al-Takwīr 81:1

Idhā'sh-shamsu kuwwirat "When the sun is rolled up."

Root: ك-و-ر. The concrete sense: to wind something round upon itself, to wrap it, to roll it up.

The commonest concrete use of the word is seen with the turban: كَوْر العمامة — one winding of the turban, each single turn wound about the head. Kāra'l-ʿimāmata ʿalā raʾsihī — he wound the turban about his head.

Other uses:

• كَارَة (kāra) — a bundle, a pack; a cloth in which things are wrapped up and gathered together.
• كَوَّرَهُ فَٱنْكَارَ — he rolled it up and flung it, and away it rolled.

Two movements thus stand together beneath the root: to wind and to gather up and set aside.

This root occurs in one other place in the Qurʾān, and there its sense is too clear to leave room for dispute:

يُكَوِّرُ ٱلَّيْلَ عَلَى ٱلنَّهَارِ وَيُكَوِّرُ ٱلنَّهَارَ عَلَى ٱلَّيْلِ "He winds the night upon the day, and He winds the day upon the night." (al-Zumar 39/5)

The same verb, the same form. And what is described there is plain: one thing being wound upon another. The night is wound over the day like a turban; then the reverse.

This fixes the sense of al-Takwīr 81/1. The sun is not exploded, not shattered, not put out — it is wound and rolled up. Its light is gathered in upon itself, the way a turban is wound.

In some modern writings the claim is advanced, on the strength of the word takwīr, that "the Qurʾān is announcing that the sun is a sphere". This claim is linguistically baseless, and it needs to be stated plainly:

• The word كُرَة (sphere, ball) is from the root ك-ر-و / ك-ر-ي; it is not the same root as ك-و-ر. The order of the letters differs, and in Arabic the order of the letters determines the root.
• The verb of the verse conveys not a shape but an operation: being rolled up.
• The usage in al-Zumar 39/5 shows that the word is the name of a movement, not of a shape.

Per the method (Method), claims of this kind are not made in this commentary. What the verse says is strong enough as it stands; it has no need of anything added to it.

And here is the real point.

The most expected way of recounting the Resurrection would be explosion, collision, breakage. The sūra does not choose it. The first verb it chooses is a verb of putting in order: the rolling up of a cloth, the winding of a turban, the tying of a bundle.

The Qurʾān uses this register elsewhere too:

"On that Day We shall roll up the sky as the pages of a book are rolled up." (al-Anbiyāʾ 21/104)

There too there is the verb ṭayy (to roll up) and the comparison with a register. The universe is handled like a cloth or a written scroll: unrolled, used, and rolled up when its work is done.

The idea this image carries is this: what is rolled up is not annihilated; it is put away. A cloth that is rolled up does not cease to exist, it goes out of use. The first word of the sūra pictures the end of the universe not as a destruction but as a closing.

The tenth verse: وَإِذَا ٱلصُّحُفُ نُشِرَتْ — "When the pages are spread open."

Nashr is the exact opposite of ṭayy (rolling up): to spread open what has been rolled up.

This is the central image of the sūra:

What is open closes, what is closed opens. The universe is rolled up, the file is opened. These are the two directions of a single movement, and the whole architecture of the sūra is built upon it.

And the link with ʿAbasa: in ʿAbasa 80/22 the word used for the raising of the dead was أَنشَرَهُ — the same root. In the Qurʾān's lexicon, then, the raising of a dead man and the opening of the register are one and the same verb: to spread open what has been rolled up. The two sūras use this root so that each completes the other.

Root ش-م-س. Why does the sūra begin with the sun?

Because the sun is the most unchanging thing a human being knows. The measure of time, the measure of direction, the source of life. A society's calendar, its sowing season, the times of prayer, the planning of a journey — all of them depend on it.

The list of dismantlings begins with the one whose dismantling looks most impossible. And it goes on: the stars (the means of finding one's direction at night), the mountains (the fixed points of the earth). In three verses every fixed point a human being has is gone.