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Chapter 91

The Sunal-Shams ( الشمس )

15 verses • revealed at Meccan

»The surah that opens with the oath of the Divine One swearing by The Sun as it shines out with morning’s radiance. It is named after “the sun” (al-shams), mentioned in verse 1. The central theme of the surah touch upon purifying or corrupting the soul, with the tribe of Thamūd given as an example of corruption.«

The surah is also known as Sol

بِسمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحمٰنِ الرَّحيمِ

Yusuf Ali: In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.

1
وَالشَّمسِ وَضُحاها

Yusuf Ali

This is one of the early Meccan revelations. Beginning with a fine nature passage, and leading up to man’s need of realising his spiritual responsibility, it ends with a warning of the terrible consequences for those who fear not the Hereafter.
C. 271 | [91:1-15] All nature around us and her pageants, and the soul of man within, proclaim the goodness of God. God gave the soul the power of choice and the sense of Right and Wrong. Let man keep it pure and attain Salvation,—soil it with sin and reach Perdition. Inordinate wrongdoing ruined the Thamūd. They defied God’s sacred Law and His Prophet, and went to Destruction for their crime.
By the Sun1 and his (glorious) splendour;
  • Six types are taken in three pairs, from God’s mighty works in nature, as tokens or evidence of God’s providence and the contrasts in His sublime creation, which yet conduce to cosmic harmony (verses 1-6). Then (verses 7-8) the soul of man, with internal order and proportion in its capacities and faculties, as made by God, is appealed to as having been endowed with the power of discriminating between right and wrong. Then the conclusion is stated in verses 9-10, that man’s success or failure, prosperity or bankruptcy, would depend upon his keeping that soul pure or his corrupting it.