#solutio

فَلَۤا أُقْسِمُ بِمَوَاقِعِ النُّجُومِۙ۝وَإِنَّهُ لَقَسَمٌ لَوْ تَعْلَمُونَ عَظ۪يمٌۙ۝ إِنَّهُ لَقُرْاٰنٌ كَر۪يمٌ

I swear by the locations of the stars (and their falling). It is indeed a very great oath, if you but knew. Most certainly it is a Qur’ān (recited) most honorable.

(Al-Wāqi‘ah 56:75–77)

Alas for humanity whose heart has been hardened and covered with rust! Almighty God, Who is the All-Knowing, knows this state of humanity and reveals His Message to them by a tremendous oath.

A human being should feel ashamed at this and shudder while reading the verses with this meaning and message. The Lord of humanity swears and speaks emphatically and repeatedly in order to awake man to the truth of the Qur’ān and make them believe that the Qur’ān is His most honorable Book or Message.

There are many such oaths throughout the Qur’ān. God Almighty swears by the sun, moon, stars, the heavens, and many other things. He swears by His bounties on the earth such as the olive and fig. Mount Sinai, day and night are also among the things by which God swears. There are many mysteries and instances of wisdom in all of these oaths.

In the initial verse of Sūratu’n-Najm (The Star), God Almighty swears by a star: 

“By the star when it rises or goes down (after its rise).” 

This oath is extraordinarily suited to the subject of the sūrah in which it is found and in which the Ascension of our Prophet is mentioned. From this perspective, it is possible that what is meant by the star is our Prophet himself, upon him be peace and blessings. Just like a star, he first rose from the created and ascended to the Creator and then returned from the Creator to the created again.

Indeed, without being confused and dazzled in the face of all the most exquisite scenes and beauties he was shown during the Ascension, Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, returned to this realm of formations and deformations (or creation and decline) so that he introduces the blessings and bounties bestowed on him to everyone else, taking us toward the horizons to which he traveled. 

For this reason, interpreting the star by which God swears in the verse as our Prophet is quite appropriate. In addition to his matchless virtues and excellencies, Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings, returned to creation with many new blessings with which he had been favored during his Ascension. Thus God swears by him in the name of the virtues and excellencies he possesses and the new blessings conferred on him during his Ascension. 

Just as, according to some interpreters of the Qur’ān, God mentions His noble Prophet with the Attributes particular to Him as “as-Samī‘” (the Hearing) and “al-Basīr” (the Seeing) in the verse, 

“Surely he is the one who hears and sees” (Al-Isrā’ 17:1), 

He also gives him the same value in the first verse of the Sūratu’n-Najm, in which He swears by him, saying: 

“By the star when it rises and goes down (after its rise),”