Islamic Views on the Shape of the Earth

Ptolemy’s Almagest was translated into Arabic in the 8^th century CE after the Qur’an was completed. Ptolemy recorded in book five of his AlMagest in the mid-2^nd century CE the discovery of Hipparchus, and of Aristarchus before him, that the sun is much larger than the earth and much more distant than the moon, and the Aristotelian view that Earth was spherical and the heavens were celestial spheres.^[4]

Professor Kevin Van Bladel says:

Earlier in the same paper, Van Bladel describes how Christian theologians in the region of Syria in the sixth century CE shared the view that the Earth was flat and the heaven, or series of heavens was like a dome or tent above the Earth, based on their reading of the Hebrew and New Testament scriptures. This was a rival view to that of the churchmen of Alexandria who supported the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic view of a spherical Earth surrounded by spinning celestial spheres. See the footnote below^[6] for excerpts of that chapter, which he summarizes by saying:

David A. King writes:

Hoskin and Gingerich say:

Knowledge of the spherical nature of the Earth existed, at the very least, for nearly a millennium prior to the emergence of Islam in the 7th century. However, due to the non-uniform distribution of knowledge across the world and the pervasive assumption of a flat-Earth in Islamic scriptures, it is widely held that Muhammad and his companions were almost certainly ignorant of the matter. In the absence of explicit and authentic formulations from Muhammad and his companions on the topic, however, full confidence is impossible and modern inquirers are left to infer the cosmology of the earliest Muslims on the basis of indirect scriptural allusions. Such allusions are plenty and uniformly point to the assumption of a flat-Earth.

Militating against these appearances are statements from the works of ibn Taymiyyah and ibn Hazm, who are often cited as evidence^[9] of an early Islamic consensus on a spherical earth. While the notion of a spherical earth had undoubtedly entered the Islamic milieu in the centuries following Muhammad's death to a limited extent, claims of anything approaching an early consensus on a spherical earth are unfounded, and attempts to extend this to Muhammad's generation, entirely fanciful.

Al Mawardi (d. 1058)

Al-Mawardi (d. 450 / 1058 CE), in his commentary on Quran 13:3, maintains that the Earth is shaped like a ball.^[10]

Ibn Hazm (d. 1064)

One of the three that ibn Taymiyyah cites, ibn Hazm (d. 1064) of Cordoba, asserts that while there is sound evidence that the Earth is round, common people and some non-leading Muslim scholars may think otherwise. Still, he maintains, none of the leading scholars of Islam deny that the Earth is round.^{[Citation needed]}

This can be taken as evidence that it was not uncommon for uneducated lay persons living in Muslim lands in the 11th century to still believe the Earth to be flat. It is likewise clear from the arguments marshalled by Ibn Hazm that, by his time, members of the scholarly class had, in addition to their round-Earth-friendly interpretations of scripture, solid astronomical reasoning on which to base their belief in the round Earth. The same can be said about the other followers of Imam Ahmad cited by Ibn Taymiyyah.

Given that Ibn Taymiyyah cited these scholars, the narrations he uses to argue for the spherical shape of the heavens (when asked about the shape of both the heavens and Earth), were most probably the best available. Stronger and clearer evidence might reasonably be expected if a consensus for the round shape of the Earth (in addition to that of the heavens) went back to Muhammad and the companions.

Al-Qurtubi (d. 1273)

Al-Qurtubi (d. 671 AH / 1273 CE), another prominent exegete, maintains that the Earth is shaped like a ball in his commentary on Quran 13:3.^[11]

Ibn Taymiyyah (d.1328)

In one oft-cited work, Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 728 AH / 1328 CE) references Abu’l-Husayn Ahmad ibn Ja‘far ibn al Munadi as saying that the scholars from the second level of the companions of Imam Ahmad (d. 241 AH / 855 CE) – i.e. the early Hanbalis – maintained there was consensus among the scholars that both heaven and Earth are balls, the latter consensus being based on astronomical reasoning. However, this evidence does not help determine earlier beliefs, since from the 8th century CE onwards, Muslims had access to Greek and Indian astronomical scholarship, which had already come to learn of the Earth's spherical form (see below). The term 'consensus' (ijma) has been used in different ways by different scholars, but essentially means the agreement of Muslim scholars, or, ideally, also of the salaf (the first generations of Muslims)^[12]. In this case, it is used to claim the consensus of the scholars, not that of the salaf, and certainly not that of Muhammad and his companions.

In another instance^[13], ibn Taymiyyah, answering a question about the shape of the heavens and Earth, cites Abu’l-Husayn Ahmad ibn Ja‘far ibn al Munadi (a second time), Abu’l-Faraj ibn al-Jawzi (d. 597 AH / 1201 CE), and ibn Hazm (d. 456 AH / 1064 CE) as saying that there is a consensus that the heavens are round. In this instance, Ibn Taymiyyah makes no mention of the shape of the Earth. He further mentions that these authorities have provided evidence for the shape of the heavens from the Qur'an, sunnah, and narrations from the companions (sahabah) and second generation.

Scriptural evidence cited by Ibn Taymiyyah

Ibn Taymiyyah proceeds to directly give this evidence for the round shapes of the heavens from the Qur'an, sunnah, and narrations from the early Muslims. Here, he argues that a round heavens and Earth is supported by what specialists on tafsir and language have said about certain words in the Qur'an.

The Qur'an verses cited by ibn Taymiyyah in support of the round shape of the heavens are Quran 21:33, Quran 36:40, Quran 39:5, and Quran 67:5). These evidences are, however, indirect, and rely on what Ibn Taymiyyah and those he references argue is implied by their extrapolations on the grammatical nuances of the verses discussed. The solitary piece of direct evidence that Ibn Taymiyyah brings from the companions about round shape of the heavens is a narration where ibn 'Abbas and others comment on Quran 36:40, which describes the heavenly bodies swimming in a falak (rounded course):

A whirl or whorl was a small wheel or hemisphere that was constructed around a spindle for the purpose of clothes-making^[14]. As the sun and moon appear to arc across the sky, even those who imagined the Earth was flat and the heavens a dome (or a sphere) would also imagine some path for the two celestial bodies to continue beneath the Earth upon setting so they could return the for the following day and night cycle. In his commentary on another, related verse (Quran 31:29), quoting the very same narration from Ibn Abbas, Ibn Kathir notes that something similar to a whorl is meant by ibn 'Abbas. The sun runs in its falak (فَلَكهَا) in the sky / heaven (السَّمَاء) during the day, and when it sets it runs during the night (بِاللَّيْلِ - omitted from the translation) in the very same "falak" beneath the Earth until it rises from its rising place (من مشرقها - translated below as "in the east")^[15]

Ibn Taymiyyah follows this with a hadith recorded in Sunan Abu Dawud which, unlike the above sahih hadith, is graded as "da'if" or weak (see: Sunan Abu Dawud 4726 (Dar-us-Salam Ref) and in which Muhammad forms a dome with his fingers above his head and proceeds to say that Allah's throne is above the heavens. Ibn Taymiyyah here interprets the narration to mean that the throne is dome shaped.

Finally, Ibn Taymiyyah cites the following hadith from al-Bukhari and, returning to his reliance on indirect grammatical nuance, argues that if the structure (the hadith refers to "Jannah" or Paradise in particular, rather than Heaven in general) described below has a "midmost" part, then it must be spherical, for only spherical structures have such a "midmost" point.

Ibn Kathir (d. 1373)

Ibn Kathir says the heavens are a dome or roof or like the floors of a building over the Earth which is its foundation in his tafsir for verses 2:29, 13:2, 21:32, 36:38, and 41:9-12.

Jalal ad-Din al-Maḥalli (d. 1460)

In Tafsir al-Jalalayn, started by Jalal ad-Din al-Maḥalli (d. 1460) and completed by Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti (d. 1505), a different majority view is asserted. This relevant portion of the Tafsir is authored by al-Mahalli):

The word "sutihat" in Quran 88:20 means "laid out flat".

The quotes below are relevant to commonplace beliefs about the shape of the Earth among the earliest Muslims. For the same reason, it matters little whether the hadiths are authentic or not; either way they demonstrate beliefs of early Muslims.

These are seven flat earths, not spherical layers (طوّقه means put on a neck-ring^[17]):

This next hadith is on the same topic. It is graded daif (weak), but shows what some early Muslims (if not actually Muhammad) thought about the world:

The following hadith is graded Sahih by Dar-us-Salam (Hafiz Zubair 'Ali Za'i) and has a chain of narration graded as Sahih (authentic) by al-Albani. It is from Sunan Abu Dawud, book XXV - Kitab Al-Ahruf Wa Al-Qira’at (Book of Dialects and Readings Of The Qur’an):

Notice that the next hadith below says, "from its rising place" (min matli'iha مَطْلِعِهَا ), and "from the place of your setting" (min maghribiki مِنْ مَغْرِبِكِ). The sun is commanded to go somewhere – it cannot be claimed that this is an idiomatic way of commanding the Earth to rotate, nor that the words mean the east and west here (despite mistranslations of similar hadiths), not least because the words al mashriq and al maghrib would have been used for that purpose and without the possessive suffixes. The words used in this hadith must refer to the sun’s rising and setting places.

This next hadith is relevant because on a flat Earth night begins for everyone at the same time.

The spring where the sun sets

In the tafsir of al-Tabari (b. 224 AH / 839 CE) for Quran 18:86, we see the following remarks about the nature of the spring into which the sun sets. The similar sounding words hami'ah (muddy) and hamiyah (hot) seem to have become confused at some point:

So he says of the Basra version:

And of the people of Kufa reading hot spring:

He goes on to quote various opinions such as Ibn 'Abbas, that the sun sets in black mud:

From these comments and narrations in al-Tabari's tafsir, we can reasonably conclude that many, and perhaps all, of the earliest Muslims took verse 18:86 to mean that the sun actually sets in a spring and thus that the Earth is flat.

If the reader wishes to explore this sub-topic further, they can see how al-Tabari in his History of the Prophets and Kings, and al-Baydawi in his tafsir mention the opinion that the sun has 360 springs into which it can set, and the pre-Islamic Arab poems on the same topic in the article Dhu'l Qarnayn and the Sun Setting in a Muddy Spring.

The sky is a dome above the Earth

In his tafsir for Quran 2:22, al-Tabari includes narrations from some of the earliest Muslims about the sky being a dome or ceiling over the Earth:

Ibn Kathir in his tafsir for Quran 13:2 has yet more narrations of the sahabah and tabi'un (2nd generation) on this topic:

Seven Flat Earths

Ibn Kathir recorded that Mujahid said that the seven heavens and the seven Earths are on top of one another. This belief is also apparent in some of the narrations in the Hadiths section above.

The Earth on the back of a whale

Al-Tabari's tafsir contains other indications of a common flat Earth belief. For example, regarding Quran 68:1, which mysteriously starts with the Arabic letter nun, he (and many other tafsirs) records that one of the interpretations among sahabah such as ibn 'Abbas was that the 'nun' is a whale on whose back the Earth is carried (other interpretations were that it was an inkwell, or a name of Allah). The evidence is extensively documented on other websites including narrations with sahih chains from the sahabah, so the interested reader is referred to them.^[19][20][21]

In this analysis, we look at direct references to the shape of the Earth in the Qur'an. Verse 88:20 is particularly worth highlighting for its use of a word that was deeply associated with flat surfaces.

Arabic word definitions in English are from Lane's Lexicon of classical Arabic (not to be confused with modern Arabic). Note that the Arabic word al-ard can mean the land or the Earth. However, it is perfectly obvious from the context that in the verses below al-ard means the entire Earth, not a local area of land.

The section after this one discusses indirect evidence that the Qur'an supports a flat Earth model, and perhaps contains even stronger evidence than the direct statements below.

Qur'an 2:22 - firashan (thing spread to sit or lie upon)

فِرَٰشًا = firashan = a thing that is spread upon the ground, a thing that is spread for one to sit or lie upon.^[22]

Qur'an 15:19 - madad (extend, stretch out)

مَدَدْ = madad = extend by drawing or pulling, stretch out, expand^[23]

Qur'an 20:53 - mahdan (bed)

مَهْدًا = mahdan = cradle or bed; a plain, even, or smooth expanse^[24]

Qur'an 43:10 - mahdan (bed)

مَهْدًا = mahdan = cradle or bed; a plain, even, or smooth expanse^[25]

Qur'an 50:7 - madad (expand, stretch out)

مَدَدْ = madad = extend by drawing or pulling, stretch out, expand^[26]

Qur'an 51:48 - farasha (spread out) mahidoon (spreaders)

فَرَشَْ = farasha (see also 2:22 above for the noun) = spread or expand, spread a bed or carpet^[27]

الْمَهِدُونَ = mahidoon from مهد = make plain, even, smooth, spread a bed^[28]

There is also a hadith in which the plural noun furushaat is used, meaning "beds":

Qur'an 71:19 - bisaatan (carpet)

بِسَاطًا = bisaatan = A thing that is spread or spread out or forth, and particularly a carpet (from the same root we also have بَسَاطٌ = bisaatun = Land, expanded and even; and wide or spacious) ^[29]

This word is also used in a hadith in At-Tirmidhi:

So the derived verb basata refers to spreading out (thus flattening) a carpet.

Qur'an 78:6-7 - mihadan (bed)

مِهَٰدًا (same as مَهْدًا mahdan) = cradle or bed; a plain, even, or smooth expanse^[30]

Qur'an 79:30 - daha (spread out or ostrich egg?)

Many Islamist apologists attempt to deflect criticism that the Qur'an promotes the mistaken belief of a flat earth by the word دَحَىٰهَآ (dahaha) used in Qur'an 79:30, commonly translated as ‘He spread it’ or ‘He stretched it’.

Word by word:

• وَٱلْأَرْضَ
  • وَ - wa - and
  • ٱلْ - al - the
  • أَرْضَ - ard - Earth
    • feminine in Arabic
• بَعْدَ - ba'ada - after
• ذَٰلِكَ - dhalika - that
• دَحَىٰهَآ
  • دَحَىٰ - dahaa - (he) spread
    • verb ^[32]
  • هَآ - ha - her
    • or "it" in the English translation, referring to the Earth.

دَحَىٰهَآ is a verb with a suffixed pronoun, so it cannot mean a noun "ostrich egg". In the apologist interpretation the verb would have to mean "he made it in a shape of an ostrich egg". It is absurd to think that such a little word could mean something so complex.

The هَا (-ha) suffix pronoun meaning literally "her" is also repeated in the surrounding verses as a literary device:

So the -ha in 79:30 is a pronoun as well as in other verses and the pronoun is completely missing in the translation "ostrich egg".

Qur'an Translations

Some translations have attempted to translate the word dahaha to mean made egg-shaped or like an ‘ostrich egg’.

Apologetic Claims

Some will also falsely claim that the root word for dahaha is duhiya, which they claim means ostrich egg.

A further apologetic is to point to a game played by Meccans in their attempt to link dahaha with roundness.

One of the meanings of dahaha is to 'throw' and that is the derivation of the words 'almadahi and udhiyatun'. It is not anything to do with their shape. In any case, the contention that almadahi and udhiyatun conveys the concept of roundness which they link to the root of dahaha is false for the reason that the 'roundness' of the almadahi and udhiyatun is only in two dimensions. The almadahi is round like a piece of Arab bread (i.e. shaped like a disc) and the udhiyatun is also round in two dimensions.

Oblate and prolate spheroids

There are two problems with the egg-shaped Earth claim. One is that their statements about the words daha and duhiya are false, as proven further below. But even if they were right about that, it would prove the Qur'an to be incorrect because while the Earth and an ostrich egg are both spheroids, they are of fundamentally different types of spheroid.

The Earth is very nearly, but not absolutely a perfect sphere. It is in fact an oblate spheroid, which means that the radius from its centre to either of its two poles is shorter than the radius to the equator. In other words, there is a very slight bulge around the equator. The radius from the centre of the Earth to the north or south poles is 6,357km, and the radius from the centre to the equator is 6,378km, a difference of less than 1 percent. This is caused by the rotation of the Earth around its polar axis, which produces a centripetal force that is greatest at the equator.

An ostrich egg, much like all eggs, can be described as a prolate spheroid. This is because the radius from its centre to either of its two poles is longer than the radius to the equator, as though it were a sphere that had been pulled from two ends. It certainly is not an oblate spheroid. You can see in the image an oblate spheroid (top left), and a prolate spheroid (bottom left). Even holding an egg on its side (top), you cannot make it look like an oblate spheroid in 3D. The shape of the ostrich egg is in fact like a prolate spheroid (bottom). No matter how you hold the egg, it is a prolate spheroid and not an oblate spheroid.

In a flat 2d image without texture or shading oblate and prolate spheroids might look the same, but in three dimensions you cannot make one look like the other no matter how you turn it. They are fundamentally different shapes.

Daha and Duhiya

In Arabic, each word must be derived from its root. The root usually consists of three letters that can be manipulated, by adding vowels, prefixes and suffixes in order to produce different words with different meanings. For example, "ka-ta-ba" (to write) is the root for many words such as kitab (book), maktaba (library), katib (author), maktoob (written), kitabat (writings) et cetera.

Let's now take the word claimed to mean egg of an ostrich, "Duhiya". This word is not a root. It is a noun and is derived from "da-ha-wa" (دحو)^[36], the same root that the verb "dahaha" (دَحَىٰهَآ) in 79:30 comes from (the 'ha' at the end there is just a pronoun suffix meaning 'it'). Furthermore, Duhiya does not even mean the egg of an ostrich. This is what the most respected dictionaries have to say on this subject:

Lisan Al Arab

Translation: Al-udhy, Al-idhy, Al-udhiyya, Al-idhiyya, Al-udhuwwa:The place in sand where an ostrich lays its egg. That's because the ostrich spreads out (تَدْحُوه, tadhooh) the earth with its feet then lays its eggs there, an ostrich doesn't have a nest.

Translation: To daha the earth: means to spread it out. Then it mentions a couple of Arabic poems that confirm this meaning. Anyone who can read Arabic will find this to be the definitive proof that Daha means to spread out.

Al Qamoos Al Muheet

Translation: Allah daha the Earth: He spread it out.

Al Waseet

Translation: To daha something: means to spread it out. For example: Allah daha the Earth.

Lane's Lexicon

Note above that Lane also translates udhiyy (أُدْحِىٌّ) to mean the place in the sand where the ostrich lays its eggs, and not the eggs themselves.

Tafsirs on the verse 79:30

The tafsirs explain that this verse describes the Earth to be flat.

Al-Jalalayn:

Tanwir Al-Miqbas:

"Ostrich egg" mentioned in a hadith

There is no hadith saying that the Earth is shaped like an ostrich egg. But "ostrich egg" is mentioned in one hadith so we can check whether the word دَحَىٰهَآ (dahaha) is used in the original Arabic.

Of course it isn't, because "ostrich egg" needs two words. "Egg" is بَيْضِ (baydi) and "ostrich" is النَّعَامِ (an-na'ami). So ostrich egg is called baydi an-na'ami and not dahaha in Arabic.

Qur'an 88:20 - sutihat (spread out flat)

سَطَّحَ = spread out or forth, expand

The word was used to describe making the flat top or roof of a house or chamber and making a top surface flat.

Words from the same root mean the flat top surface or roof of a house or chamber, a bounded plane in geometry, a level place upon which dates can be spread, a rolling pin (which expands the dough), plane or flat.^[40]

In the tafsir Al-Jalalayn (from 15. century) we can read that the word sutihat means the Earth is flat which is the opinion of the Islamic scholars:

• (*) The Arabic original says "وعليه علماء الشرع", literally "and-on-it (are) scholars (of) law"^[41]. The word "most" was added by English translators, probably to make it less embarrassing.
• The phrase "flat earth" today is commonly translated as الأرض مسطحة (al-ard musattaha)^[42], the word musattaha is from the same root as the word sutihat.

Qur'an 91:6 - taha (spread out)

Qur'an 18:86 - Setting and rising places of the sun

This can only happen on a flat Earth. For a detailed discussion of the key words in these verses, evidence showing that early Muslims took it literally, and contemporary Arabic and Syriac poems of the same legend, see the article Dhu'l-Qarnayn and the Sun Setting in a Muddy Spring.

Qur'an 2:187 and 17:78 - Fasting and prayer times

This verse tells Muslims, when fasting, to not eat, drink, or have sexual intercourse during sunlight hours. This can cause a huge problem for those who live close to the North or South poles. Many Muslim scholars have tried to contrive rules to save Muslims from this problem, such as using the times of the nearest country having a moderate latitude. The need for such innovations was unforeseen in the Qur'an.

The closer we get to the poles, the longer our days or nights become. They can eventually extend for up to several months each, making this verse, the fourth Pillar of Islam, impossible to practice without starving yourself to death. Again, this problem would not exist on a flat earth model.

Even for cities further south like Aberdeen in Scotland, the gap between the night prayer (Isha) and the dawn prayer (Fajr) is around 4 and a half hours in June, so anyone following these rules has to interrupt their sleep around 3.20am, then go back to sleep before getting up for the day. Such issues would not have crossed the mind of a 7th century man in Arabia, who believed that everyone experiences sunrise and sunset when he does, and where it would be perfectly natural to arise at dawn any time of the year.

Qur'an 2:144 - Praying towards the Ka'aba

This verse tells all Muslims to pray towards the Ka'aba (qiblah being the direction that one has to face in order to do this). This is only possible on a flat earth model. Due to the sphericity of the earth, a prayer in any direction will point towards the sky/outer-space, not Mecca.

For people who are praying a great distance from Mecca, their qiblah would be somewhere down towards the ground, and the people who are located on the opposite 'side' of the earth would have to pray vertically downward towards the center of the earth. So, for example, Muslims in the Solomon Islands in fact blaspheme against Allah, because they defecate downwards toward the direction of the Ka'aba when they answer the call of nature.

For this reason, the great circle method came to be used, tracing the shortest distance across the sphere of the Earth towards the Ka'aba. Nevertheless, anywhere on Earth you would be simultaneously praying with both your face and backside aligned along a great circle towards the Ka'aba. At the antipode of Mecca, any direction for all 360 degrees would be facing equally 'towards' and 'away' from Mecca and consequently, there would be no one direction that would be the correct one.

The Americas are mostly in the hemisphere of this antipode to Mecca. There, the rhumb line method is often preferred because the great circle lines across the continent diverge from the antipode before they start to converge when they enter the hemisphere of Mecca, causing people north and south across the Americas to face away from each as they pray.

Qur'an 18:47 - Without mountains the Earth will be entirely apparent

بَارِزَةً = baarizatan = Wholey, or entirely, apparent or manifest, Land that is open, apparent, or uncovered, upon which is no mountain or any other thing.^[43]

Qur'an 20:105-107 Without mountains the Earth will be a level plain

The word فَيَذَرُهَا Fayatharuha ('And he will leave it') has the feminine 'ha' suffix, meaning 'it'. It almost certainly refers to the Earth, which is not explicitly mentioned, and is a feminine noun. Similarly the word translated 'Wherein' is فِيهَا feeha (literally 'in it') and has the feminine 'it' suffix too. There are no other singular feminine nouns in these verses, so because we have some additional context to this verse thanks to 18:47, we should conclude that they refer to al-ard (the Earth).

قَاعًا = qaAAan = an even place; plain, or level, land that produces nothing; plain, or soft, land, low, and free from mountains.^[44]

صَفْصَفًا = safsafan = a level, or an even, tract of land or ground.^[45]

عِوَجًا = AAiwajan = crookedness, a curvity, bending, winding, contortion, wryness, distortion, or uneveness^[46]

أَمْتًا = amtan = curvity, crookedness, distortion, or uneveness; ruggedness and smoothness in different places; depression and elevation; small hills and hollows.^[47]

AAiwajan and amtan are inconclusive regarding their implications for the shape of the Earth as a whole, but qaAAan safsafan means a level, barren plain.

Qur'an 55:17 - The two easts and two wests

The commentaries (tafsirs) are unanimous that this refers to the two places where the sun rises on the summer and winter solstices (almashriqayni), and where it sets on those solstice days (almaghribayni), which also fits with the literal meanings of mashriq^[48] and maghrib^[49]. Similarly, verse Quran 70:40 was understood to refer to all the different places where the sun rises and sets between these ranges (almashariqi waalmagharibi). This might seem perfectly fitting for an author who believed in a flat Earth and a sun that moves around the world every day, where these locations are objective facts of cosmography.

The problem is that in reality, the Earth is a spinning sphere, so that even if we consider these locations to be points on the horizon, they are entirely a matter of perspective. Any two viewpoints on Earth will have different points on the horizon where the extremities of rising and setting appear during the year, and if they are at different latitudes, then even the angular range between these perceived extremities is different too. Indeed, the entire Earth is covered with places from which the sun can appear to someone, somewhere, to rise, and similarly, to set.

Qur'an 2:22 - The heavens are a canopy / building

The word translated as canopy is binaa or binaan ( بِنَاء ). This word means "building"^[50]. The heavens are as a multi-story building over the earth. There are seven layers or stories to this building called the heavens. The heavens are built on a "flat" foundation called "the earth". The tafsir of 'ibn Kathir confirms this:

Qur'an 22:61, 31:29, & 39:5 - night and day merging / overlapping

Muslims sometimes claim "Merging here means that the night slowly and gradually changes to day and vice versa. This phenomenon can only take place if the earth is spherical. If the earth was flat, there would have been a sudden change from night to day and from day to night."

This claim is false. Consider that everyone who has ever believed in a flat Earth was aware of the gradual transition from night to day. The gradual shift from day to night and vice versa would still happen on a flat earth model. The only difference is that the flat earth model would be lit up at the same time, there would be no timezones just the same night and day for everyone.

A simple experiment can be done to demonstrate the point. All that is needed is a dark room, table and flashlight. If the flashlight is slowed raised above the edge of the table (similar to a sunrise), a gradual shift from darkness to light will be observed. So verses 31:29 and 22:61 give no information about the Earth's shape. They are merely observations that anyone can make.

Looking now at verse 39:5, it is sometimes claimed that the word يُكَوِّرُ yukawwiru (he overlaps / winds around^[52]) implies that the Earth is round because this verb كور was used for example, for wrapping a turban around a head. The first problem with this claim is that it is very much compatible with ancient conceptions of a flat Earth with a hemisphere or spherical firmament. Similarly, verses such as Quran 21:33 that mention the sun and moon (as well as the night and the day) each having a falak (rounded course) do not interfere with a flat Earth model.

In addition, these verses, as well as others, erroneously refer to night and day as two active entities. They are in fact simply the times when, for an observer on the surface of the Earth, they are on the sunlit or shadowed side of the planet as it rotates upon its axis. The night does not "overlap" or "wrap" around the day because there is only light, and darkness is nothing but the absence of light. The Qur'an could hardly be more wrong here. A less bad description would be to say that the Earth passes through night and day. Moreover, attempts to interpret 39:5 as the rotation of the Earth require contradictory shifts in the meaning of the words halfway through the sentence, as explained in a more detailed discussion of 39:5 on the page Geocentrism and the Qur'an.

Earth is flat only from our perspective

Some Islamic websites attribute the above quote to Sheikh Ibn Bâz, the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, who at one time believed the Earth was flat. While some of the verses quoted in this article make reference to humans, most do not. They are describing what Allah supposedly did when creating the entire Earth, not that the Earth seems flat to a human from a small local perspective on its spherical surface (an illusion that would be dispelled for the Arabs in the 8th century as they gained astronomical knowledge). Moreover, some of these verses also mention Allah placing mountains, or the sky as a ceiling or canopy, and therefore such verses must apply to the Earth's shape as a whole. The argument further ignores the very unambiguous choice of word in verse 88:20 quoted above, which also means a flat surface in geometry. Try as they might, apologists cannot give "flat" and "round" the same meaning.

Most importantly, the argument ignores the indirect and further evidence in the Further Proof section above. That section contains the best evidence for a flat Earth cosmography in the Qur'an, stronger even than the verses that directly describe the creation of the Earth.

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