Answer: “Canopy” does not mean that the earth is flat and has a covering like a tent. That the earth is not flat is made clear by reading from verse 30 to 33: “Do not those who disbelieve see that the heavens and the earth were closed up, so We rent them …And We have made the heaven a guarded canopy…And He it is Who created the night and the day and the sun and the moon. All float in orbits.”
A “canopy” is something that protects from one element or another, and in this instance “canopy” is used in a figurative sense. Muhammad Ali comments: “Arabia had its spiritualists, the astrologers and the diviners who pretended to have access to the secrets of heaven; for a full explanation of which see 67:5. They are told that they cannot have any such access. Or, the meaning is that revelation from God (called here heaven) is guarded against all attacks.”
And Qur’an 67:5 says: “And certainly We have adorned this lower heaven with lamps and We make them means of conjec-tures for the devils, and We have prepared for them the chastise-ment of burning.” Again, Muhammad Ali:
“The lamps with which the lower heaven is lighted, i.e., the stars, are made the means of conjectures regarding the future by the astrologers. Rujum is the plural of rajm, and explaining it IAth says: “Rajm means conjectures about what Allah has not stated ” (N). And classing the munajjim, i.e., the astrologer, and the kahin, i.e., the diviner, and the sahir, i.e., the magician, as one, he goes on to say: “Thus he (i.e., the Prophet, whose saying is explained) considered the astrologer, who learns about stars so that he may judge thereby, and attributes to them the effect of good and evil, to be a disbeliever” (N). Explaining these very words, Raghib says: “And rajm is used metaphorically to signify conjectures and surmises” (R). LL also gives this significance of the verse on the authority of Bd and TA: “We have made them to be means of conjectures to the devils of mankind, i.e., to the astrologers”. Thus the astrologers, who deceived people by telling them many things which they posed as having learned from the stars, are referred to here.”
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