In Surah An-Najm (53), Allah says “And that He is the Lord of Sirius (Ash-Shi‘rā)” (53:49), pointing to the brightest star known to the Arabs. Some researchers have observed that within the Arabic text of the Qur’an, the word “Ash-Shi‘rā (Sirius)” appears 861 letters away from the word referring to the earth, and remarkably, modern astronomy has measured the distance from Earth to Sirius as approximately 8.6 light-years (often cited as 8.611). From an Islamic perspective, this is viewed by many