49وَأَنَّهُ هُوَ رَبُّ الشِّعرىٰMuhammad Asadand that it is He alone who sustains the brightest star;1Lit., "who is the Sustainer of Sirius (ash-shi'ra)", a star of the first magnitude, belonging to the constellation Canis Major. Because it is the brightest star in the heavens, it was widely worshipped in pre-Islamic Arabia. Idiomatically, the phrase rabb ash-shi'ra is used as a metonym for the Creator and Upholder of the universe.