The Moving Shadow in the Quran: Al-Furqan 45 and the Science of Light
Among the signs of Allah’s power and mercy embedded in the Quran is His description of the shadow — its movement, its purpose, and His absolute authority over it.
The Verse
“Have you not seen how your Lord extended the shadow? If He had willed, He could have made it stationary. Then We made the sun its guide.”
Tafsir of Sheikh Tantawi — Al-Tafsir al-Wasit
On “if He had willed, He could have made it stationary”: This is an interpolated clause to clarify one aspect of His power, the Most High. That is: if He had willed — Glory be to Him — He would have made this shadow still — fixed, always stable, in one state, such that the sun would not remove it, nor would it disappear from the face of the earth. But He — Glory be to Him — did not will that, because the interest and benefit of His creation is in its existence in the manner in which He created it according to His wisdom.
Related:
The verse affirms two realities simultaneously: that the shadow’s movement is not accidental but divinely sustained, tied to the earth’s movement relative to the sun — and that Allah’s power over it is absolute, for He could fix it at will. Its movement is mercy; its potential stillness is proof of sovereignty.