أَلَمْ تَرَ أَنَّ اللَّهَ يُولِجُ اللَّيْلَ فِي النَّهَارِ وَيُولِجُ النَّهَارَ فِي اللَّيْلِ وَسَخَّرَ الشَّمْسَ وَالْقَمَرَ كُلٌّ يَجْرِي إِلَىٰ أَجَلٍ مُّسَمًّى وَأَنَّ اللَّهَ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ خَبِيرٌ (29)
(31:29) Do you not see that Allah makes the night phase into the day and makes the day phase into the night and has subjected the sun and the moon *50 to His will so that each of them is pursuing its course till an appointed time? (Do you not know that) *51 Allah is well aware of all that you do?
*50) That is, "The appearance and alternation of the day and night consistently and regularly by itself shows that the sun and the moon have been subjected to a system. " The sun and the moon have been mentioned here in particular because both these are the most prominent bodies of the heaven, which man has been worshipping as deities since the earliest times, and which many people worship as gods even today. The fact, however, is that Allah has bound aII the stars and planets of the universe including the earth into an unalterable system from which they cannot deviate even by an inch.
*51) That is, nothing in the world, whether the sun or the moon, or any other star or planet, in the universe, is eternal and ever-lasting. Everything has a term for it and can function only till its expiry. Everything has a beginning in time before which it was not there and an end in time after which it will not be there. This means to imply that such temporal and powerless things cannot become the deities of men.