Commentary

وَالسَّمَاءِ ذَاتِ الْبُرُوجِ (I swear by the sky, the one having stellar formations....85:1) The word buruj is the plural of burj which means 'a large mansion or fortress'. The Qur'an says:

وَلَوْ كُنتُمْ فِي بُرُوجٍ مُّشَيَّدَةٍ

'...even though you are in fortified castles [ 4:78] '

Here the word buruj means 'castles'. The primitive sense of the word barj is to become manifest'. The word tabarruj means 'to display one's beauty' as in the verse:

وَلَا تَبَرَّجْنَ تَبَرُّجَ الْجَاهِلِيَّةِ الْأُولَىٰ

'...and do not display your beauty as it was previously displayed in the Time of Ignorance [ 33:33] '

According to the majority of commentators like Sayyidna Ibn ` Abbas, Mujahid, Dahhak, Hasan Al-Basri, Qatadah, Suddi ؓ and others, the word bur, in this verse, refers to 'giant stars'. Other commentators take the word bur, in this place, to refer to mansions and castles that are reserved in the sky for the guardian angels. Some of the later commentators chose the astronomical view in which the sky is divided into twelve parts, each one called a burj. The primitive philosophers believed that the thawabit (stationary) stars are fixed in these bur. The planets move with the movement of their particular sky and the planets descend in these bur. But this is absolutely incorrect. According to the Qur'an, Allah has not fixed the stars and planets in the skies. In fact, every star and planet has its own orbit and revolves by itself as in Surah YaSin:

وَكُلٌّ فِي فَلَكٍ يَسْبَحُونَ

'...And each one is floating in an orbit. [ 36:40] '

The word falak in this verse does not refer to the sky, but rather to the orbits of the stars and planets in which they move. [ Mazhari ]