the sequence of day and night!
at a time when it was held that the earth was the centre of the world and that the sun moved in relation to it, how could any one have failed to refer to the sun's movement when talking of the sequence of night and day? this is not however referred to in the qur'an and the subject is dealt with as follows:
--sura 7, verse 54: "(god) covers the day with the night which is in haste to follow it..."
--sura 36, verse 37: "and a sign for them (human beings) is the night. we strip it of the day and they are in darkness." --sura 31, verse 29: "hast thou not seen how god merges the night into the day and merges the day into the night."
--sura 39, verse 5:
"...he coils the night upon the day and he coils the day upon the night."
the first verse cited requires no comment. the second simply provides an image. it is mainly the third and fourth verses quoted above that provide interesting material on the process of interpenetration and especially of winding the night upon the day and the day upon the night. (sura 39, verse 5)
'to coil' or 'to wind' seems, as in the french translation by r. blachere, to be the best way of translating the arabic verb kawwara. the original meaning of the verb is to 'coil' a turban around the head; the
![](19_files/orbit3.gif)
![](19_files/earthglobe.gif)
--in sura 70 verse 40, the expression 'lord of orients andoccidents'.
--in sura 55, verse 17, the expression 'lord of the two orients and the two occidents'.
--in sura 43, verse 38, a reference to the 'distance between the two orients', an image intended to express the immense size ofthe distance separating the two points. anyone who carefully watches the sunrise and sunset knowsthat the sun rises at different point of the orient and sets at different points of the occident, according to season. bearings taken on each of the horizons define the extreme limits that markthe two
![](19_files/sun2.gif)
this is no less than a reminder to (all) the worlds. and you shall
certainly know the truth of it (all) after a while.(38:87-88).