al-Maʿārij 70:4

Taʿruju'l-malāʾikatu wa'r-rūḥu ilayhi fī yawmin kāna miqdāruhū khamsīna alfa sana "The angels and the Spirit ascend to Him in a day whose measure is fifty thousand years."

The verb is from the same root as maʿārij in the preceding verse. So the sūra first names the road (3), then shows those who travel it (4).

The verb is imperfect: it conveys continuity and renewal. Not a single event but a continuing movement.

This pair occurs in several places in the Qurʾān, and its best-known occurrence is in Sūrat al-Qadr:

The same two subjects, two opposite verbs, two different measures.

This verse was treated in the section on al-Qadr; I do not repeat it here. But the picture the two sūras build together should be recorded: the Qurʾān says that the same beings both descend and ascend. That is, the movement between sky and earth is two-way; and the measure of both directions has been given.

And both measures are measures of time, but they work in opposite directions: in al-Qadr a single night is counted as longer than a thousand months (a short span, a great value); in al-Maʿārij a single day is counted as fifty thousand years (a long span, a great distance).

I record this as a reading drawn from the comparison of the two sūras. The wordings of the two verses are data that can be verified.

Who is ٱلرُّوح? It is disputed, and this disagreement was recorded in the section on al-Qadr as well. The classical views: Gabriel; a great being distinct from the angels; or a class of angels. I express no preference; the Qurʾān gives no definition.

The grammatical datum that must be recorded is this: wa'r-rūḥ comes by conjunction, that is, it is mentioned separately from the angels. In Arabic, singling out one member of a class for separate mention (ʿaṭf al-khāṣṣ ʿalā'l-ʿāmm) is done in order to bring that member forward. So the Spirit, even if not outside the angels, occupies a position that calls for separate mention.

The pronoun refers to God. And the particle ilā conveys a destination.

One qualification is needed, and it is commonly set down in the classical sources: this expression does not convey place. The ascent describes the movement of the angels; the place arrived at is not a place where God is but the centre of command and decree. The distinction between tafwīḍ and taʾwīl recorded in the section on al-Fajr 89/22 ("your Lord comes") holds here too, and I do not repeat that discussion. The shared principle is al-Shūrā 42/11: "There is nothing like Him."

This is the most discussed expression in the sūra.

مِقْدَار — Root: ق-د-ر. This root was treated in detail in the section on al-Fajr 89/16 (three families of meaning: power/capacity, measure/determination, straitening) and was also taken up in the section on Sūrat al-Qadr. I do not repeat it.

Miqdār is on the mifʿāl pattern and conveys an instrument of measurement or the quantity measured. So the verse does not say "that day is fifty thousand years"; it says "the measure of that day is fifty thousand years". It passes through the act of measuring.

Let us first set out the other measures within the Qurʾān, because the matter is discussed not on this verse alone but in a threefold comparison:

The principal explanations of the classical exegetes concerning this trio:

One qualification about the last item: reports to this effect do exist in the sources and are widely transmitted. I do not give the wording of the report or its source here, because I cannot rule with certainty on its soundness or its variants. I confine myself to recording that the idea is found in the sources.

The fourth explanation is, in terms of language, the reading that requires the fewest assumptions, and it is supported by the Qurʾān's own usage. As recorded in the section on al-Ḥāqqa, when the Qurʾān says "even if you ask forgiveness for them seventy times" (al-Tawba 9/80) it is not giving an exact count. In Arabic certain large numbers convey multitude.

But I do not impose a preference. None of the explanations runs against the wording of the text, and I can see no decisive evidence requiring a choice among them.

Per the method (Method) I state this plainly: I do not proceed from this verse to the theory of relativity, to the relativity of time, or to any claim of modern physics.

Such connections are frequently drawn in the popular literature. The reason for not drawing them is this:

One. The verse states not a proposition of physics but a measure. The expression "a day being equivalent to fifty thousand years" is an ordinary formula used in Arabic and in many other languages to convey the weight of an experience of time. To read that formula as a physical equation is to take the text outside its own language.

Two. The principle set down in Method is this: "No modern piece of knowledge is forced onto a verse." And in the section on al-Ṭāriq, claims about embryology and astronomy were rejected on the same ground; in the section on al-Fajr the same qualification was set down for claims about archaeology.

Three. When such a link is made, the truth of the text becomes tied to the fate of the link. As recorded in the section on al-Fajr: "to tie the truth of a text to an excavation report is to tie the text to the fate of that report." The same holds for a theory of physics.

What the verse says is plain and is already enough: man's measure of time and the measure of time of this event are not the same. That is the subject of the next three verses.

And now the real question: why is this verse here?

In the first verse someone asked "when?". The fourth verse gives a time — but not a time of the kind he asked for.

The man wanted a date. The verse gave a unit of measurement.

And this overturns the assumption on which the question rested: the man was calculating with his own measure of time ("we have waited this long, and it has not come"). The verse says that the unit in which the calculation is made is wrong.

I record this as my own reading. Its ground is that the question in the first verse is a question about time and that the fourth verse gives a measure of time.