and Self-Subsistent One rolled out the dough and placed each of the planets in its position; leaving the sun where it was and bringing the earth here, He spread earth over the globe of the earth and sprinkled it with rain from the skies, scattered light over it from the sun, and inhabited it placing us on it. The philosopher would pull his head out of the swamp of nature, and declare: “I believe in God, the One, the Unique!”

And another example:

And the sun runs its course to a place appointed.(36:38)

The Lām, translated here as ‘to’ also expresses the meaning of ‘in’. Thus, ordinary believers see it as meaning ‘to’ and understand that the sun, which is a mobile lamp providing light and heat for them, will certainly conclude its journeying and reach its place of rest, then take on a form which will no longer be beneficial. Pondering over the great bounties the All-Glorious Creator has attached to the sun, they declare: “Glory be to God! All praise and thanks be to God!”

A learned scholar would also ascribe the Lām the meaning of ‘to’, but he would think of it not only as a lamp, but also as a shuttle weaving the Sustainer’s tapestries on the loom of spring and summer, as an ink-pot whose ink is light for the Eternally Besought One’s letters written on the pages of night and day. Thinking of the order and regularity of the world, of which the apparent movement of the sun is a sign and to which it points, he would exclaim before His wisdom: “What wonders God has willed!”, and declare before the All-Wise Maker’s art: “How great are His blessings!”, and he would bow in prostration.

A geographer and philosopher would explain the Lām as meaning ‘in’, like this: the sun orders and propels the solar system at the divine command and with a spring-like motion on its own axis. Exclaiming in wonder and amazement before the All-Glorious Maker Who thus creates and sets in order this mighty clock: “All mightiness is God’s and all power!”, he would cast away philosophy and embrace the wisdom of the Qur’an.

A precise scholar would consider this Lām as both causal and adverbial, and would explain it like this: “Since the All-Wise Maker has made apparent causes a veil to His works, through a divine law of His called gravity, He has tied the planets to the sun like stones in a sling and causes them to revolve with different but regular motions within the sphere of His wisdom; and He has made the sun’s spinning on its own axis an apparent cause giving rise to the gravity. That is, the meaning of ‘(to) a place appointed’(36:38), is it is in motion in its own appointed place for the stability of the solar system. For it is a divine rule, a dominical law like motion apparently giving rise to heat, and heat giving rise to force, and force