Scientific Errors in the Quran: Difference between revisions

An alternative view among exegetes, favoured by many apologists today, was that this refers to the sun's final 'resting' on the last day (presumably after it's joined to the moon<ref>https://quranx.com/75.8-9</ref>), such as Ibn Kathir (d. 1373 CE)<ref>https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ibn-Kathir</ref> giving a secondary opinion: <blockquote>(The second view) is that this refers to when the sun's appointed time comes to an end, which will be on the Day of Resurrection, when its fixed course will be abolished, it will come to a halt and it will be rolled up. This world will come to an end, and that will be the end of its appointed time. This is the fixed course of its time.<ref>https://quranx.com/Tafsir/Kathir/36.40</ref></blockquote>However these appear far after the Greek spherical planetary model contained in Ptolemy's Almagest was translated into Arabic<ref>https://www.britannica.com/topic/Almagest</ref> in the late 8th and early 9th centuries, which stated the sun constantly revolved around a fixed (and geocentric Earth)<ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almagest</ref> (and so did not 'rest' or have a 'resting place'). This soon became the general view of astronomers in the Islamic caliphates/empires with improvements being made over time made<ref>https://www.academia.edu/attachments/55944098/download_file?s=portfolio</ref>, and would certainly have been known to a highly educated man like Ibn Kathir (b. 1300)<ref>https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ibn-Kathir</ref> and other later educated commentators who had contact with astronomers, or learned about their field, and sought to reconcile science with scripture.

Other verses talk about the sun swimming for a 'term appointed' (using a different Arabic word). Another version of the above hadith probably supports this view (for details of all these things see footnotes [https://wikiislam.net/wiki/Geocentrism_and_the_Quran#Primary_Evidence in the main article]). Whichever interpretation was intended, the sun's movement is nevertheless mentioned right after describing day and night, just as the next verse mentions the different mansions appointed for the moon each night. The whole passage is about day and night and the sun and moon's movement in that context.

The Earth's<ref>[https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/1164/how-big-is-the-solar-system/#:~:text=As%20noted%20earlier%2C%20Earth's%20average,million%20kilometers)%20from%20the%20Sun. https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/1164/how-big-is-the-solar-system/#:~:text=As%20noted%20earlier%2C%20Earth's%20average,million%20kilometers)%20from%20the%20Sun.]</ref> and moon's<ref>[https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/how-far-away-moon#:~:text=Since%20the%20Moon%20orbits%20the,million%20miles)%20from%20the%20Sun! https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/how-far-away-moon#:~:text=Since%20the%20Moon%20orbits%20the,million%20miles)%20from%20the%20Sun!]</ref> average distance to the Sun is about 93 million miles (150 million kilometers). Should the sun move just 1.5 million km closer to Earth, it would become uninhabitable.<ref>https://www.sciencefocus.com/space/how-much-closer-to-the-sun-could-earths-orbit-get-and-still-be-habitable</ref> Moving an approximately midway distance would scorch and destroy the Earth (and the moon) along with all humans in such a way that all other apocalyptic 'doom' events (such as removing mountains<ref>https://quranx.com/77.10</ref>, splitting the sky<ref>https://quranx.com/84.1</ref> and stars falling<ref>https://quranx.com/81.2</ref>) would be rendered pointless.  

{{Quote|{{Quran|55|33-35}}|O ye assembly of Jinns and men! if it be ye can pass beyond the zones of the heavens and the earth pass ye! not without authority shall ye be able to pass!  

Then which of the favors of your Lord will ye deny? On you will be sent (O ye evil ones twain!) a flame of fire (to burn) and a smoke (to choke): No defence will ye have.}}{{Quote|{{Quran|72|8-9}}|And we pried into the secrets of heaven; but we found it filled with stern guards and flaming fires. We used, indeed, to sit there in (hidden) stations, to (steal) a hearing; but any who listen now will find a flaming fire watching him in ambush.}}

Stars are also an average 5 light years away from each other in our universe<ref>https://public.nrao.edu/ask/what-is-the-average-distance-between-stars-in-our-galaxy/</ref>. For context, light years are the distance travels in one year, which is 186,000 miles/300,000 kilometres per second, at 5.88 trillion miles/9.46 trillion kilometres per year<ref>https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/faq/26/what-is-a-light-year/</ref>, making them an odd choice for a protection/guard, with trillions of miles/kilometers of mostly empty space between them.

 

On a separate note, though stars are being described as an 'ornament' or 'beauty' for the sky in [https://quran.com/en/as-saffat/6-10 Quran 37:6-10 ,] [https://quran.com/67/5?translations=17,18,19,20,22,85,95,84,101,102 67:5], there are an estimated minimum c.100 septillion stars in the known universe<ref>https://universe.nasa.gov/stars/basics/</ref>, but only a few thousand are actually visible to us<ref>https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Herschel/How_many_stars_are_there_in_the_Universe</ref>.

A common myth at the time of the Quran's composition was that the sky or heavens were held up with pillars, which is also a Biblical motif. While classical Muslim scholars often believed in a dome shaped heaven, some academic scholars have argued that the Quranic heavens are flat, stacked expanses (see main article). These heavens are like roofs (saqf {{Quran|21|32}}, {{Quran|52|5}}), a building/edifice/tent (binaan {{Quran|2|22}}, {{Quran|40|64}}), a ceiling (samk {{Quran|79|28}}), in layers ({{Quran|71|15}} and {{Quran|67|3}}), while {{Quran|13|2}} further emphasizes this image by pointing out that, unlike what one would expect with an Arabian tent, the roof that is the sky is without visible pillars (perhaps phrased with deliberate ambiguity). Reinforcing the 2 dimensional imagery, {{Quran|81|11}} adds that the sky is like a covering that can be 'stripped away', while {{Quran|21|104}} states that it will eventually be rolled or folded up like a parchment and {{Quran|39|67}} says that the heavens will then be held in Allah's hand. This will occur after it has been slit (furijat {{Quran|77|9}}), rent asunder with clouds ({{Quran|25|25}}), split (inshaqqat {{Quran|55|37}}, {{Quran|84|1}}, {{Quran|69|16}} with angels appearing at its edges {{Quran|69|17}}).

And more recently in 2013, in Chelyabinsk, Russia, a house-sized meteoroid entered the atmosphere at over 11 miles / 18 kilometers per second and blew apart 14 miles / 23 kilometers above the ground (For context, Earth’s atmosphere stretches from the surface of the planet up to as far as 10,000 kilometers (6,214 miles) above. After that, the atmosphere blends into space<ref>https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/atmosphere/</ref>). The explosion released the energy equivalent of around 440,000 tons of TNT and generated a shock wave that blew out windows over 200 square miles (518 square kilometers) and damaged buildings. More than 1,600 people were injured in the blast, mostly due to broken glass.<ref>https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/asteroids-comets-and-meteors/meteors-and-meteorites/in-depth/</ref>  

A similar issue emerges for the five daily prayers. Persons living in the polar region would not be able to make a sunset or sunrise prayer for much of the year. Even in less extreme contextxs, for cities further south like Aberdeen in Scotland, the gap between the night prayer (Isha) and the dawn prayer (Fajr) is still around 4 and a half hours in June, so a person praying five times a day is required to interrupt their sleep around 3.20am, then go back to sleep before getting up for the day. These challenges would likely not have been on the mind of the author of the Quran during the 7th century in Arabia.

Even far beyond the 8th/9th century when the Abbasid Caliph's translated Ptolemy's Almagest (a 2nd-century mathematical and astronomical treatise on the apparent motions of the stars and planetary paths - stating the Earth is a sphere)<ref>https://www.britannica.com/topic/Almagest</ref> from Greek at least five times,<ref>https://www.academia.edu/attachments/55944098/download_file?s=portfolio</ref> once into Syriac, and the others into Arabic, the issue was far from settled.  

For example, the Qur'anic commentary of al-Jalalayn (composed by the two “Jalals”; Jalal al-Din al-Mahalli (d.1459 CE) and his pupil Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti (d.1505 CE) - i.e. the 15th/16th century),<ref>https://web.archive.org/web/20140316181958/http://main.altafsir.com/Al-Jalalayn.asp</ref> agrees with this understanding of the verse saying that legal scholars at his time agree that the earth is flat and not spherical.

Modern geology has discovered that large plates in the crust of the earth are responsible for the formation of mountains. Called plate tectonics, the slow movement of these massive plates meet and the pressure between them pushes up the crust, forming mountains while also causing earthquakes and faults in the Earth's surface. The formation of mountains and occurance of earthquakes are thus both largely the result of destabilizing tectonic activity. They are part of the same ongoing process and one cannot exist without the other. The Qur'an, by contrast, holds that mountains are like pegs in the ground, stabilizing the Earth which would shake without them. Moreover, there are various ways in which mountains can form, not all of which involve a thickening of the continental crust beneath them which some attempt to compare as peg-like (see main article).

In early or pre-Islamic poetry mountains are mentioned in terms of the earth as a whole shifting/convulsing (see main article). This seems to support the more straightforward reading of the verses - that Allah's creation of mountains to prevent the earth shifting/convulsing (tamīda<ref>تَمِيدَ tamīda [http://www.studyquran.org/LaneLexicon/Volume7/00000274.pdf Lane's Lexicon] page 2746</ref>) does not refer to earthquakes, which have occured throughout history including in Muhammad's era, but to a movement of the entire earth.

Part of the legend of Noah's Ark is that a pair of every living species was stored on board. Modern science has revealed, however, that there are over 2.1 million types of species identified including penguins, polar bears, koala bears, and kangaroos discovered and named,<ref>[https://ourworldindata.org/how-many-species-are-there#:~:text=Species%20that%20we%20have%20identified,million%20species%20on%20the%20planet. https://ourworldindata.org/how-many-species-are-there#:~:text=Species%20that%20we%20have%20identified,million%20species%20on%20the%20planet.]</ref> and there are an estimated 8.7 million in total<ref>[https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110823180459.htm#:~:text=Summary%3A,on%20a%20new%20analytical%20technique. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110823180459.htm#:~:text=Summary%3A,on%20a%20new%20analytical%20technique.]</ref> with many not yet discovered, that live spread across the entire planet and each of which require different climates, habitats, and diets. This includes over a million identified insects, 110,000 arachnids, 11,000 birds, 11,000 reptiles and 6,500 mammals.<ref>https://ourworldindata.org/how-many-species-are-there</ref>