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The Qur'an is full of reflections on the Heavens. In
the preceding chapter on the Creation, we saw how the
plurality of the Heavens and Earths was referred to, as
well as what the Qur'an calls an intermediary creation
'between the Heavens and the Earth', modern science has
verified the latter. The verses referring to the Creation
already contain a broad idea of what is to be found in
the heavens, i.e. of everything outside the earth.
Apart from the verses that specifically describe the
Creation, there are roughly another forty verses in the
Qur'an which provide information on astronomy
complementing what has already been given. Some of them
are not much more than reflections on the glory of the
Creator, the Organizer of all the stellar and planetary
systems. These we know to be arranged according to
balancing positions whose stability Newton explained in
his law of the mutual attraction of bodies.
The first verses to be quoted here hardly furnish much
material for scientific analysis: the aim is simply to
draw attention to God's Omnipotence. They must be
mentioned however to give a realistic idea of the way the
Qur'anic text described the organization of the Universe
fourteen centuries ago.
These references constitute a new fact of divine
Revelation. The organization of the world is treated in
neither the Gospels nor the Old Testament (except for a
few notions whose general inaccuracy we have already seen
in the Biblical description of the Creation). The Qur'an
however deals with this subject in depth. What it
describes is important, but so is what it does not
contain. It does not in fact provide an account of the
theories prevalent at the time of the Revelation
that deal with the organization of the celestial world,
theories that science was later to show were inaccurate.
An example of this will be given later. This negative
consideration must however be pointed out. [ I have often heard those who go to great lengths
to find a human explanation-and no other-to all the
problems raised by the Qur'an Bay the following: "if
the Book contains surprising statements on astronomy, it
is because the Arabs were very knowledgeable on this
subject." In so doing they forget the fact that, in
general, science in Islamic countries is very much
post-Qur'an, and that the scientific knowledge of this
great period would in any case not have been sufficient
for a human being to write some of the verses to be found
in the Qur'an. This will be shown in the following
paragraphs.]
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--sura 50, verse 6. The subject is man in general.
"Do they not look at the sky above them, how We have
built it and adorned it, and there are no rifts in
it."
--sura 31, verse 10:
"(God) created the heavens without any pillars that
you can see..."
--sura 13, verse 2:
"God is the One Who raised the heavens without any
pillars that you can see, then He firmly established
Himself on the throne and He subjected the sun and moon .
. ."
These two verses refute the belief that the vault of
the heavens was held up by pillars, the only things
preventing the former from crushing the earth.
--sura 55, verse 7:
"the sky (God) raised it . . ."
--sura 22, verse 65:
"(God) holds back the sky from falling on the earth
unless by His leave . . ."
It is known how the remoteness of celestial masses at
great distance and in proportion to the magnitude of
their mass itself constitutes the foundation of their
equilibrium. The more remote the masses are, the weaker
the force is that attracts one to the other. The nearer
they are, the stronger the attraction is that one has to
the other: this is true for the Moon, which is near to
the Earth (astronomically speaking) and exercises an
influence by laws of attraction on the position occupied
by the waters of the sea, hence the phenomenon of the
tides. If two celestial bodies come too close to one
another, collision is inevitable. The fact that they are
subjected to an order is the sine qua non for the
absence of disturbances.
The subjection of the Heavens to divine order is often
referred to as well:
--sura 23, verse 86. God is speaking to the Prophet.
"Say: Who is Lord of the seven heavens and Lord of
the tremendous throne?"
We have already seen how by 'seven heavens' what is
meant is not 7, but an indefinite number of Heavens.
--sura 45, verse 13:
"For you (God) subjected all that is in the heavens
and on the earth, all from Him. Behold! In that are signs
for people who reflect."
--sura 55, verse 5:
"The sun and moon (are subjected) to
calculations"
--sura 6, verse 96:
"(God) appointed the night for rest and the sun and
the moon for reckoning."
--sura 14, verse 33:
"For you (God) subjected the sun and the moon, both
diligently pursuing their courses. And for you He
subjected the night and the day."
Here one verse completes another: the calculations
referred to result in the regularity of the course
described by the heavenly bodies in question, this is
expressed by the word da'ib, the present
participle of a verb whose original meaning was 'to work
eagerly and assiduously at something'. Here it is given
the meaning of 'to apply oneself to something with care
in a perseverant, invariable manner, in accordance with
set habits'.
--sura 36, verse 39: God is speaking:
"And for the moon We have appointed mansions till
she returns like an old shriveled palm branch."
This is a reference to the curled form of the palm
branch which, as it shrivels up, takes on the moon's
crescent. This commentary will be completed later.
--sura 16, verse 12:
"For you (God) subjected the night and the day, the
sun and the moon; the stars are in subjection to His
Command. Verily in this are signs for people who are
wise."
The practical angle from which this perfect celestial
order is seen is underlined on account of its value as an
aid to man's travel on earth and by sea, and to his
calculation of time. This comment becomes clear when one
bears in mind the fact that the Qur'an was originally a
preaching addressed to men who only understood the simple
language of their everyday lives. This explains the
presence of the following reflections.
--sura 6, verse 97:
"(God) is the One Who has set out for you the stars,
that you may guide yourselves by them through the
darkness of the land and of the sea. We have detailed the
signs for people who know."
--sura 16, verse 16:
"(God sets on the earth) landmarks and by the stars
(men) guide themselves."
--sura 10, verse 5:
"God is the One Who made the sun a shining glory and
the moon a light and for her ordained mansions, so that
you might know the number of years and the reckoning (of
the time). God created this in truth. He explains the
signs in detail for people who know."
This calls for some comment. Whereas the Bible calls
the Sun and Moon 'lights', and merely adds to one the
adjective 'greater' and to the other 'lesser', the Qur'an
ascribes differences other than that of dimension to each
respectively. Agreed, this is nothing more than a verbal
distinction, but how was one to communicate to men at
this time without confusing them, while at the same time
expressing the notion that the Sun and Moon were not
absolutely identical 'lights'?
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The Sun is a shining glory (diya') and the Moon
a light (nur). This translation would appear to be
more correct than those given by others, where the two
terms are inverted. In fact there is little difference in
meaning since diya' belongs to a root (dw')
which, according to Kazimirski's authoritative
Arabic/French dictionary, means 'to be bright, to shine'
(e.g. like a fire). The same author attributes to the
substantive in question the meaning of 'light'.
The difference between Sun and Moon will be made
clearer by further quotes from the Qur'an.
--sura 25, verse 61:
"Blessed is the One Who placed the constellations in
heaven and placed therein a lamp and a moon giving
light."
--sura 71, 15-16:
"Did you see how God created seven heavens one above
an other and made the moon a light therein and made the
sun a lamp?"
--sura 78, verses 12-13:
"We have built above you seven strong (heavens) and
placed a blazing lamp."
The blazing lamp is quite obviously the sun.
Here the moon is defined as a body that gives light (munir)
from the same root as nur (the light applied to
the Moon). The Sun however is compared to a torch (siraj)
or a blazing (wahhaj) lamp.
A man of Muhammad's time could easily distinguish
between the Sun, a blazing heavenly body well known to
the inhabitants of the desert, and the Moon, the body of
the cool of the night. The comparisons found in the
Qur'an on this subject are therefore quite normal. What
is interesting to note here is the sober quality of the
comparisons, and the absence in the text of the Qur'an of
any elements of comparison that might have prevailed at
the time and which in our day would appear as phantasmagorial.
It is known that the Sun is a star that generates
intense heat and light by its internal combustions, and
that the Moon, which does not give of flight itself, and
is an inert body (on its external layers at least) merely
reflects the light received from the Sun.
There is nothing in the text of the Qur'an that
contradicts what we know today about these two celestial
bodies.
As we know, the stars are heavenly bodies like the
Sun. They are the scene of various physical phenomena of
which the easiest to observe is their generation of
light. They are heavenly bodies that produce their own
light.
The word 'star' appears thirteen times in the Qur'an (najm,
plural nujum); it comes from a root meaning to
appear, to come into sight. The word designates a visible
heavenly body without saying of what kind, i.e. either
generator of light or mere reflector of light received.
To make it clear that the object so designated is a star,
a qualifying phrase is added as in the following sura:
--sura 86, verses 1-3:
"By the sky and the Night-Visitor, who will tell
thee what the Night-Visitor is, the Star of piercing
brightness." [ Here, the sky and a star are used to bear witness
to the importance of what is to come in the text.]
The evening star is qualified in the Qur'an by the
word takib meaning 'that which pierces through
something' (here the night shadows) . The same word is
moreover used to designate shooting stars (sura 37, verse
10): the latter are the result of combustion.
It is difficult to say whether these are referred to
in the Qur'an with the same exact meaning that is given
to the heavenly bodies in the present day.
The planets do not have their own light. They revolve
around the Sun, Earth being one of them. While one may
presume that others exist elsewhere, the only ones known
are those in the solar system.
Five planets other than Earth were known to the
ancients: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Three
have been discovered in recent times: Uranus, Neptune and
Pluto.
The Qur'an would seem to designate these by the word kaukab
(plural kawakib) without stating their number.
Joseph's dream (sum 12) refers to eleven of them, but the
description is, by definition, an imaginary one.
A good definition of the meaning of the word kaukab
in the Qur'an Seems to have been given in a very famous
verse. The eminently spiritual nature of its deeper
meaning stands forth, and is moreover the subject of much
debate among experts in exegesis. It is nevertheless of
great interest to offer an account of the comparison it
contains on the subject of the word that would seem to
designate a 'planet'.
Here is the text in question: (sura 24, verse 35)
"God is the light of the heavens and the earth.
The similitude of His light is as if there were a niche
and within it a luminary. The luminary is in a glass. The
glass is as if it were a planet glittering like a
pearl."
Here the subject is the projection of light onto a
body that reflects it (glass) and gives it the glitter of
a pearl, like a planet that is lit by the sun. This is
the only explanatory detail referring to this word to be
found in the Qur'an.
The word is quoted in other verses. In some of them it
is difficult to distinguish which heavenly bodies are
meant (sura 6, verse 76; sura 82, verses 1-2).
In one verse however, when seen in the light of modern
science, it would seem very much that these can only be
the heavenly bodies that we know to be planets. In sura
37, verse 6, we see the following:
"We have indeed adorned the lowest heaven with an
ornament, the planets."
Is it possible that the expression in the Qur'an
'lowest heaven' means the 'solar system'? It is known
that among the celestial elements nearest to us, there
are no other permanent elements apart from the planets:
the Sun is the only star in the system that bears its
name. It is difficult to see what other heavenly bodies
could be meant if not the planets. The translation given
would therefore seem to be correct and the Qur'an to
refer to the existence of the planets as defined in
modern times.
The Qur'an mentions the lowest heaven several times
along with the heavenly bodies of which it is composed.
The first among these would seem to be the planets, as we
have just seen. When however the Qur'an associates
material notions intelligible to us, enlightened as we
are today by modern science, with statements of a purely
spiritual nature, their meaning becomes obscure.
Thus the verse quoted could easily be understood,
except that the following verse (7) of the same sura 37
speaks of a 'guard against every rebellious evil spirit',
'guard' again being referred to in sura 21, verse 32 and
sura 41, verse 12, so that we are confronted by
statements of quite a different kind.
What meaning can one attach moreover to the
'projectiles for the stoning of demons' that according to
verse 5, sura 67 are situated in the lowest heaven? Do
the 'luminaries' referred to in the same verse have
something to do with the shooting stars mentioned above? [ It is known that when a meteorite arrives at the
upper layers of the atmosphere, it may produce the
luminous phenomenon of a 'shooting star'.]
All these observations seem to lie outside the subject
of this study. They have been mentioned here for the sake
of completeness. At the present stage however, it would
seem that scientific data are unable to cast any light on
a subject that goes beyond human understanding.
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The information the Qur'an provides on this subject
mainly deals with the solar system. References are
however made to phenomena that go beyond the solar system
itself: they have been discovered in recent times.
There are two very important verses on the orbits of
the Sun and Moon:
--sura 21, verse 33:
"(God is) the One Who created the night, the day,
the sun and the moon. Each one is travelling in an orbit
with its own motion."
--sura 36, verse 40:
"The sun must not catch up the moon, nor does the
night outstrip the day. Each one is travelling in an
orbit with its own motion."
Here an essential fact is clearly stated: the
existence of the Sun's and Moon's orbits, plus a
reference is made to the travelling of these bodies in
space with their own motion.
A negative fact also emerges from a reading of these
verses: it is shown that the Sun moves in an orbit, but
no indication is given as to what this orbit might be in
relation to the Earth. At the time of the Qur'anic
Revelation, it was thought that the Sun moved while the
Earth stood still. This was the system of geocentrism
that had held sway since the time of ptolemy, Second
century B.C., and was to continue to do so until
Copernicus in the Sixteenth century A.D. Although people
supported this concept at the time of Muhammad, it does
not appear anywhere in the Qur'an, either here or
elsewhere.
The Arabic word falak has here been translated
by the word 'orbit'. many French translators of the
Qur'an attach to it the meaning of a 'sphere'. This is
indeed its initial sense. Hamidullah translates it by the
word 'orbit'.
The word caused concern to older translators of the
Qur'an who were unable to imagine the circular course of
the Moon and the Sun and therefore retained images of
their course through space that were either more or less
correct, or hopelessly wrong. Sir Hamza Boubekeur in his
translation of the Qur'an cites the diversity of
interpretations given to it: "A sort of axle, like
an iron rod, that a mill turns around; a celestial
sphere, orbit, sign of the zodiac, speed, wave . .
.", but he adds the following observation made by Tabari, the famous Tenth century commentator: "It is
our duty to keep silent when we do not know." (XVII,
15). This shows just how incapable men were of
understanding this concept of the Sun's and Moon's orbit.
It is obvious that if the word had expressed an
astronomical concept common in Muhammad's day, it would
not have been so difficult to interpret these verses. A
Dew concept therefore existed in the Qur'an that was not
to be explained until centuries later.
Today, the concept is widely spread that the Moon is a
satellite of the Earth around which it revolves in
periods of twenty-nine days. A correction must however be
made to the absolutely circular form of its orbit, since
modern astronomy ascribes a certain eccentricity to this,
so that the distance between the Earth and the Moon
(240,000 miles) is only the average distance.
We have seen above how the Qur'an underlined the
usefulness of observing the Moon's movements in
calculating time (sura 10, verse 5, quoted at the
beginning of this chapter.) This system has often been
criticized for being archaic, impractical and
unscientific in comparison to our system based on the
Earth's rotation around the Sun, expressed today in the
Julian calendar.
This criticism calls for the following two remarks:
a) Nearly fourteen centuries ago, the Qur'an was directed
at the inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula who were used
to the lunar calculation of time. It was advisable to
address them in the only language they could understand
and not to upset the habits they had of locating spatial
and temporal reference-marks which were nevertheless
quite efficient. It is known how well-versed men living
in the desert are in the observation of the sky. they
navigated according to the stars and told the time
according to the phases of the Moon. Those were the
simplest and most reliable means available to them.
b) Apart from the specialists in this field, most
people are unaware of the perfect correlation between the
Julian and the lunar calendar: 235 lunar months
correspond exactly to 19 Julian years of 365 1/4 days.
Then length of our year of 365 days is not perfect
because it has to be rectified every four years (with a
leap year) .
With the lunar calendar, the same phenomena occur
every 19 years (Julian). This is the Metonic cycle, named
after the Greek astronomer Meton, who discovered this
exact correlation between solar and lunar time in the
Fifth century B.C.
It is more difficult to conceive of the Sun's orbit
because we are so used to seeing our solar system
organized around it. To understand the verse from the Qur'an, the position of the Sun in our galaxy must be
considered, and we must therefore call on modern
scientific ideas.
Our galaxy includes a very large number of stars
spaced so as to form a disc that is denser at the centre
than at the rim. The Sun occupies a position in it which
is far removed from the centre of the disc. The galaxy
revolves on its own axis which is its centre with the
result that the Sun revolves around the same centre in a
circular orbit. Modern astronomy has worked out the
details of this. In 1917, Shapley estimated the distance
between the Sun and the centre of our galaxy at 10
kiloparsecs i.e., in miles, circa the figure 2 followed
by 17 zeros. To complete one revolution on its own axis,
the galaxy and Sun take roughly 250 million years. The
Sun travels at roughly 150 miles per second in the
completion of this.
The above is the orbital movement of the Sun that was
already referred to by the Qur'an fourteen centuries ago.
The demonstration of the existence and details of this is
one of the achievements of modern astronomy.
This concept does not appear in those translations of
the Qur'an that have been made by men of letters. Since
the latter know nothing about astronomy, they have
translated the Arabic word that expresses this movement
by one of the meanings the word has: 'to swim'. They have
done this in both the French translations and the,
otherwise remarkable, English translation by Yusuf Ali. [ Pub.
Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, Lahore (Pakistan)]
The Arabic word referring to a movement with a
self-propelled motion is the verb sabaha (yasbahuna
in the text of the two verses). All the senses of the
verb imply a movement that is associated with a motion
that comes from the body in question. If the movement
takes place in water, it is 'to swim'; it is 'to move by
the action of one's own legs' if it takes place on land.
For a movement that occurs in space, it is difficult to
see how else this meaning implied in the word could be
rendered other than by employing its original sense. Thus
there seems to have been no mistranslation, for the
following reasons.
-The Moon completes its rotating motion on its own axis
at the same time as it revolves around the Earth, i.e.
291/2 days (approx.), so that it always has the same side
facing us.
-The Sun takes roughly 25 days to revolve on its own
axis. There are certain differences in its rotation at
its equator and poles, (we shall not go into them here)
but as a whole, the Sun is animated by a rotating motion.
It appears therefore that a verbal nuance in the
Qur'an refers to the Sun and Moon's own motion. These
motions of the two celestial bodies are confirmed by the
data of modern science, and it is inconceivable that a
man living in the Seventh century A.D.-however
knowledgeable he might have been in his day (and this was
certainly not true in Muhammad's case) -could have
imagined them.
This view is sometimes contested by examples from
great thinkers of antiquity who indisputably predicted
certain data that modern science has verified. They could
hardly have relied on scientific deduction however; their
method of procedure was more one of philosophical
reasoning. Thus the case of the pythagoreans is often
advanced. In the Sixth century B.C., they defended the
theory of the rotation of the Earth on its own axis and
the movement of the planets around the Sun. This theory
was to be confirmed by modern science. By comparing it
with the case of the Pythagoreans, it is easy to put
forward the hypothesis of Muhammad as being a brilliant
thinker, who was supposed to have imagined all on his own
what modern science was to discover centuries later. In
so doing however, people quite simply forget to mention
the other aspect of what these geniuses of philosophical
reasoning produced, i.e. the colossal blunders that
litter their work. It must be remembered for example,
that the Pythagoreans also defended the theory whereby
the Sun was fixed in space; they made it the centre of
the world and only conceived of a celestial order that
was centered on it. It is quite common in the works of
the great philosophers of antiquity to find a mixture of
valid and invalid ideas about the Universe. The
brilliance of these human works comes from the advanced
ideas they contain, but they should not make us overlook
the mistaken concepts which have also been left to us.
From a strictly scientific point of view, this is what
distinguished them from the Qur'an. In the latter, many
subjects are referred to that have a bearing on modern
knowledge without one of them containing a statement that
contradicts what has been established by present-day
science.
At a time when it was held that the Earth was the
centre of the world and that the Sun moved in relation to
it, how could any one have failed to refer to the Sun's
movement when talking of the sequence of night and day?
This is not however referred to in the Qur'an and the
subject is dealt with as follows:
--sura 7, verse 54:
"(God) covers the day with the night which is in
haste to follow it . . ."
--sura 36, verse 37:
"And a sign for them (human beings) is the night. We
strip it of the day and they are in darkness."
--sura 31, verse 29:
"Hast thou not seen how God merges the night into
the day and merges the day into the night."
--sura 39, verse 5:
". . . He coils the night upon the day and He coils
the day upon the night."
The first verse cited requires no comment. The second
simply provides an image.
It is mainly the third and fourth verses quoted above
that provide interesting material on the process of
interpenetration and especially of winding the night upon
the day and the day upon the night. (sura 39, verse 5)
'To coil' or 'to wind' seems, as in the French
translation by R. Blachère, to be the best way of
translating the Arabic verb kawwara. The original
meaning of the verb is to 'coil' a turban around the
head; the notion of coiling is preserved in all the other
senses of the word.
What actually happens however in space? American
astronauts have seen and photographed what happens from
their spaceships, especially at a great distance from
Earth, e.g. from the Moon. They saw how the Sun
permanently lights up (except in the case of an eclipse)
the half of the Earth's surface that is facing it, while
the other half of the globe is in darkness. The Earth
turns on its own axis and the lighting remains the same,
so that an area in the form of a half-sphere makes one
revolution around the Earth in twenty-four hours while
the other half-sphere, that has remained in darkness,
makes the same revolution in the same time. This
perpetual rotation of night and day is quite clearly
described in the Qur'an. It is easy for the human
understanding to grasp this notion nowadays because we
have the idea of the Sun's (relative) immobility and the
Earth's rotation. This process of perpetual coiling,
including the interpenetration of one sector by another
is expressed in the Qur'an just as if the concept of the
Earth's roundness had already been conceived at the
time-which was obviously not the case.
Further to the above reflections on the sequence of
day and night, one must also mention, with a quotation of
some verses from the Qur'an, the idea that there is more
than one Orient and one Occident. This is of purely
descriptive interest because these phenomena rely on the
most commonplace observations. The idea is mentioned here
with the aim of reproducing as faithfully as possible all
that the Qur'an has to say on this subject.
The following are examples:
--In sura 70 verse 40, the expression 'Lord of Orients
and Occidents'.
--In sura 55, verse 17, the expression 'Lord of the two
Orients and the two Occidents'.
--In sura 43, verse 38, a reference to the 'distance
between the two Orients', an image intended to express
the immense size of the distance separating the two
points.
Anyone who carefully watches the sunrise and sunset
knows that the Sun rises at different point of the Orient
and sets at different points of the Occident, according
to season. Bearings taken on each of the horizons define
the extreme limits that mark the two Orients and Occidents, and between these there are points marked off
throughout the year. The phenomenon described here is
rather commonplace, but what mainly deserves attention in
this chapter are the other. topics dealt with, where the
description of astronomical phenomena referred to in the
Qur'an is in keeping with modern data.
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Having called modern concepts on the formation of the
Universe to mind, reference was made to the evolution
that took place, starting with primary nebula through to
the formation of galaxies, stars and (for the solar
system) the appearance of planets beginning with the Sun
at a certain stage of its evolution. Modern data lead us
to believe that in the solar system, and more generally
in the Universe itself, this evolution is still
continuing.
How can anybody who is aware of these ideas fail to
make a comparison with certain statements found in the
Qur'an in which the manifestations of divine Omnipotence
are referred to.
The Qur'an reminds us several times that: "(God)
subjected the sun and the moon: each one runs its course
to an appointed term."
This sentence is to be found in sura 13, verse 2. sura
31, verse 29; sura 35, verse 13 and sura 39, verse 5.
In addition to this, the idea of a settled place is
associated with the concept of a destination place in
sura 36, verse 38: "The Sun runs its course to a
settled place. This is the decree of the All Mighty, the
Full of Knowledge."
'Settled place' is the translation of the word mustaqarr
and there can be no doubt that the idea of an exact place
is attached to it.
How do these statements fare when compared with data
established by modern science?
The Qur'an gives an end to the Sun for its evolution
and a destination place. It also provides the Moon with a
settled place. To understand the possible meanings of
these statements, we must remember what modern knowledge
has to say about the evolution of the stars in general
and the Sun in particular, and (by extension) the
celestial bodies that automatically followed its movement
through space, among them the Moon.
The Sun is a star that is roughly 4½ billion years
old, according to experts in astrophysics. It is possible
to distinguish a stage in its evolution, as one can for
all the stars. At present, the Sun is at an early stage,
characterized by the transformation of hydrogen atoms
into helium atoms. Theoretically, this present stage
should last another 5½ billion years according to
calculations that allow a total of 10 billion years for
the duration of the primary stage in a star of this kind.
It has already been shown, in the case of these other
stars, that this stage gives way to a second period
characterized by the completion of the transformation of
hydrogen into helium, with the resulting expansion of its
external layers and the cooling of the Sun. In the final
stage, its light is greatly diminished and density
considerably increased; this is to be observed in the
type of star known as a 'white dwarf'.
The above dates are only of interest in as far as they
give a rough estimate of the time factor involved, what
is worth remembering and is really the main point of the
above, is the notion of an evolution. Modern data allow
us to predict that, in a few billion years, the
conditions prevailing in the solar system will not be the
same as they are today. Like other stars whose
transformations have been recorded until they reached
their final stage, it is possible to predict an end to
the Sun.
The second verse quoted above (sur'a 36, verse 38)
referred to the Sun running its course towards a place of
its own.
Modern astronomy has been able to locate it exactly
and has even given it a name, the Solar. Apex: the solar.
system is indeed evolving in space towards a point
situated in the Constellation of Hercules (alpha lyrae)
whose exact location is firmly established; it is moving
at a speed already ascertained at something in the region
of 12 miles per. second.
All these astronomical data deserve to be mentioned in
relation to the two verses from the Qur'an, since it is
possible to state that they appear to agree perfectly
with modern scientific data.
The expansion of the Universe is the most imposing
discovery of modern science. Today it is a firmly
established concept and the only debate centres around
the way this is taking place.
It was first suggested by the general theory of
relativity and is backed up by physics in the examination
of the galactic spectrum; the regular movement towards
the red section of their spectrum may be explained by the
distancing of one galaxy from another. Thus the size of
the Universe is probably constantly increasing and this
increase will become bigger the further away the galaxies
are from us. The speeds at which these celestial bodies
are moving may, in the course of this perpetual
expansion, go from fractions of the speed of light to
speeds faster than this.
The following verse of the Qur' an (sura 51, verse 47)
where God is speaking, may perhaps be compared with
modern ideas:
"The heaven, We have built it with power. Verily.
We are expanding it."
'Heaven' is the translation of the word sama'
and this is exactly the extra-terrestrial world that is
meant.
'We are expanding it' is the translation of the plural
present participle musi'una of the verb ausa'a
meaning 'to make wider, more spacious, to extend, to
expand'.
Some translators who were unable to grasp the meaning
of the latter provide translations that appear to me to
be mistaken, e.g. "we give generously" (R. Blachère). Others sense the meaning, but are afraid to
commit themselves: Hamidullah in his translation of the
Qur'an talks of the widening of the heavens and space,
but he includes a question mark. Finally, there are those
who arm themselves with authorized scientific opinion in
their commentaries and give the meaning stated here. This
is true in the case of the Muntakab, a book of
commentaries edited by the Supreme Council for Islamic
Affairs, Cairo. It refers to the expansion of the
Universe in totally unambiguous terms.
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From this point of view, three verses of the Qur'an
should command our full attention. One expresses, without
any trace of ambiguity, what man should and will achieve
in this field. In the other two, God refers for the sake
of the unbelievers in Makka to the surprise they would
have if they were able to raise themselves up to the
Heavens; He alludes to a hypothesis which will not be
realized for the latter.
1) The first of these verses is sura 55, verse 33:
"O assembly of Jinns and Men, if you can penetrate
regions of the heavens and the earth, then penetrate
them! You will not penetrate them save with a
Power." [ This verse is followed by an invitation to
recognize God's blessings. It forms the subject of the
whole of the sura that bears the title 'The Beneficent'.]
The translation given here needs some explanatory
comment:
a) The word 'if' expresses in English a condition that is
dependant upon a possibility and either an achievable or
an unachievable hypothesis. Arabic is a language which is
able to introduce a nuance into the condition which is
much more explicit. There is one word to express the
possibility (ida), another for the achievable
hypothesis (in) and a third for the unachievable
hypothesis expressed by the word (lau). The verse
in question has it as an achievable hypothesis expressed
by the word (in). The Qur'an therefore suggests
the material possibility of a concrete realization. This
subtle linguistic distinction formally rules out the
purely mystic interpretation that some people have (quite
wrongly) put on this verse.
b) God is addressing the spirits (jinn) and
human beings (ins), and not essentially
allegorical figures.
c) 'To penetrate' is the translation of the verb nafada
followed by the preposition min. According to
Kazimirski's dictionary, the phrase means 'to pass right
through and come out on the other side of a body' (e.g.
an arrow that comes out on the other side). It therefore
suggests a deep penetration and emergence at the other
end into the regions in question.
d) The Power (sultan) these men will have to
achieve this enterprise would seem to come from the
All-Mighty.
There can be no doubt that this verse indicates the
possibility men will one day achieve what we today call
(perhaps rather improperly) 'the conquest of space'. One
must note that the text of the Qur'an predicts not only
penetration through the regions of the Heavens, but also
the Earth, i.e. the exploration of its depths.
2) The other two verses are taken from sura 15,
(verses14 and 15). God is speaking of the unbelievers in Makka, as the context of this passage in the sura shows:
"Even if We opened unto them a gate to Heaven and
they were to continue ascending therein, they would say.
our sight is confused as in drunkenness. Nay, we are
people bewitched."
The above expresses astonishment at a remarkable
spectacle, different from anything man could imagine.
The conditional sentence is introduced here by the word lau
which expresses a hypothesis that could never be realized
as far as it concerned the people mentioned in these
verses.
When talking of the conquest of space therefore, we
have two passages in the text of the Qur'an: one of them
refers to what will one day become a reality thanks to
the powers of intelligence and ingenuity God will give to
man, and the other describes an event that the
unbelievers in Makka will never witness, hence its
character of a condition never to be realized. The event
will however be seen by others, as intimated in the first
verse quoted above. It describes the human reactions to
the unexpected spectacle that travellers in space will
see. their confused sight, as in drunkenness, the feeling
of being bewitched . . .
This is exactly how astronauts have experienced this
remarkable adventure since the first human spaceflight
around the world in 1961. It is known in actual fact how
once one is above the Earth's atmosphere, the Heavens no
longer have the azure appearance we see from Earth, which
results from phenomena of absorption of the Sun's light
into the layers of the atmosphere. The human observer in
space above the Earth's atmosphere sees a black sky and
the Earth seems to be surrounded by a halo of bluish
colour due to the same phenomena of absorption of light
by the Earth's atmosphere. The Moon has no atmosphere,
however, and therefore appears in its true colors against
the black background of the sky. It is a completely new
spectacle therefore that presents itself to men in space,
and the photographs of this spectacle are well known to
present-day man.
Here again, it is difficult not to be impressed, when
comparing the text of the Qur'an to the data of modern
science, by statements that simply cannot be ascribed to
the thought of a man who lived more than fourteen
centuries ago.
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