Transliteration:( Fakaana qaaba qawsaini aw adnaa )
11. Here, the purpose is to show the extreme closeness between the Holy Prophet ? and the Light of Allah Almighty. When Arabs intended showing extreme closeness, they would use the expression of distance of the two ends of the bow, or two hands. The Sufi saints say when one desires to take a person in the embrace of love, they use the two hands as two ends of the bow and make an orbit in which the beloved is embraced. This means the mercy of Allah Almighty took His Beloved Messenger and embraced him in such a way like how a lover embraces his beloved, or how the circle locks the centre in its clasp. It should be remembered that the joining of the two bows forms a circle. At that point in time, the scene constituted of the Mercy of Allah Almighty in all four directions, and the Light of Allah were in the centre and the Holy Prophet .
The tafsir of Surah Tur verse 9 by Ibn Kathir is unavailable here.
Please refer to Surah Tur ayat 5 which provides the complete commentary from verse 5 through 18.
(53:9) until he was two bows’ length away, or nearer.[8]
8. That is, After appearing on the uppermost edge of the sky, Gabriel started advancing towards the Prophet (peace be upon him) till he reached and hung suspended about him in mid air. Then he bent down to him and came within just two bow-lengths or even closer. The commentators generally have taken qaba-qausain in the meaning of two bow-lengths, but Abdullah bin Abbas and Abdullah bin Masud have taken qaus in the meaning of a dhira (an armlength, cubit), and have interpreted the words kama qaba qausain, saying that the distance between them was reduced to only two arm-lengths. And since all bows are not equal in length, the approximate distance has been expressed by two bow-lengths away or even closer.
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