Surah Al-Buruj, The Great Constellations

Surah 85 · 22 verses · revealed at Mecca

Al-Buruj opens with an oath by the sky and its great constellations, and then tells the story of the makers of the ditch.

The account is short and terrible. A trench was dug and filled with fire, and people were thrown into it and burned for no reason other than that they believed in God, the Mighty, the Praiseworthy — while those who had ordered it sat at the edge and watched, witnesses to what they were doing to the believers. Early historians connected it with a persecution of Christians in the Yemen; the Qur'an does not name anyone.

The surah was revealed in Mecca while Muslims there were being tortured, and the point of telling it is plain. It does not promise that the believers in the ditch were rescued. They were not. What it says is who was watching, and that God is over everything a witness.

Its middle is a short line that has carried enormous weight since: that the grip of your Lord is severe. And beside it, in the same breath, that He is the Forgiving, the Loving.

It ends by saying that this is a glorious Qur'an, in a preserved tablet — one of the few places in the book that describes where the revelation is kept.

The Prophet is reported to have recited this surah in the evening prayers, and it is still commonly chosen for them. Its opening oaths — by the sky with its constellations, by the promised day, and by a witness and what is witnessed — are among the most discussed in the book, since the Qur'an leaves the witness unnamed.

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