ٱلنَّجْمُ ٱلثَّاقِبُ
The answer has come. But the answer is itself not a definition; it is a second naming — exactly the method of Sūrat al-Qāriʿa: a question is asked, no definition is given, another name or a comparison is given instead.
- نَجْم (najm) — star. What is seen, what appears.
- نَجَمَ — it grew, it came up, it showed itself. It is used of a plant coming out of the soil as well.
- نَجْم in a second sense: a plant without a stem. The Qurʾān uses this sense: "The najm and the tree prostrate" (al-Raḥmān 55/6). According to the majority of the classical works of exegesis, the najm here is not the star in the sky but the stalkless plant that grows from the ground — because it is set against shajar (the tree with a trunk).
- نُجُوم / تَنْجِيم — instalment. The paying of a debt at intervals, at set times. The naming comes once again from "appearing": each time an instalment falls due, it comes and shows itself.
So the root is a thing's becoming visible when it was not there. The star took this name not because it flickers in the sky but because it appears in the darkness.
This sits directly in the context of the sūra. All through the sūra the coming to light of what is hidden will be treated: in verse 9 the sarāʾir (the hidden things) will be tested. The root of the very word that is the object of the oath likewise means "to become visible after being hidden".
Root: ث-ق-ب. Its original sense is to pierce, to open a hole, to take something through and bring it out the other side.
- ثُقْب (thuqb) — a hole.
- مِثْقَب (mithqab) — a drill, the tool for piercing.
- ثَاقِب (thāqib) — piercing, going right through. An active participle.
The root has a second field of use, and it is recorded in the lexicons: the brightness of fire. Thaqabati'l-nāru — the fire blazed, it shone; athqaba'l-nāra — he made the fire blaze. From this, thāqib is also used in the sense of "very bright".
The two senses are not cut off from one another. Bright light pierces the darkness. In English too the phrase "a light that pierces the darkness" comes naturally; Arabic has set that relation inside the word itself.
The same word occurs once more in the Qurʾān, within the same frame: "…a piercing flame (shihābun thāqib)" (al-Ṣāffāt 37/10). There too brightness and piercing go together.
There is also, in Arabic, raʾyun thāqib — "piercing judgement", an apt thought that works its way into the heart of a matter. The abstract use of the word comes from the same image.
Here one must be honest: the verse does not say which star it means. The views transmitted in the classical works of exegesis can be gathered as follows:
| View | Ground | Assessment |
|---|---|---|
| Stars as a genus; not a particular star | When al-najm comes with the article it can denote the genus in Arabic; "the light that appears at night" would then be meant generally | The easiest reading linguistically; it also fits the way the sūra moves |
| The constellation al-Thurayyā (the Pleiades) | When the Arabs said al-najm they most often meant al-Thurayyā; the word was used almost as a proper name for this constellation | It rests on linguistic usage; there is no indication of it in the verse |
| Zuḥal (Saturn) | A view transmitted from an early period; it is grounded in the height and brightness of the planet | One of the transmitted views; it carries no claim to certainty |
| Shooting stars / shihāb | The same word as shihābun thāqib in al-Ṣāffāt 37/10; a sudden and piercing appearance in the darkness of the night | The shared word is a strong point; but najm and shihāb are different words |
The majority of the classical exegetes incline to the first reading and record the others as "the most conspicuous example of this genus". I too do not impose a preference; whichever is chosen, the argument of the sūra does not change.
In modern religious writing this verse is often made the subject of a claim to a "scientific miracle": the sense "to strike" in the word ṭarq is put together with the sense "piercing" in thāqib, and it is said that the verse announces pulsars (neutron stars that emit a regular signal).
The method of this commentary does not accept readings of this kind, and the grounds must be written out plainly here:
First, the word does not say that. Ṭāriq in Arabic does not mean "emitting a signal"; it means one who comes by night. The "striking" sense of the word is tied, by way of knocking at a door, to arriving at night — not to a periodic oscillation.
Second, the first hearers did not understand this, nor were they expected to. To suppose that a text secretly carries a piece of information that meant nothing at all in the community it came down to destroys the text's character as address.
Third, this reading adds nothing to the verse; it takes something away. The business of the verse is not to describe a heavenly body; it is to say, by swearing by a light that appears in the darkness and pierces the darkness, that over man there is a watcher. The relation between the object of the oath and the answer to the oath lies exactly here. To reduce the star to an object of physics makes that relation invisible.
The reasonable link that can be drawn between the verse and the real world is this, and it stands in the verse itself: the darkness of the night is not absolute. Even on the blackest night there is a light that pierces it. This is an observation, not a discovery; and it bears directly on the rest of the sūra — because verse 9 will say that concealment is not absolute either.
By the one who comes by night, by the light that pierces the darkness: over every soul there is a watcher.
- The night — the time when a man supposes himself hidden.
- Al-ṭāriq — the one who comes in spite of that concealment.
- Al-thāqib — the one that pierces right through what is closed.
That is, the first three verses are the picture of the fourth. Being behind a closed door does not mean not being seen.