteworthy.

However, the singular attestations solely lay emphasis on the east and the west without according any attention to individual instances. Therefore, the aforesaid expressions convey certain points urging man to heed the alterations in the sunrise and the sunset and the regular alterations of the solar orbits.