Does the Quran say that the sun and the moon will unite?

The Details of the Question

- Will the sun expand and swallow the moon or will there be a solar eclipse in the end times?
“The Quran says that the sun and the moon will unite.”

The Answer

Dear Brother / Sister,

The meaning of the verses in question is as follows:

“At length, when the sight is dazed, And the moon is buried in darkness. And the sun and moon are joined together,- That Day will Man say: ‘Where is the refuge?’” (al-Qiıyamah, 75/7-10)

Three points mentioned in the verses above are important:

The first one: “The eyes watching the scene in amazement due to the horror of the Doomsday.”

As it is known, Doomsday will not strike all at once. There is a process for it. Therefore, the eyes that see the process of Doomsday will be horrified.

The second one: “The complete disappearance of the moonlight.”

As long as the life of the Moon, which receives its light from the Sun, continues, the Moon is deprived of this light for a while with the intervention of the earth and it is called “lunar eclipse”. What is described in the verses is an infinite eclipse / extinction in which the Moon can never get the sunlight again.

The third one: It is the case of “the of the Sun and the Moon being joined together”.

According to our research - as far as we can see - there is nothing that modern science has determined definitely regarding the issue. Besides, we could not find any statement showing that contemporary tafsir scholars reached a definite conclusion regarding the issue.

The following can be checked as an example from more than ten old and new sources of tafsir -which we examined. (Razi, Mawardi, Biqai, Ibn Kathir, Ibn Ashur, Sharawi, Tantawi, Maraghi, the interpretation of the verses in question)

One of the strong possibilities we saw in the sources is that “the Sun, which will lose its light, heat and attraction due to the deterioration of the system, and the Moon, which will deviate from its orbit due to the lack of attraction, will come together - as dim/dark masses - and the Moon will rise from the west, being swallowed by the Sun”. (see Ibn Ashur, Maraghi, the interpretation of the verses in question)

It is stated that the interpretation above was made by Abdullah b. Masud. (see Maraghi, the interpretation of the verses in question)

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