Ali Quli Qarai, The Qur’ān with a Phrase-by-Phrase English Translation (2005)
Then where do you stray?
96 Splitter of the dawn,
He has made the night for rest,
and the sun and the moon for calculation.1
That is the ordaining of the All-mighty,
the All-knowing.
97 It is He who made the stars for you,
so that you may be guided by them
in the darkness of land and sea.
We have certainly elaborated the signs
for a people who have knowledge.
98 It is He who created you
from a single soul,
then there is the [enduring] abode
and the place of temporary lodging.2
We have certainly elaborated the signs
for a people who understand.
99 It is He who sends down water from the sky,
and brings forth with it every kind of growing thing.
Then from it We bring forth vegetation
from which We produce the grain, in clusters,
and from the palm-tree, from the spathes of it,
low-hanging clusters [of dates],
and gardens of grapes, olives
1 That is, of time: days, months and years.
1 The terms mustaqarr and mustawda‘ (alternatively read as mustaqirr and mustawdi‘) have been interpreted variously. According to one interpretation, they refer to the mother’s womb (raḥm) and the father’s loins (ṣulb) respectively. ‘Ayyāshī cites several traditions under this verse from the Imams Muḥammad al-Bāqir, Ja‘far al-Ṣādiq, Mūsā al-Kāẓim and ‘Alī al-Hādī, which interpret mustaqarr (or mustaqirr) as the heart of someone whose faith is constant and permanent, and mustawda‘ as that of one whose faith is temporary, passing away at or before death. (Cf. al-Tafsīr al-Burhān and al-Tafsīr al-Ṣāfī)
