@YmirGF
THE LIGHT OF THE MOON IS REFLECTED LIGHT
It was believed by earlier civilizations that the moon emanates its own light. Science now tells us that the light of the moon is reflected light. However this fact was mentioned in the Qur’aan 1,400 years ago in the following verse:
"Blessed is He Who made Constellations in the skies, And placed therein a Lamp And a Moon giving light." [Al-Qur’aan 25:61]
The Arabic word for the sun in the Qur’aan, is
shams. It is referred to as
siraaj, which means a ‘torch’ or as
wahhaaj which means ‘a blazing lamp’ or as
diya which means ‘shining glory’. All three descriptions are appropriate to the sun, since it generates intense heat and light by its internal combustion. The Arabic word for the moon is
qamar and it is described in the Qur’aan as
muneer, which is a body that gives
nur i.e. light. Again, the Qur’aanic description matches perfectly with the true nature of the moon, which does not give off light itself and is an inert body that reflects the light of the sun. Not once in the Qur’aan, is the moon mentioned as
siraaj,
wahhaaj or
diya or the sun as
nur or
muneer. This implies that the Qur’aan recognizes the difference between the nature of sunlight and moonlight.
Consider the following verses related to the nature of light from the sun and the moon:
"It is He who made the sun To be a shining glory And themoon to be a light (Of beauty)." [Al-Qur’aan 10:5]
"See ye not How Allah has created The seven heavens One above another, "And made the moon A light in their midst, and made the sun As a (Glorious) Lamp?" [Al-Qur’aan 71:15-16]
THE SUN ROTATES
For a long time European philosophers and scientists believed that the earth stood still in the center of the universe and every other body including the sun moved around it. In the West, this geocentric concept of the universe was prevalent right from the time of Ptolemy in the second century B.C. In 1512, Nicholas Copernicus put forward his Heliocentric Theory of Planetary Motion, which asserted that the sun is motionless at the centre of the solar system with the planets revolving around it.
In 1609, the German scientist Yohannus Keppler published the ‘Astronomia Nova’. In this he concluded that not only do the planets move in elliptical orbits around the sun, they also rotate upon their axes at irregular speeds. With this knowledge it became possible for European scientists to explain correctly many of the mechanisms of the solar system including the sequence of night and day.
After these discoveries, it was thought that the Sun was stationary and did not rotate about its axis like the Earth. I remember having studied this fallacy from Geography books during my school days. Consider the following Qur’aanic verse:
"It is He Who created The Night and the Day, And the sun and the moon: All (the celestial bodies) Swim along, each in its Rounded course." [Al-Qur’aan 21:33]
The Arabic word used in the above verse is
yasbahûn . The word
yasbahûn is derived from the word
sabaha. It carries with it the idea of motion that comes from any moving body. If you use the word for a man on the ground, it would not mean that he is rolling but would mean he is walking or running. If you use the word for a man in water it would not mean that he is floating but would mean that he is swimming.
Similarly, if you use the word yasbah for a celestial body such as the sun it would not mean that it is only flying through space but would mean that it is also rotating as it goes through space. Most of the school textbooks have incorporated the fact that the sun rotates about its axis. The rotation of the sun about its own axis can be proved with the help of an equipment that projects the image of the sun on the table top so that one can examine the image of the sun without being blinded. It is noticed that the sun has spots which complete a circular motion once every 25 days i.e. the sun takes approximately 25 days to rotate around its axis.
In fact, the sun travels through space at roughly 150 miles per second, and takes about 200 million years to complete one revolution around the center of our Milky Way Galaxy.
"It is not permitted To the Sun to catch up The Moon, nor can The Night outstrip the Day: Each (just) swims along In (its own) orbit (According to Law)." [Al-Qur’aan 36:40]
This verse mentions an essential fact discovered by modern astronomy, i.e. the existence of the individual orbits of the Sun and the Moon, and their journey through space with their own motion. The ‘fixed place’ towards, which the sun travels, carrying with it the solar system, has been located exactly by modern astronomy. It has been given a name, the Solar Apex. The solar system is indeed moving in space towards a point situated in the constellation of Hercules (alpha Layer) whose exact location is firmly established.
The moon rotates around its axis in the same duration that it takes to revolve around the earth. It takes approximately 29½ days to complete one rotation. One cannot help but be amazed at the scientific accuracy of the Qur’aanic verses. Should we not ponder over the question: "What was the source of knowledge contained in the Qur’aan?"
THE SUN WILL EXTINGUISH AFTER A CERTAIN PERIOD
The light of the sun is due to a chemical process on its surface that has been taking place continuously for the past five billion years. It will come to an end at some point of time in the future when the sun will be totally extinguished leading to extinction of all life on earth. Regarding the impermanence of the sun’s existence the Qur’aan says:
"And the Sun Runs its course For a period determined For it; that is The decree of (Him) The exalted in Might, The All-Knowing." [Al-Qur’aan 36:38] [A similar message is conveyed in the Qur’an in 13:2, 35:13, 39:5 and 39:21]
The Arabic word used here is
mustaqarr, which means a place or time that is determined. Thus the Qur’aan says that the sun runs towards a determined place, and will do so only up to a pre-determined period of time – meaning that it will end or extinguish.
THE PRESENCE OF INTERSTELLAR MATTER
Space outside organized astronomical systems was earlier assumed to be a vacuum . Astrophysicists later discovered the presence of bridges of matter in this interstellar space. These bridges of matter are called plasma, and consist of completely ionized gas containing equal number of free electrons and positive ions. Plasma is sometimes called the fourth state of matter (besides the three known states viz. solid, liquid and gas). The Qur’aan mentions the presence of this interstellar material in the following verse:
"He Who createdthe heavens And the earth and all That is between." [Al-Qur’aan 25:59]
It would be ridiculous, for anybody to even suggest that the presence of interstellar galactic material was known 1400 years ago.
THE EXPANDING UNIVERSE
In 1925, an American astronomer by the name of Edwin Hubble, provided observational evidence that all galaxies are receding from one another, which implies that the universe is expanding. The expansion of the universe is now an established scientific fact. This is what Al-Qur’aan says regarding the nature of the universe:
"With the power and skill Did We construct TheFirmament: For it is We Who create The vastness of Space." [Al-Qur’aan 51:47]
The Arabic word
mûsi‘ûn is correctly translated as ‘expanding it’, and it refers to the creation of the expanding vastness of the universe. StephenHawking, in his book, ‘A Brief History of Time’, says, "The discovery that the universe is expanding was one of the great intellectual revolutions of the 20th century."
The Qur’aan mentioned the expansion of the universe, before man even learnt to build a telescope! Some may say that the presence of astronomical facts in the Qur’aan is not surprising since the Arabs were advanced in the field of astronomy. They are correct in acknowledging the advancement of the Arabs in the field of astronomy. However they fail to realize that the Qur’aan was revealed centuries before the Arabs excelled in astronomy. Moreover many of the scientific facts mentioned above regarding astronomy, such as the origin of the universe with a Big Bang, were not known to the Arabs even at the peak of their scientific advancement. The scientific facts mentioned in the Qur’aan are therefore not due to the Arabs’ advancement in astronomy. Indeed, the reverse is true. The Arabs advanced in astronomy, because astronomy occupies a place in the Qur’aan.
