Is the Sun showing the day or vice versa?
What the Holy Quran says?
The relationship between the Sun and the concept of the day is a fascinating interplay of astrophysical phenomena and human perception. At its core, the Sun does not "show" the day; rather, the presence of daylight is a result of the Earth rotating on its axis, exposing different parts of its surface to the Sun's light over a 24-hour cycle. This rotation leads to the natural division of time into day and night, with the day being the period when a particular part of the Earth is facing towards the Sun, receiving its light and warmth.
The concept of "day" is thus intrinsically linked to the Sun's presence in the sky, but it's the Earth's rotation that dictates the cycle of day and night, not the Sun itself. More important it is the atmosphere that show the day light and not the sun per se. From a human perspective, the Sun appears to rise in the east and set in the west, marking the beginning and end of what we consider a day. This daily cycle has been central to human life, influencing everything from the structure of our societies to the creation of calendars and timekeeping systems.
In essence, the day is a manifestation of the Earth's rotation, illuminated by the Sun and shown by the earth atmosphere.
The relationship between the day and the sun will be discussed here, and we will see the fascinating says about this from the Holy Quran.
The day is mentioned 57 times in the Quran, while the night is mentioned 95 times, and the two are mentioned together 24 times, and in all the times they mentioned together, the night is the one that precedes, and the day is subordinate to it.
The Almighty said:
He who created the night and the day, the sun and the moon, each in its own sphere, and they all swim in an ark (Al-Anbiya, 33)
This means that both night and day were created as the sun was created, and the moon was created.
If we look at Surat al-Shams, we will find that Allah Almighty started it by swearing by the sun, then by its noon, then by the moon, day and night, and the other sections, as in the following verses of Surat al-Shams:
And the sun and its noon (1) and the moon when it follows it (2) and the day when it appears (3) and the night when it covers it (4) and the sky and what it builds (5) and the earth and what it mills (6) and the soul and what it equates (7).
We note that the pronoun (ha) ها in Arabic in this surah refers to the sun, including the day, as it makes it clear. The word Jalaha جلاها means to show and reveal it, i.e., the daytime has shown and revealed the sun, not the darkness as interpreted by some commentators.
It is the day that shows the sun and not the other way around.
How, then, does the day show the sun and its light, i.e. (how does the day show and reflect the sun?)
This is what we will try to shed light on from the Quran itself and scientific data.
First of all, we must understand that the sun is a factor in the manifestation of the day, but the day was created with specifications that manifest the appearance of the sun that we are used to, and without these daylight factors in the creation of the day, the sun's disk would become dull and white, and there would be no daylight as we are used to, and we would be closer to darkness than to daylight.
Night is mentioned before day because night is the default in the universe, and if we were to rise to 200 kilometers above the earth's surface, the day would completely disappear while we are at the height of the day, and night (darkness) would dominate existence.
This happens because daylight on Earth occurs because of the reflections and scattering of sunlight on the atoms of water, dust, and other molecules in the Earth's atmosphere factors, as the Quran mentioned (created the day).
If it were not for this reflection and scattering of light, the sun would not appear as we see it, and it would be just a white disk like the one that appears from the surface of the moon, and this is the meaning of the word (Jalaha), which means that the day shows and reveals the sun, and here the pronoun returns to the sun. The word “Jalalah” means to show and reveal, as in the verse:
They ask you about the Hour, when will it be sent, Say: ‘Indeed, its knowledge is with my Lord, and He will not make it manifest for its time except by Him’ (187 Al-A'raf)
The Holy Quran has mentioned the day as the one that is manifested by its light and its characteristics, not only in the sun, by saying: Almighty God:
And the day, when it is made manifest.
That is, daylight if it manifests itself on Earth with the characteristics that God created it with, including the reflections and scattering of sunlight by water and dust particles in the lower layers of the Earth's atmosphere.
In the absence of light scattering by molecules in the atmosphere, there will be no blue sky, but black, and the stars will appear as dots only, and even the seas and oceans appear black, and even traffic lights will not work because we see red and blue light and the rest of the color spectrum by light scattering, without it, the dominant colors will be black and white.
The Qur'an emphasizes that night is predominant. As for the day, it is what happens due to reflection and scattering or light elongation in the earth's lower atmosphere, and it represents only a simple crust estimated at 200 km from the surface of the earth, as if it had been flayed:
And a sign for them is the night from which we take away the day, and behold, they are in darkness (37 Yasen).
The Earth is surrounded by cosmic darkness and daylight is observed as a thin layer 200 kilometers from the Earth's surface (between the two arrows) as if it had been flayed
This is how the sun looks from the moon because it does not have the elements of daylight, and so it would be on Earth if God had not created daylight and its elements, and the two dominant colors are black and white
If we ascend to more than 200 kilometers above the earth's surface, we will see the sun covered by darkness, just as the Almighty said:
And the night when it falls.
This is how the sun appears from outside the earth's atmosphere as a white disk covered by night on all sides:
And the night when it falls
The word (jalaha) means to reveal, to show, to reveal something, to reveal it little by little, and so the day brings out the sun, revealing it to a beautiful day.
The daytime sun on Earth is gradual light with bright sun surrounded by nicely blue sky. Without the day time factors (created as the Quran said) such as the atmosphere and other particles, the color would be black and white like the sun on the moon sky a white disk surrounded by darkness.
What gives the sky its comfortable blue color to the eye is the earth's atmosphere, which contains molecules and air, so the tropicalization is formed and the day and the color of the sky are born.
As soon as we rise to the stratosphere, we become in darkness, although the earth is below us in the middle of the day, and as soon as we descend to the lower layers of the atmosphere, the day and the sun are revealed to us, as in the pictures taken by the owner of the highest jump from space, Felix Baumgartner, from a balloon at an altitude of 37 km and a speed of 1357 km per hour downwards.
A post-jump image from a camera on the helmet shows the dark sky surrounding the jumper because he is still above the Earth's atmosphere, while on the ground there is daylight formed by the thin blue layer, which is the Earth's atmosphere that reflects the day and the sun.
After descending into the Earth's atmosphere, the darkness ends and the blue sky and the sun are revealed.
As it is daylight that makes the sun appear in the Earth's atmosphere, the jumper's helmet is now inside the Earth's atmosphere.
These scientific facts became known to man recently and not at the time of the revelation of the Quran more than 1400 years ago. This indicates that Allah who created the day and make it to manifest the sun on earth is the one who revealed the Holy Quran.
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