Surah Ya-Sin / Verse 39

From our point of view the moon appears to take on a different shape each night. It begins as a narrow crescent, grows brighter until it appears full, and then the visible brightness diminishes until a thin crescent appears again.

This regular cycle is what the verse describes as the moon's “stages” (manazil).

The comparison with “the old date stalk” (al-'urjun al-qadim) is a vivid image familiar from the natural world: the dry, curved stem of a date cluster, slender and bent like a crescent.

The moon itself does not change its physical shape every night. What changes is the portion of its illuminated surface that we see from Earth.

The familiar cycle displays an orderly feature of creation and enables people to keep track of months and the passage of time.