70. “The night for ... repose”: There are levels and kinds of rest and repose. Common people find repose in sleep. The devoted on the other hand find repose in deeds of the night (dhikr, qira’ah, ruku` and sujud: Au.). At the highest level are the lovers. Their repose is tethered to the acts of the heart (Alusi in Isharat, and Thanwi in his Suluk).

With due respect to the above, one might draw attention to the fact that the “acts of the heart” seem to be acts that are conducted parallel to the acts of the body. Allah said about the Prophet and his earliest Companions (73: 20), “Surely, your Lord knows that you stand up (praying) nearly two-thirds of the night, or its half, or its one-third, and a group of believers is with you...” making no mention of the final and higher stage of the acts of the heart, which can come only along with the physical devotions, and never without them (Au).

71. Or, alternatively, that which enables to see (Au.).

72. The familiar loses its significance. Yusuf Ali reminds us of the bounties that remain unheeded because of the familiarity: “The succession of Day and Night in our physical life is frequently appealed to, as a symbol to draw our attention to the Mercy and Bounty of Allah. If we viewed these things aright, we should serve Allah and seek Light from Him and Rest from Him, and celebrate His praises with gratitude.”

73. Allah’s fashioning is of such order that further improvement is ruled out and unattainable. No artist can make a figure more beautiful than the human face through the juggling of the organs on the face (Au.).

74. In comparison with any other creation, including the Jinn, humankind consume the best of foods (Au.).

75. “The argument in the last two verses was from man’s personal experiences of his physical life. In this and the next verse a parallel argument is addressed to man on a much higher plane: Look at the spacious earth and the canopy of the sky; look at the special position you occupy above other animals that you know, in shape and form, and moral and spiritual capacities; consider your refinements in food and fruits and the higher spiritual Sustenance of which your physical food is a type; would you not indeed say that the Lord is good, and would you not glorify His holy name?’” (Yusuf Ali).

76. Ibn Jarir, Zamakhshari and Ibn Kathir note that since declaration of Allah’s Oneness is followed by His praise, Ibn `Abbas and Sa`id b. Jubayr have been reported as having said, “Whoever said, let him follow up with, This is based on Allah’s words as here.

The above report is in Ibn Marduwayah, Bayhaqi (in his Al-Asma’ wa al-Sifat), and Hakim, who declared it as coming to us through trustworthy narrators (Shawkani).

77. The allusion could either be to death or Resurrection (Alusi and others).

78. This, according to latter day scholars, is an allegorical depiction of the powers of Allah, in time and space, and not necessarily to say that this is how things normally happen (Alusi), but rather Allah chooses to create as He will, when He will, and as fast as He will (Au.).

The above said, the ayah speaking about instant execution of His command, gives, at this point, as referenced to life and death, an instant example of how fast Allah’s biddings are executed: an infant comes to life in the womb in an instant, and a man dies off in a microsecond. Indeed, the universe itself seems to have come into existence in an instant: “When He decrees an affair He but says to it, ‘Be,’ and it is” (Au.).