Early Islamic Cosmology
Introduction
When critics point out that the Qur'anic Earth is flat, or that the author of the Qur'an believed that the sun sets in a muddy spring, and furthermore, that such verses encouraged the early Muslims to maintain false beliefs about the world, sometimes people claim in response that everyone knew that the Earth was round by the time of Muhammad. This article will dispel that assertion, and as such is complementary to discussions about Islamic cosmography.
It seems that despite the best efforts of apologetics websites, there is no known evidence for a round Earth belief among the earliest Muslims, and plenty of evidence for belief in a flat Earth.
False claims that there was always a Muslim consensus for a round Earth
While many people in some regions had known for centuries that the Earth was round and not flat, the question is whether Muhammad and his nearby contemporaries in Arabia had this knowledge.
One Islamic fatwah website (copied by others) quotes from scholars who lived hundreds of years after Muhammad in a failed attempt to show that there was always a Muslim scholarly consensus that the Earth is round. They are implying that the Qur'an does not reflect a very human lack of knowledge about the shape of the Earth.
To do so, they first quote from a book by ibn Taymiyyah (d. 728 AH/1328 CE), who in turn cites 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 - are agreed that both the sky and Earth are balls, the latter based on astronomical reasoning. This evidence is worthless, because from the 8th century CE the Muslims had access to Greek and Indian knowledge (see below), so of course the more recent scholars had this view. As we read on, it is apparent that there was no such consensus earlier about the shape of the Earth.
They then quote ibn Taymiyyah again, who is this time citing Abu’l-Husayn Ahmad ibn Ja‘far ibn al Munadi(again), Abu’l-Faraj ibn al-Jawzi (d. 597 AH / 1201 CE), and ibn Hazm (d. 456 AH / 1064 CE) saying that there is a consensus that the heavens are round. Notice that he says the heavens, but nothing about the Earth. He says they provided evidence from the Qur'an, sunnah, and narrations from the companions (sahabah) and second generation.
Ibn Taymiyyah continues the passage[1] giving the supposed evidence for round heavens in the Qur'an, sunnah, and narrations from the early Muslims (not included by the Islamic fatwah website). In between, 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.
It is the hadiths and companions that we are interested in for the purposes of this article (the Qur'an verses cited by ibn Taymiyyah are Quran 21:33, Quran 36:40, Quran 39:5, and Quran 67:5).
Narrations of the companions
Ibn Taymiyyah's evidence from the companions about the heavens is that ibn 'Abbas and others said regarding the falak (rounded course) which is mentioned in Quran 36:40, "in a whirl (whorl), like the whirl of a spindle" (فِي فَلْكَة كَفَلْكَةِ الْمِغْزَل fee falka, ka-falkati almighzal - al-Tabari and ibn Kathir tafsirs on 36:40). See the comments and footnotes about falak in the article Geocentrism and the Quran. So not exactly much to go on there regarding the shape of the heavens, and nothing about the Earth.
Hadiths
Ibn Taymiyyah then mentions the hadith in Sunan Abu Dawud (graded weak) (Sunan Abu Dawud 41:4708) in which Muhammad forms a dome with his fingers above his head when saying that Allah's throne is above the heavens. Ibn Taymiyyah's interpretation is that the throne is dome shaped.
The other hadith he mentions is in Sahih Bukhari, which says:
Ibn Taymiyyah then says that a middle only exists in a round thing. How any of this helps demonstrate that the heavens are spherical is a mystery.
The Islamic fatwah website then quotes one of the three that ibn Taymiyyah cited, ibn Hazm, who said that there is sound evidence that the Earth is round, but the common people thought otherwise, though none of the leading Muslim scholars denied that the Earth is round. Thus he provides no evidence that any of them actually said the Earth is round (at best, the absence of a denial from just the leading scholars).
They go on to quote from a 20th century book of fatwas, which claims that the Earth is egg shaped and also uses verse 39:5, both of which arguments are debunked in the article Flat Earth and the Quran. So to summarise, there seems to be no evidence available to suggest that the earliest Muslims believed the Earth was round.
Instead, there is plenty of evidence that they thought the Earth to be flat, as explained below.
Acquisition of Greek and Indian astronomical knowledge
Ptolemy’s Almagest was translated into Arabic in the 8th century CE after the Qur’an was completed. Ptolemy recorded in book five of his AlMagest in the mid-2nd 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.[2]
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[4] for excerpts of that chapter, which he summarises by saying:
David A. King writes:
Hoskin and Gingerich say:
Flat Earth(s) in hadith collections
The next few sections are about evidence of a commonplace flat Earth belief among the earliest Muslims (it omits evidence from the Qur'an itself, as per the purpose of this article stated in the introduction).
Two easy ways to demonstrate that at least a large number of the earliest Muslims imagined the Earth to be flat are to look at hadiths and tafsirs. For the purposes of this article, it matters little whether the hadiths are authentic or not; either way they demonstrate beliefs of early Muslims.
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:
Notice that it 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), for which the words al mashriq and al maghrib would have been used. The words used in this hadith must refer to the sun’s rising and setting places.
Flat Earth in Tafsirs
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:
يَقُول تَعَالَى ذِكْره : { حَتَّى إِذَا بَلَغَ } ذُو الْقَرْنَيْنِ { مَغْرِب الشَّمْس وَجَدَهَا تَغْرُب فِي عَيْن حَمِئَة } , فَاخْتَلَفَتْ الْقُرَّاء فِي قِرَاءَة ذَلِكَ , فَقَرَأَهُ بَعْض قُرَّاء الْمَدِينَة وَالْبَصْرَة : { فِي عَيْن حَمِئَة } بِمَعْنَى : أَنَّهَا تَغْرُب فِي عَيْن مَاء ذَات حَمْأَة , وَقَرَأَتْهُ جَمَاعَة مِنْ قُرَّاء الْمَدِينَة , وَعَامَّة قُرَّاء الْكُوفَة : " فِي عَيْن حَامِيَة " يَعْنِي أَنَّهَا تَغْرُب فِي عَيْن مَاء حَارَّة . وَاخْتَلَفَ أَهْل التَّأْوِيل فِي تَأْوِيلهمْ ذَلِكَ عَلَى نَحْو اِخْتِلَاف الْقُرَّاء فِي قِرَاءَته
The meaning of the Almighty’s saying, ‘Until he reached the place of the setting of the sun he found it set in a spring of murky water,’ is as follows:
When the Almighty says, ‘Until he reached,’ He is addressing Zul-Qarnain. Concerning the verse, ‘the place of the setting of the sun he found it set in a spring of murky water,’ the people differed on how to pronounce that verse. Some of the people of Madina and Basra read it as ‘Hami’a spring,’ meaning that the sun sets in a spring that contains mud. While a group of the people of Medina and the majority of the people of Kufa read it as, ‘Hamiya spring’ meaning that the sun sets in a spring of warm water. The people of commentary have differed on the meaning of this depending on the way they read the verse.So he says of the Basra version:
"بـمعنى: أنها تغرب فـي عين ماء ذات حمأة"
"Meaning: that it sets in a spring of muddy water."
And of the people of Kufa reading hot spring:
"يعنـي أنها تغرب فـي عين ماء حارّة"
"It means that it sets in a spring of hot water"
He goes on to quote various opinions such as Ibn 'Abbas, that the sun sets in black mud:
قَالَ : كَانَ اِبْن عَبَّاس يَقْرَأ هَذَا الْحَرْف { فِي عَيْن حَمِئَة }
Muhammad bin 'Abd al-A'laa narrated and said: Marwan bin Mu'awiya narrated from Warqa, he said: I heard Sa'id ibn Jubayr say: ibn 'Abbas read this letter "in a muddy spring"
وَيَقُول : حَمْأَة سَوْدَاء تَغْرُب فِيهَا الشَّمْس
and he said: the sun sets in black mud.
وَقَالَ آخَرُونَ : بَلْ هِيَ تَغِيب فِي عَيْن حَارَّة
Others said: it disappears (تَغِيب) in a hot spring.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 early Muslims about the sky being a dome or ceiling over the Earth:
Musa bin Harun narrated and said that Amr bin Hammad narrated and said that Asbath narrated from al-Suddi in the report mentioned, from Abu Malik, and from Abu Salih, from ibn 'Abbas and from Murrah, from ibn Masud and from people of the companions of the prophet (peace and blessings be upon him):
"...and the sky a canopy..." The canopy of the sky over the earth is in the form of a dome, and it is a roof over the earth. And Bishr bin Mu'az narrated and said from Yazid from Sa'id from Qatada in the words of Allah "...and the sky a canopy..." He says he makes the sky your roof.See also the English translation from J. Cooper's abridged translation of Tafsir al-Tabari[8]
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 sahaba such as ibn 'Abbas was that the 'nun' is a whale on whose back the Earth is carried (another interpretation was that it was an inkwell). The evidence is extensively documented on other websites, so the interested reader is refered to them.[9][10]
Conclusion
Islamic apologists have failed to provide any evidence that Muhammad or the earliest Muslims knew that the Earth was round. In contrast, there is lots of evidence to show them believing the Earth to be flat.
This evidence can be used as a foundation for other arguments concerning the flat Earth verses in the Qur'an, that they cause a justifiably suspicion that the author of the Qur'an was just as unaware as his nearby contemporaries about the shape of the Earth. It can also be used to make the point that it is another major weakness of the Qur'an to use such language when it will inevitably encourage 7th century Muslims to maintain their false notion that the Earth is flat (and indeed for many centuries later for some Muslims, such as al-Suyuti in his Tafsir al-Jalalyn).
External links
- Answering Islam - The Seven Earths
- Answering Islam Blog - Muhammad's Magical Mountain: One Whale of a Tail!
- Answering Islam - The Quran and The Shape of the Earth
References
- ↑ For the full chapter in Arabic see Wikisource.org wikisource.org, and for someone's English translation for most of the relevant parts see Salafitalk forum
- ↑ Toomer, G. J., Ptolemy and his Greek predecessors, In Astronomy Before the Telescope, Ed. Christopher Walker, p.86, London: British Museum Press, 1996
- ↑ Van Bladel, Kevin, “Heavenly cords and prophetic authority in the Qur’an and its Late Antique context”, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 70:223-246, p.241, Cambridge University Press, 2007
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 ibid. pp.224-226. Here are some more excerpts:
Entering into the debate was John Philoponus, a Christian philosopher of sixth-century Alexandria, who wrote his commentary on Genesis to prove, against earlier, Antiochene, theologians like Theodore of Mopsuestia, that the scriptural account of creation described a spherical geocentric world in accord with the Ptolemaic cosmology. [...]On the other hand, Cosmas Indicopleustes wrote his contentious Christian Topography in the 540s and 550s to prove that the spherical, geocentric world-picture of the erroneous, pagan Hellenes contradicted that of the Hebrew prophets. Cosmas was an Alexandrian with sympathies towards the Church of the East, who had travelled through the Red Sea to east Africa, Iran, and India, and who received instruction from the East Syrian churchman Mār Abā on the latter's visit to Egypt. His Christian topography has been shown to be aimed directly at John Philoponus and the Hellenic, sperical world-model he supported. [...] However, it is clear that Cosmas was going against the opinions of his educated though, as he saw it, misguided contemporaries in Alexandria.
A number of Syrian churchmen, notably but not only the Easterners working in the tradition of Theodore of Mopsuestia, took the view of the sky as an edifice for granted. Narsai d. c. 503), the first head of the school of Nisibis, in his homilies on creation, described God's fashioning of the firmament of heaven in these terms: "Like a roof upon the top of the house he stretched out the firmament / that the house below, the domain of earth, might be complete". ayk taṭlîlâ l-baytâ da-l-tḥēt mtaḥ la-rqî῾â I d-nehwê mamlâ dûkkat ar῾â l-baytâ da-l῾el. Also "He finished building the heaven and earth as a spacious house" šaklel wa-bnâ šmayyâ w-ar῾â baytâ rwîḥâ. Jacob of Serugh (d. 521) wrote similarly on the shape of the world in his Hexaemeron homilies. A further witness to the discussion is a Syriac hymn, composed c. 543-554, describing a domed church in Edessa as a microcosm of the world, its dome being the counterpart of the sky. This is the earliest known text to make a church edifice to be a microcosm, and it shows that the debates over cosmology were meaningful to more than a small number of theologians.
- ↑ King, David A., “Islamic Astronomy”, In Astronomy Before the Telescope, Ed. Christopher Walker, p.86, London: British Museum Press, 1996
- ↑ Hoskin, Michael and Gingerich, Owen, “Islamic Astronomy” in The Cambridge Concise History of Astronomy, Ed. M. Hoskin, p.50-52, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999
- ↑ For the Arabic, see sunnah.com or #159: hadith.al-islam.com
- ↑ The commentary on the Qur'an, by Abu Ja'far Muhammad b. Jarir al- Tabari ; being an abridged translation of Jami' al-bayan 'an ta'wil ay al-Qur'an, with an introduction and notes by J. Cooper, general editors, W.F. Madelung, A. Jones. Oxford University Press, 1987. p.164
- ↑ https://answeringislamblog.wordpress.com/2016/10/19/muhammads-magical-mountain-one-whale-of-a-tale/
- ↑ http://www.answering-islam.org/Shamoun/whale_nun.htm