Many commentators believe that they refer to the five planets...

Many commentators believe that they refer to the five planets: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and Mercury, which are visible with the naked eye. If we look to the sky over several nights in succession, we see that all of the stars gradually appear, but, they sit all together without having apparent change in the distance between them.

It looks like a piece of black cloth on which a great number of pearls have been sewn having defined spaces, and the cloth is pulled up from one side and taken down from another side depicting day and night. Only five planets are exceptions to this regulation. They move through the stars as if there were five unsewn pearls on the cloth that move freely among the others. On the one hand, the above mentioned five planets are the very ones which are among the family members of the solar system.

We see their movements, because they are close to us in comparison with the other stars in the sky; which also have similar movements, but we can not see this because of their very far distances. On the other hand, these planets seem to have no retrograde and forward motion; apparently looking like they move forward for a length of time, then, they return a little and, again, continue moving forward. The causes for this status are discussed in astronomy.

The above verses may point to the same matter; that these planets move forward: /aljawar/, and along their way, they, apparently, and at last, in the morning at dawn, hide away: /kunnas/ like the deer which move in the deserts to find food at night, but conceal themselves in their hiding places; kunas, in the day time, from beast of prey.

It is probable that the meaning of /kunnas/ is that, when rotating round the sun, the planets hide or disappear completely at a point behind the sun, or are otherwise invisible. Astronomers call this case /ihtiraq/ in the Arabic language. This is a delicate point which can be understood with careful attention. Some also believe that /konnas/ refers to the settlement of these planets in the Zodic which resemble the deer concealing themselves in their brush-homes.

It is obvious, of course, that the planets of the solar system are not limited to these five planets, but there are three more planets among them which are visible only by telescope and have been named Neptune, Uranus and Pluto. All of them, together with the Earth, form the nine planets of our solar system.