Science in the Quran

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ORGANIZATION OF THE UNIVERSE

What the Quran mentions about the organization of the Universe is important because "these references constitute a new fact of divine Revelation" (The Bible, the Quran and Science, p. 153). The Quran deals with this matter in depth although this is not dealt with in the previous scriptures.

Dr. Maurice Bucaille also points out the important fact that the Quran does not contain "the theories prevalent at the time of the Revelation that deal with the organization of the celestial world" (p. 153).If the Quran was authored by any human being, he or she would have naturally included the ideas prevalent at the time. But many of those ideas were later shown to be inaccurate.

How did the author of the Quran know enough to exclude those ideas, unless the author is God himself.
Those who say that Muhammad authored the Quran think that the Arabs were very knowledgeable in the field of Science, and Muhammad was or course one of them. But this explanation is based on the incorrect assumption that the Arabs knew Science before the Quran was revealed. As pointed out by Dr. Bucaille, the fact is that Science in Islamic countries came after the Quran, not before. "In any case", writes Dr. Bucaille, "the scientific knowledge of that great period would not have been sufficient for a human being to write some of the verses to be found in the Quran" (The Bible, the Quran and Science, p. 1 53-1 54)

Modern astronomers are aware that the stars and planets are kept within ranges of precise distances from each other. Had it not been for this fact, collision between them would be inevitable. The author of the Quran was also aware of this. In the Quran we read "the sun and the moon (are subjected) to calculations (Quran 55:5).
Again, we read: "For you (God) subjected the sun and the moon, both diligently pursuing their courses" (Quran 14:33). The phrase 'diligently pursuing their courses' is a translation of the Arabic term daa'ib which here means 'to apply oneself to something with care in a perseverant, invariable manner, in accordance with set habits' (The Bible, the Quran and Science, p.l55). And that indeed is how the sun and moon behave.
Another verse in the Quran says, "the stars are in subjection to His command" (Quran 16:12). Order in the universe is essential for its preservation. God, who subjected them to that order knew about it before any scientist.

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WHAT HOLDS UP THE SKY?

Today scientists speak of gravitational forces that hold the heavenly bodies apart from each other and prevent them from colliding with each other. How was this to be conveyed to the first readers of the Quran? God tells us in the Quran that He is the One Who raised the sky (Quran 55:7) and that he holds it back from falling on the earth (Quran 22:65). But how exactly does God do this?

If the author of the Quran was a human being, it would have been very easy for the author to copy the answer to this question from the Bible. But today no one will believe that answer.

In the New American Bible, a picture is drawn to show how the authors of the Bible imagined the world to look like. In that picture, the sky "resembles an overturned bowl and is supported by columns" (The New American Bible, St. Joseph's Medium Size Edition, pp. 4-5). The earth in that picture is flat, and is also supported by pillars. After describing the picture at length, the editors of that Bible conclude by calling that idea of the world a "prescientific concept of the universe."

At the time when the Quran was being revealed, anyone could have easily believed this description which was already found in the Bible. It is only in modern times that people would know better. How did the author of the Quran avoid this mistake?

God says in the Quran that He created the heavens

"without any pillars that you can see" (Quran 31:10).

Again, the Quran says:

"God is the One Who raised the heavens without any pillars that you can see" (Quran 13:2).

Dr. Maurice Bucaille comments: "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" (The Bible, the Quran and Science, p. 154).

To be able to avoid that prescientific error, the author of the Quran must have been either a modern scientist, or God Himself.

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COMPARING APPLES AND ORANGES

The sun and the moon are different from each other not only in terms of size, but also in terms of function. The sun generates light, but the moon does not. The moon merely reflects the light coming from the sun. Every high school student today knows this.

A man or woman in the seventh century, however, would not have known about this fine distinction between the sun and the moon. To such a person, the two would appear as a greater light and a lesser light. Such a person would observe that the greater light lights up the day and the lesser light lights up the night. And this indeed is how the sun and the moon were described in previous books.

The Bible, describing the creation, says: "God made two great lights the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night" (Genesis 1: 16). The author of the Qur'an however, was aware that this comparison between the sun and the moon is not adequate. Therefore the Qur'an does not refer to them as being a greater and a lesser light.

The Qur'an says:

"God is the One who made the sun a shine and the moon a light"(Qur'an 10:5).

Commenting on this, Dr. Bucaille says: "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" (The Bible, the Qur'an and Science, p. 156).

Similarly, the Qur'an says

"Blessed is the One Who placed the constellations in heaven and placed therein a lamp and a moon giving light"(Qur'an 25:61).

Here again, the difference between the sun and the moon is noted. The sun is called a lamp, and the moon is called an object giving light.
Again in the Qur'an God says that He

"made the moon a light" and "made the sun a lamp"
(Qur'an 71:15-16).

Furthermore, God calls the sun a "blazing lamp" (Qur'an 78:12-13). This term which is used for the sun is never used for the moon in the Qur'an.
In all of these verses, God expresses the notion that the sun and the moon are "not absolutely identical lights" (The Bible, the Qur'an and Science, p. 156).

Dr. Bucaille draws his conclusions from what he found in the Qur'an about the sun and the moon: "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" (The Bible, the Qur'an and Science, p 157). In short, "There is nothing in the text of the Qur'an that contradicts what we know today about these two celestial bodies." (The Bible, the Qur'an and Science, p. 157).

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THE SUN & MOON AND THEIR ORBITS

Today we know that the Moon revolves around the earth in approximately 29.5 days. The sun also revolves in its own orbit. To understand the sun's orbit, Dr. Bucaille says that the position of the sun in our galaxy must be considered, and we must therefore call on modern scientific ideas (The Bible, the Qur'an and Science, p. 162).

Our galaxy, the milky way galaxy, includes one hundred billion stars situated in such a formation that the galaxy is shaped like a disc. This disc turns around its center like a gramophone record. Now, it is obvious that when a gramophone record turns, any point on the disc would move around and come back to its original position. Similarly, every star in the galaxy moves as the galaxy rotates on its axis. Therefore the stars that are away from the center of the galaxy orbit around the axis. The sun is one of those stars.

Dr. Bucaille explains that modern science has worked out the details of the sun's orbit as follows: "To complete one revolution on its own axis, the galaxy and the sun take roughly 250 million years. The sun travels roughly 150 miles per second in the completion of this" (The Bible, the Qur'an and Science, p. 162).

After describing this, Dr. Bucaille comments:

"The above is the orbital movement of the sun that was already referred to in the Qur'an fourteen centuries ago."

(The Bible, the Qur'an and Science, p. 162)
And yet this is a new finding. As Dr. Bucaille says, the knowledge of the sun's orbit is an acquisition of modern astronomy (The Bible, the Qur'an and Science, p. 162).

Two verses in the Qur'an refer to the orbits of the sun and moon. After mentioning the sun and the moon, God says: "Each one is travelling in an orbit with its own motion" (Qur'an 21:33; 36:40). How did the author of the Qur'an know of this? Even after the Qur'an was revealed, early commentators could not conceive of the orbits of the sun and moon. The tenth century commentator Tabari could not explain this so he said, "It is our duty to keep silent when we do not know" (XVII, 15 quoted in The Bible, the Qur'an and Science, p. 161).

Dr. Bucaille comments: "This shows just how incapable men were of understanding this concept of the sun's and moon's orbit." (The Bible, the Qur'an and Science, p. 161).

From this it is clear that if the Qur'an was here expressing an idea already known to the people, the commentators would have easily understood it. But this, as Dr. Bucaille explains was "a new concept that was not to be explained until centuries later" (The Bible, the Qur'an and Science, p. 161)

This confirms what God said to his prophet, on whom be peace: "This is of the tidings of the Unseen which we inspire in you (Muhammad). Neither you nor your people knew it before this" (Qur'an 11:49).


THE SUN & MOON MOVE WITH THEIR OWN MOTION

The Qur'an makes the following statement about the sun and the moon: "Each one is travelling in an orbit with its own motion" (Qur'an 21:33; 36:40).

Why did the Qur'an say that the sun and moon move with their own motion? And, if that is true, where did the author of the Qur'an get this information?

The fact is that the sun and moon rotate on their axes and are in part animated by this rotating motion.


The phrase "travelling with its own motion" in the verses quoted above is a translation of the Arabic verb 'yasbahoon'. This could also be translated 'they swim.' In that case, the verse would read that the sun and the moon, "Each swim in its own orbit." Those who translate the verse this way explain that the term swim refers to movement with one's own internally generated force. Furthermore the movement of a swimmer is graceful, measured, and smooth. This is a very fitting description for the movement of the stars and planets including the sun and the moon.

After describing the scientific data concerning the rotation of the sun and the moon, Dr. Bucaille says: "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.... could have imagined them" (The Bible, the Qur'an and Science, p. 163).

It is also amazing that the Qur'an uses a different term for the movement of the clouds and the mountains (see Qur'an 27:88). Obviously, the clouds and mountains are driven by external forces. The cloud is driven by the wind and the mountains move with the rotation of the earth. The sun and moon, however, move with their own motion, and therefore the Qur'an uses a peculiar term "they swim" to refer to their smooth, graceful, self-propelled movement.

How did the author of the Qur'an know enough to make this choice of words that will reflect a modern scientific truth? The Qur'an is no less than a revelation from God.

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 traveling 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 away since the time of Ptolemy, Sec-ond 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.

1. The Moon's Orbit.

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, im- practical 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:

1. 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.
2. Apart from the specialists in this, 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 365.25 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.

2. The Sun.

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.

The Moon completes its rotating motion on its own axis at the same time as it revolves around the Earth, i.e. 29.5 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 sciece. By comparing it with the case of the Pythagoreans,it easy to put forward the hypothesis of Muhammad as being a brilliant thinker, who was supposed to have imagined all on his 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 over look 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.

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THE SEQUENCE OF DAY AND NIGHT

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. Blachere, 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.