The Quran

Preface

إِنَّ رَبَّكُمُ اللَّهُ الَّذي خَلَقَ السَّماواتِ وَالأَرضَ في سِتَّةِ أَيّامٍ ثُمَّ استَوىٰ عَلَى العَرشِ يُغشِي اللَّيلَ النَّهارَ يَطلُبُهُ حَثيثًا وَالشَّمسَ وَالقَمَرَ وَالنُّجومَ مُسَخَّراتٍ بِأَمرِهِ ۗ أَلا لَهُ الخَلقُ وَالأَمرُ ۗ تَبارَكَ اللَّهُ رَبُّ العالَمينَ

Yusuf Ali

Your Guardian-Lord is God, Who created the heavens and the earth¹ in six days, and is firmly established on the throne² (of authority): He draweth the night as a veil o?er the day, each seeking the other in rapid succession: He created the sun, the moon, and the stars, (all) governed by laws under His command. Is it not His to create and to govern? Blessed be God, the Cherisher and Sustainer of the worlds!

A sublime verse, comparable to the Throne Verse, 2:255. The Creation in six Days is of course metaphorical. In 45:14, the “Days of God” refer not so much to time as to the growth in us of a spiritual sense, a sense of sin and a sense of God’s Mercy. In 22:47, we are told that a Day in the sight of God is like a thousand years of our reckoning, and in 70:4, the comparison is with 50,000 of our years. In the history of our material earth, we may reckon six great epochs of evolution. The significance of the figure six will be discussed in connection with 41:9-12, where the matter is referred to in more detail.
Here, we are told of the creation of the Heavens and the Earth in six days.
But lest we should be obsessed with the Jewish idea that God rested on the seventh day, we are told that the Creation was but a prelude to God’s work: for His authority is exercised constantly by the laws which He establishes and enforces in all parts of His Creation. The beautiful imagery of night and day seeking out each other in rapid succession is still further enforced in the Arabic by the double accusative of the verb y yughshi, showing the mutual interactions of the day and the night, each covering the other in turn. The Heavenly bodies show an order which is evidence of His constant care and government. Not only that, but it is only He Who creates, maintains, and governs, and no one else. (R).