1. Pre-Scientific Cosmology:
The verse uses mustaqarr ("resting place") to describe the sun's literal movement across the sky. Coupled with canonical commentary (Sahih Bukhari 4802)—where the sun travels beneath the divine Throne to prostrate every night—the text presents an ancient, flat-earth or geocentric framework unaware of planetary rotation.
2. Mistaking Planetary Motion:
Day and night result from the rotation of the Earth on its axis, not from the sun physically journeying to a daily nocturnal destination. Describing the sun as traveling to a physical "stopping point" reflects 7th-century visual perception rather than orbital mechanics.
In this verse, the Quran describes the physical motion of the sun, characterizing it as traveling along a track toward a finite, physical destination.
The Quran Verse
Surah 36:38:
And the sun runs toward its stopping point (mustaqarr). That is the determination of the Exalted in Might, the Knowing.
The text employs the word mustaqarr, which denotes a physical resting place, stable location, or a final turning point.
The Hadith Connection:
This verse is heavily illuminated by Sahih Bukhari 4802, where Muhammad explicitly tells Abu Dharr that the sun's "resting place" is beneath the divine Throne. He explains that every night, the sun travels until it prostrates under the Throne and asks permission to rise again from the East.
For the modern critic, this is an undeniable proof of a pre-scientific, geocentric cosmology. The text views the sun as a localized object physically moving across a dome-like sky to a specific resting spot at night, completely unaware of heliocentricity or the Earth’s rotation.