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Islamic Views on the Shape of the Earth: Difference between revisions
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Mentioning academic opinion at the start as many muslim and non-muslim critics of the page assume we are presenting an idiosyncratic view
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[[File:Flat Earth The Wonders of Creation.jpg|right|thumb|175px|Taken from Zekeriya Kazvinî's "Acaib-ül Mahlûkat" (The Wonders of Creation). Translated into Turkish from Arabic. Istanbul: ca. 1553. <BR>This map depicts "a traditional Islamic projection of the world as a flat disk surrounded by the sundering seas which are restrained by the encircling mountains of Qaf".<ref>[http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/world/earth.html Views of the Earth] - World Treasures of the Library of Congress, July 29, 2010</ref> ]] | [[File:Flat Earth The Wonders of Creation.jpg|right|thumb|175px|Taken from Zekeriya Kazvinî's "Acaib-ül Mahlûkat" (The Wonders of Creation). Translated into Turkish from Arabic. Istanbul: ca. 1553. <BR>This map depicts "a traditional Islamic projection of the world as a flat disk surrounded by the sundering seas which are restrained by the encircling mountains of Qaf".<ref>[http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/world/earth.html Views of the Earth] - World Treasures of the Library of Congress, July 29, 2010</ref> ]] | ||
Islamic [[scriptures]] imply, adhere to, and describe a flat-Earth cosmography ([[Geocentrism and the Quran|arranged in a geocentric system]]) | Islamic [[scriptures]] imply, adhere to, and describe a flat-Earth cosmography ([[Geocentrism and the Quran|arranged in a geocentric system]]) according to numerous academic studies. While knowledge of the spherical shape of the Earth has existed to a greater or lesser degree since at least the classical Greeks (4th Century BCE), such knowledge prominently entered the Islamic milieu in the 9th century CE when many Greek texts were translated into Arabic for the first time under the sponsorship of the Abbasid [[Khilafah (Caliphate)|caliphate]]. | ||
Today, some Islamic scholars claim that Islamic scriptures and their first audiences were fully aware of the spherical shape of the Earth and that this was also a consensus view of early scholars. Evidence does not support any of these claims, despite oft-cited statements from the works of [[Islamic_Views_on_the_Shape_of_the_Earth#Classical_perspectives|Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn Hazm (see below)]]. Critics note that clear descriptions and assumptions made in the [[Qur'an]], [[hadith]], [[Tafsir|tafsirs]], and writings of early Islamic scholars demonstrate that Muhammad and his companions did not know the Earth was spherical but in fact held it to be flat and disk like, and this is the framework within which the Qur'an operates. | Today, some Islamic scholars claim that Islamic scriptures and their first audiences were fully aware of the spherical shape of the Earth and that this was also a consensus view of early scholars. Evidence does not support any of these claims, despite oft-cited statements from the works of [[Islamic_Views_on_the_Shape_of_the_Earth#Classical_perspectives|Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn Hazm (see below)]]. Critics note that clear descriptions and assumptions made in the [[Qur'an]], [[hadith]], [[Tafsir|tafsirs]], and writings of early Islamic scholars demonstrate that Muhammad and his companions did not know the Earth was spherical but in fact held it to be flat and disk like, and this is the framework within which the Qur'an operates. | ||
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{{Quote|Dīwān, Umayya ibn Abī al‐Ṣalt, p. 179 cited in {{citation |last1=Tabatabaʾi |first1=Mohammad A. |last2=Mirsadri |first2=Saida |date=2016 |title=The Qurʾānic Cosmology, as an Identity in Itself |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24811784 |journal=Arabica |volume=63 |issue=3/4 |pages=201-234}} p. 226<BR />See [https://www.aldiwan.net/poem36172.html here] for the poem in Arabic.|And [he] shaped the earth as a carpet then he ordained it, [the area] under the firmament [are] just like those he uplifted}} | {{Quote|Dīwān, Umayya ibn Abī al‐Ṣalt, p. 179 cited in {{citation |last1=Tabatabaʾi |first1=Mohammad A. |last2=Mirsadri |first2=Saida |date=2016 |title=The Qurʾānic Cosmology, as an Identity in Itself |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24811784 |journal=Arabica |volume=63 |issue=3/4 |pages=201-234}} p. 226<BR />See [https://www.aldiwan.net/poem36172.html here] for the poem in Arabic.|And [he] shaped the earth as a carpet then he ordained it, [the area] under the firmament [are] just like those he uplifted}} | ||
Damien Janos in another paper on Qur'anic cosmography has similarly noted that while the exact shape of its boundaries are not described, "what is clear is that the Qurʾān and the early Muslim tradition do not uphold the conception of a spherical earth and a spherical universe. This was a view that later prevailed in the learned circles of Muslim society as a result of the infiltration of Ptolemaic astronomy".<ref>{{citation |last1=Janos |first1=Damien |date=2012 |title=Qurʾānic cosmography in its historical perspective: some notes on the formation of a religious wordview |journal=Religion |volume=42 |issue=2 |pages=215-231}} See pp. 217-218</ref> | Damien Janos in another paper on Qur'anic cosmography has similarly noted that while the exact shape of its boundaries are not described, "what is clear is that the Qurʾān and the early Muslim tradition do not uphold the conception of a spherical earth and a spherical universe. This was a view that later prevailed in the learned circles of Muslim society as a result of the infiltration of Ptolemaic astronomy".<ref>{{citation |last1=Janos |first1=Damien |date=2012 |title=Qurʾānic cosmography in its historical perspective: some notes on the formation of a religious wordview |journal=Religion |volume=42 |issue=2 |pages=215-231}} See pp. 217-218</ref> Likewise, Omar Anchassi in his study of early Islamic cosmography notes, "A plain-sense reading of the Quranic text renders the earth as flat".<ref name="Anchassi" /> | ||
==Direct references to a flat Earth in the Qur'an== | ==Direct references to a flat Earth in the Qur'an== | ||
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Many further examples of scholars expressing a flat earth interpretation of the Quran are collated in [https://theislamissue.wordpress.com/2019/03/22/scholarly-consensus-of-a-round-earth/ another article.] One can see that all early mufassirūn (Quranic scholars who wrote commentaries/tafsirs, which can be viewed directly on [https://www.altafsir.com/ tafsir.com]) who commented on the relevant verses took the view the Qur'an was describing a flat earth. | Many further examples of scholars expressing a flat earth interpretation of the Quran are collated in [https://theislamissue.wordpress.com/2019/03/22/scholarly-consensus-of-a-round-earth/ another article.] One can see that all early mufassirūn (Quranic scholars who wrote commentaries/tafsirs, which can be viewed directly on [https://www.altafsir.com/ tafsir.com]) who commented on the relevant verses took the view the Qur'an was describing a flat earth. | ||
These interpretations contrast with claims of an Islamic scholarly consensus for a round earth. As Dr Omar Anchassi says '<nowiki/>''It is clear that the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic vision of the cosmos remained contested by theologians of all stripes to the end of the fifth/eleventh century''<nowiki/>'<ref>''[https://www.academia.edu/93485940/ | These interpretations contrast with claims of an Islamic scholarly consensus for a round earth. As Dr Omar Anchassi says '<nowiki/>''It is clear that the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic vision of the cosmos remained contested by theologians of all stripes to the end of the fifth/eleventh century''<nowiki/>'<ref name="Anchassi">Omar Anchassi. ''[https://www.academia.edu/93485940/ Against Ptolemy? Cosmography in Early Kalām]'', Journal of the American Oriental Society, '''142'''(4), 2022, pp. 851–881. <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.7817/jaos.142.4.2022.ar033</nowiki></ref> in his article '''[https://doi.org/10.7817/jaos.142.4.2022.ar033 Against Ptolemy? Cosmography in Early Kalām]''<nowiki/>' (2022). | ||
==Modern perspectives and criticisms thereof== | ==Modern perspectives and criticisms thereof== | ||