ভূমিকা

Commentary: The Day When All the Universe Will be Dissolved. As it was mentioned earlier, the Sura opens with a series of highly mystical metaphors, with some short, but shocking hints, suggesting the break-up of the world, as we know it, and then, after the end of this world, the Resurrection. On the whole, eight signs out of all the Great Events are mentioned here. First, it says: When the sun is folded up.

The term /kuwwirat/ is based on the word /takwir/ which, according to dictionaries and commentaries, originally means 'the act of folding up' and 'rolling or wrapping up something (like wrapping on a turban) ', and it is sometimes used with the sense of 'casting' and 'darkening', both of which seem to refer to the original meaning. In any case, it means, here, the folding up the light of the sun, and the darkening and shrinking of its body.

We now know that the sun is a globe, extremely hot and blazing, surrounded by intense burning gases whose flames shoot out hundreds of kilometers, so that if the Earth were put in one of the flames it would change to ash and gas at once. But, at the end of this world and at the threshold of the Hereafter this heat will end and the flames will be folded up, its light will be extinguished, and the sun itself will shrink. This is the meaning of the term /takwir/.

It is also a known fact, in modern science today, that the star; the sun, will darken gradually. And when the stars darken. The term /inkadarat/ is based on /inkidar/ which means 'to fall, or to scatter', and, it is derived from the root /kudurat/, meaning 'gloom and darkness'.