وَأَلْقَىٰ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ رَوَٰسِىَ أَن تَمِيدَ بِكُمْ وَأَنْهَٰرًا وَسُبُلًا لَّعَلَّكُمْ تَهْتَدُونَ · وَعَلَٰمَٰتٍ وَبِٱلنَّجْمِ هُمْ يَهْتَدُونَ
Wa alqā fi'l-arḍi rawāsiya an tamīda bikum wa anhāran wa subulan laʿallakum tahtadūn · Wa ʿalāmāt, wa bi'l-najmi hum yahtadūn
"And He cast firm mountains into the earth, lest it sway with you, and rivers and roads — that you might find your way. · And landmarks. And by the star they find their way."
This sentence occurred at Luqmān, 31/10, in exactly the same words, and was treated there. I rely on that treatment. The notes there were these:
- رَوَٰسِى — root ر-س-و: to drop anchor, to be held fast. The root's connection with a ship's anchoring was recorded at Qāf, 50/7.
- أَن تَمِيدَ بِكُمْ — mayd: to sway, to be tossed about. The lexicographers use the word especially of seasickness and of the rolling of a ship.
- And the note required by the method (Method) entered in Luqmān holds here too, and I repeat it: no conclusion about modern geology, about isostasy or about gravitation is drawn from this. The function of the verse is to say that an order visible to the eye stands without any visible support.
The difference that belongs here must be recorded, and the two verses do not stand in the same context:
| Luqmān 31/10 | al-Naḥl 16/15 | |
|---|---|---|
| What precedes the sentence | Khalaqa'l-samāwāti bi-ghayri ʿamadin tarawnahā — pillars you do not see | Sakhkhara'l-baḥr — the sea |
| What follows the sentence | Wa baththa fīhā min kulli dābba — living creatures | Wa anhāran wa subulā — rivers and roads |
| How the block ends | Fa-arūnī mādhā khalaqa'lladhīna min dūnih — a challenge | Laʿallakum tahtadūn — finding one's way |
I record this as my own reading; its ground is how the two blocks close: Luqmān ties the mountains to a challenge — "what have you created?" al-Naḥl ties the same mountains to a sentence about finding one's way. The same fact is thus enumerated in the one as evidence, in the other as a possibility opened.
It must be recorded: in the ninth verse the word sabīl occurred in the sense of a bearing (wa ʿala'llāhi qaṣdu'l-sabīl). Here the same root comes back in the physical sense: subulā — roads.
And in both places the closing is tied to the same root: la-hadākum in the ninth verse, laʿallakum tahtadūn in the fifteenth, hum yahtadūn in the sixteenth. The root ه-د-ي occurs four times in three verses.
This is a repetition verifiable within the sūra, and I record this as my own reading: the sūra tells of finding one's way on two planes at once — finding the road across the earth, and finding the straight way. The two planes are named with the same root, and no boundary is set between them.
عَلَٰمَٰت — root ع-ل-م: to know. ʿAlāma — the mark by which a thing is known. That the word comes from the root of knowing is worth recording: a mark is not knowledge itself; it is what leads to knowledge.
The lexicographers dwell on what the ʿalāmāt are here: the mountains, stones, hills and stars that give bearing on a journey. No definite list is given, and I do not give one either.
وَبِٱلنَّجْمِ هُمْ يَهْتَدُونَ — and the wording shifts. The sentence passes into the third person: hum yahtadūn — "they find their way".
Yet the preceding verse was in the second person: laʿallakum tahtadūn — "that you might find your way."
I record this as an observation about the word order: the verse names the finding of one's way by the star not as something commanded of the addressee but as something actually done. What is recorded is that a possibility is in use.
And the word is singular: bi'l-najm. The lexicographers take it as a generic noun — not "by the star" but "by the stars". But another reason for its coming in the singular is transmitted: a pointing to one particular star used in finding direction. Both explanations are transmitted; I do not impose a preference.
And a ring closes with the twelfth verse: there the stars were named as musakhkharātun bi-amrih, and no qualification belonging to man was entered. Here that qualification comes. This is a completion verifiable within the sūra.