alt="" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="#fb3_img_img_aede6bf0-77e0-575e-b4f9-a9c610b7da82.jpg"/>n was regarded as a new, alien deity, distinct from the Allh that was already worshiped in Mecca: “And when it is said to them, ‘Prostrate to ar-Ramn,’ they say, ‘And what is ar-Ramn? Should we prostrate to that which you order us?’” In 17:110, the Qur’n clears up the confusion, clarifying that ar-Ramn and Allh are in fact the same being: “Call upon Allh or call upon ar-Ramn. Whichever you call, to him belong the best names.” Early in the Qur’n’s unfolding, Allh became the dominant name, appearing nearly three thousand times in the text, compared to fifty-seven appearances for ar-Ramn (not counting the Bismillhir Ramnir Ram in the superscriptions of sras).
Following the introductory Bismillh, the first numbered verse of the sra is a short Wa-l-najmi idh haw (“By the star when it falls”). Prior to making persuasive arguments, the Qur’n often attests to its own claims through oaths. The oath verses generally accompany issues of particular gravity, such as punishments in this world or the next. In 53:1, the oath is not by the star’s usefulness for human navigation, or its beauty as an adornment of heaven, or even the star itself; we are to look not at the light, but the dark. Our attention is called not to the star’s glory, but the moment at which it becomes absent. We are asked to consider the star’s lack. The Qur’n swears by the event of the star’s full exposure as impermanent and thus unworthy of worship.
If the oath by a star in 53:1 is part of the sra’s polemic against astral worship, it might be notable that although the peoples of pre-Islamic Arabia had names for hundreds of stars, the Qur’n mentions only one star specifically by its name: al-Shi’r (Sirius, Canis Majoris), the brightest fixed star (confession: The Qur’n itself does not explain that al-Shi’r is a specific star, or a star at all; as with everything else, the reference can have no meaning without outside sources). The mention occurs later in this sra (53:49), as the Qur’n asserts that Allh is “the lord of Sirius” (rabb al-Shi’r). It could be reasonable to see al-Shi’r as the star by which the Qur’n swears in 53:1, which would also connect the start of the s
