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Surah Ash-Shams — 91:5

وَٱلسَّمَآءِ وَمَا بَنَىٰهَا

Wassamaaa'i wa maa banaahaa

by the sky and the one who built it,

Reflection

With this verse the oaths change shape: sun, moon, day and night were sworn by as they move, and now each object arrives with whatever made it. Wa mā banāhā uses mā, the Arabic word for what, and commentators split over it. One side takes mā as God, the builder, named with a word that stresses the wonder of the act; the other hears the building itself, so the oath is sworn by the sky and its construction.

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