When I was a kid, I used to wait outside for the bus at 6 in the morning in the winter, the sun was about an hour away from rising, leaving stars strewn across the sky, serene and beautiful. To kill time, I’d trace out the few constellations visible in the sky. The reason I bring this up?

For how pretty the sky appeared to me:

taken July 2018, at a open house

It’s nothing compared to what the sky looks like in its full glory:

Photo by Deborah Lee Soltesz, May 2017. Credit: Coconino National Forest, U.S. Forest Service

When living in the city, it’s easy to forget how the sky is supposed to look. In fact, in 1994, LA had a power outage, which meant many residents saw the sky for the first time at four in the morning. Conservatories received many calls that night from freaked-out residents. It is nothing short of a tragedy that Allah’s beautiful canvas lies buried under the haze of light, to the point that most of us don’t realize what it is supposed to look like.

When we see verses in the Qur’an referencing the sky and the constellations, for the purpose of reflection, here are a few:

“Have they not then looked at the sky above them: how We built it and adorned it ˹with stars˺, leaving it flawless?” -50:6 The intricate perfection of the sky is one of the ways Al-Khaaliq’s precision and power are visible; something holding this much beauty could not have originated from random chance.

“By the sky full of constellations. And the promised Day ˹of Judgment˺,” -85:1-85:2 Look up at the sky again, the little we can see is held up without pillars, that will not last: on the Day of Judgement that sky will fall flattening the earth for us to wait for our deeds to be measured.

“Also, by landmarks and stars do people find their way.” – 16:16 Al-Hadi (The guide), made this dunya easy to navigate out of his mercy, before there was Map Quest and other apps aiming to make getting from point A to point B easy, there were compasses and spoken directions. Those before us struggled to travel even a small distance, and having the stars to help navigate likely saved thousands of lives.

Without seeing the sky in its true form, these are still very striking and contain many imperative lessons for the believer, but before seeing the difference between our American cities and places humanity hasn’t gotten its hands on yet, what image did these ayahs inspire?