✦ AT A GLANCE ✦
الشمس
Ash-Shams
✦ Why this name
The Sun — ash-Shams, the first of eleven consecutive oaths.
✦ When it came
Meccan, early. Eleven oaths — the longest run of consecutive oaths in the Quran — building to a single statement about the self.
✦ The story
By the sun and its brightness. By the moon that follows it. By the day that displays it. By the night that covers it. By the sky and He who built it. By the earth and He who spread it. By the soul and He who proportioned it, *and inspired it with its wickedness and its righteousness.*
Eleven oaths, and then the point: *"He has succeeded who purifies it, and he has failed who buries it."*
Everything in creation is sworn by in order to say one thing about you: you already know right from wrong. It was put in you. The only question is whether you grow it or bury it.
Then Thamud, who hamstrung the she-camel — a warning that ends the surah abruptly, without softening.