15وَلِلَّهِ يَسجُدُ مَن فِي السَّماواتِ وَالأَرضِ طَوعًا وَكَرهًا وَظِلالُهُم بِالغُدُوِّ وَالآصالِ ۩Muhammad AsadAnd before God, they prostrate themselves, willingly or unwillingly, all [things and beings] that are in the heavens and on earth,1 as do their shadows in the mornings and the evenings.2The expression yasjud ("prostrates himself" or "prostrate themselves") is a metonym for complete submission to His will (Zamakhshari), that is, to the natural laws decreed by Him with regard to everything that exists. According to most of the classical commentators, those who submit to God willingly (i.e., consciously) are the angels and the believers, whereas the deniers of the truth, who are "not willing" to submit to Him, are nevertheless, without being conscious of it, subject to His will. However, in view of the subsequent reference to "shadows" it is logical to assume that the relative pronoun man relates in this context not merely to conscious beings but also to all other physical objects, whether animate or inanimate - i.e., to "all things and beings that are in the heavens and on earth". (See also 16:48-49 and 22:18.)I.e., the varying lengths of the shadow projected by any material object depend on the position of the sun in relation to the earth; and since the earth's rotation around the sun is - as everything else in the universe - an outcome of God's creative will, the greater length of a shadow in the morning and evening and its contraction towards noon visibly expresses the shadow's subjection to Him.