76 Preface فَلَمّا جَنَّ عَلَيهِ اللَّيلُ رَأىٰ كَوكَبًا ۖ قالَ هٰذا رَبّي ۖ فَلَمّا أَفَلَ قالَ لا أُحِبُّ الآفِلينَYusuf AliWhen the night covered him over, He saw a star: He said: “This is my Lord.” But when it set, He said: “I love not those that set.”1This shows the stages of Abraham’s spiritual enlightenment It should not be supposed that he literally worshipped stars or heavenly bodies. Having seen through the folly of ancestral idol worship, he began to see the futility of worshipping distant beautiful things that shine, which the vulgar endue with a power which does not reside in them. A type of such is a star shining in the darkness of the night. Superstition might read fortunes in it, but truer knowledge shows that it rises and sets according to laws whose author is God. And its light is extinguished in the broader light of day. Its worship is therefore futile. It is not a Power, much less the Supreme Power. According to some commentators the whole thrust of Abraham’s reasoning in verses 76-78 is directed against the superstitious beliefs of his people and demonstrates the folly of worshipping stars and other heavenly bodies. As such his statements may be seen as premises of his arguments against Polytheism rather than as stages in his spiritual enlightenment. (R).