Meteors as stars fired at devils

Introduction

Humans have always looked up at night and seen the stars lighting the sky. Folklore around stars, before our modern understanding of them as gigantic balls of gases, creating light energy via nuclear fusion,^[1] has been creative and varied.

Due to their similar size and appearance, many ancient people have confused meteors, which are small rocky masses or grains of debris which burn up after entering the earth's atmosphere as stars streaking across the sky, which is why they were often called shooting stars(as we do in English), broken stars or falling stars.

On a typical night it means you might see just a few meteors an hour streaking randomly across the sky. These are called sporadic meteors. At certain times of the year these numbers can increase to around 100 meteors an hour in events called meteor showers, as Earth ploughs through denser streams of particles on its orbit around the Sun.^[2]

Ancient beliefs around stars and meteors pre-Islam

Meteors as stars:

For example, in Ancient Egypt civilisation, we see a strong resemblance of a shooting star by the author of ‘The Shipwrecked Sailor’ (c. 2000-1900 BC), which recounts a series of many adventures fantastic adventures, including a star falling to Earth:

A discussion linking this event to being a meteorite can be found here^[3] (“Then a Star Fell:” Folk-Memory of a Celestial Impact Event in the Ancient Egyptian Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor? Dr Lloyd D. Graham. 2022).^[4] And for a further discussion of a theoretically catastrophic impact in ancient Egypt, see Aly Barakat, ‘Did the Kamil Meteorite Fall Contribute to the Downfall of the Old Kingdom?’, The Ostracon: Journal of the Egyptian Study Society, XXIV (Fall 2013), pp. 12–21.^[5]

Biblical motifs

Though there is no direct stories of the functions of star in this way in the bible (or biblical literature), Dr Julien Decharneux notes in book exploring the connections between the cosmology of the Qur’ān and various cosmological traditions of Late Antiquity, with a focus on Syriac Christianity,^[6] there are some general motifs that link to this imagery; such as Talmudic stories of demons listening in to divine councils, and separately fire as weapons from the upper skies. However, there is no direct story for this (yet) found in biblical literature. He notes it is more likely rooted in Iranian mythology:

Weapons against demons: Many cultures had mythology surrounding meteors and meteorites, with some believing they were weapons, such as in ancient Africa and Mesopotamia:

And this may have inspired their use much later in Zoroastrianism, (which was a prominent religion in the Persian (Iranian) empire both before and during the time of the prophet Muhammad/beginning of Islam)), where we see the link between stars and meteors as weapons:

Islamic literature:

In the Qur'an

The Qur'an states that stars (kawakib ٱلْكَوَاكِبِ), lamps (masabih مَصَٰبِيحَ) and/or great stars/constellations (burūj بُرُوجًا) adorn the heavens and guard against devils (shayāṭīn شياطين).

The Qur'an further asserts that Allah has made them (the stars/lamps) missiles to ward away devils (who are believed to be jinn in Islam), who attempt to listen in on heavenly meetings (known as the Exalted Assembly). The Quranic concept has a close parallel in an earlier Jewish development from Zoroastrian mythology. Such myths are best understood as pre-modern attempts to explain the common phenomenon of meteors streaking across the night sky. The relevant verses are below:

The same Arabic words are used at the start of Quran 67:5 as in Quran 37:6 (زَيَّنَّا ٱلسَّمَآءَ ٱلدُّنْيَا), except that in Quran 67:5 the word lamps is used instead of stars. The lamps that 'beautify the heaven' must refer to stars (and perhaps also the 5 visible planets), which are always there.

Stars and visible planets were often called the same thing (kawakib ٱلْكَوَاكِبِ) due to their similar appearance, with stars appearing 'fixed' and planets notably 'moving', usually differentiated by astronomers by labelling them respectively. This is confirmed by astrologists such as Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi who around 964 wrote the astronomical book of fixed stars كتاب صور الكواكب kitāb suwar al-kawākib. As professor David Cook notes, 'Eventually in Arabic, najm generally came to mean “a fixed star” while kawkab “a planetary body” but there are plenty of exceptions to this rule. Planets were believed to be moving stars.'^[7]

In Quran 67:5, the word translated "missiles" is rujūman (رُجُومًا), which are things that are thrown, especially stones.^[8]

Burūj بُرُوجًا means great stars or constellations; Surah 85 (Al-Burūj) is called The Great Star.

Other relevant verses are Quran 55:33-35 (flame of fire and smoke, though a slightly different context):

And Quran 21:32, which many classical commentators have associated with protection against devils:

In the Hadith

A hadith in Sahih Muslim confirms that the 'pursuant flames / missiles' in the two verses refer to meteors which they saw shooting across the sky.

This is confirmed in a hadith in Sunan Ibn Majah's collection:

And here in Jami' at-Tirmidhi, where we see the word (najm/نجم) is used to describe the shooting star:

Showing this reinforcing the incorrect idea of stars being shooting stars and gives us yet a fourth word for stars as confirmation.

Muslim Historians

Meteor showers were of unknown cause to 7th Century Arabs, as the later (than the Quran's writing) historian and geographer Al-Ya'qubi reports several meteor showers that happened just before and during Muhammad's lifetime (In 571 AD and 609 AD), attributing them to shooting stars/planets striking devils^[9], with the multitude of them potentially leading to the idea they are 'pelted from every side'. Further Muslim historians such as Ibn 'Idhari and Ibn al-Jawzi confirm this understanding, with a summary of their assessment of meteor showers held in this Royal Astronomical Society publication.

Versus modern science

As mentioned in the introduction, while stars are giant balls of gas thousands of times larger than the earth, meteors are now known to be distinct from the distant stars, being small rocky masses or grains of debris which burn up after entering the earth's atmosphere. They are often not much larger than grains of sand and only become visible for a second when they burn up, generating light in the Earth's atmosphere. Many ancient people confused the two, as meteors look like stars that are streaking across the sky; this is why they were often called shooting stars or falling stars. (see final section 'Further science on meteors' for full explanation of this topic).

Large increases in meteors occur on a predictable schedule each year as the Earth's orbit passes through the stream of particles and debris left in the wake of a number of comets (or in a few cases, of asteroids). The most visible is usually the annual Perseid meteor shower in August, which easily look like stars with flames being used a weapon in the sky, pelting the area. Meteor showers look like stars 'pelting' from every side.

If the flaming missiles mentioned by the Quran are to be identified with meteors burning up in the Earth's atmosphere, this would locate the eavesdropping devils (or jinn) in the upper atmosphere too, which leaves no way for the (extremely distant) stars to serve as guards in this process as outlined in the verses.

Stars are an average 5 light years away from each other in our galaxy.^[10] For context, a light year is the distance light travels in one year, which is 5.88 trillion miles/9.46 trillion kilometres.^[11] This again makes them an odd choice for a protection/guard, with trillions of miles/kilometers of mostly empty space between them.

The results of many stellar size measurements over the years have shown that most nearby stars are roughly the size of the Sun, with typical diameters of a million kilometers or so.^[12] An example of a calculation to demonstrate the size of this, is the sun can fit around 22 billion billion billion (10^28) people in, with the full workings found in this Quora answer as an estimate. This of course makes them absurdly large to be used as an object to be thrown by angels at jinn, both of which are approximately human size and visit Earth.

Also, stars do not actually 'burn' or cause flame which is caused by chemical burning on Earth needing oxygen.^[13] Stars create energy via nuclear fusion instead with no flames.

However, these verses would of course fit a relatively small universe as imagined by 7th century Arabs, in which a heavenly firmament is adorned with stars able to pelt shooting stars at any devils or jinn in their vicinity, seeming to cover interstellar distances in a flaming streak across the sky.

Modern Apologists

Meteors come from stars

Some apologists, for example, the highly influential Ala-Maududi (d. 1979 AD) writing in light of much more modern science in his modern tasfir wrote:

Objections to this claim

The claim appears to be that stars create heavier elements^[14] which eventually go on to become the sources of debris which can become meteors.

However, there are objections to this interpretation.

1. Qur'an does not state that the shooting stars 'come from stars' (mostly many billions of years ago), which would be very easy to do - so put bluntly this isn't what is being said in the text. It is the stars themselves that are a protection and are thrown. I.e. you state that something is a missile, all rules of grammar and logic lead you to assume that it's the thing that is mentioned that is the missile, not something that part of it get its elements from after going through many other processes to become billions of years later.

2. Meteors do not even come directly from stars, but rather form asteroids and comets either hitting earth or occasionally breaking into Mars or the Moon, with the debris getting burned up in Earths atmosphere ((see final section 'Further science on meteors' for full explanation of this topic). It is only true to say all the elements which make up everything (and not just space debris) in the universe were once part of a star.

3. In light of the previous point, naming stars/lamps/constellations as a protection is a totally pointless link to make as they have nothing to do with the story, which should focus only on the flames if meteors were what was being mentioned. The stars could have been described as being made for anything else in the universe as they create heavy elements for everything, yet they only are in this context where it is easy for humans to confuse the two.

4. If it meant something the unknown sources of meteors at the time, it easily could have used another of the many generic words for objects/things in the heavens rather than those which have a different meaning.

In other words, this has involved twisting the text into something that isn't there.

Cosmic rays

Ala-Maududi (d. 1979 AD) also wrote:

Note the meteor shower being referred to here Leonid Meteor Storm, where fragments of ice, rock, and dust left behind by the Comet Tempel-Tuttle. About every 33 years, the Leonid meteor shower intensifies, increasing the possibility of a dazzling display of lights.^[15] This comes from a predictable pattern of material left behind by the comet entering earths atmosphere and burning up,^[16] they do not actually form a flame in space which is impossible due to there being no oxygen.^[17]

Two alternative interpretations popular in modern times^[18] are that the Quran is referring to coronal mass ejections (large eruptions of charged matter from the sun or other stars), or cosmic rays (high energy, sub-atomic particles travelling through interstellar space). However, coronal mass ejections move slowly in cosmic terms, disperse over distance and do not come from surprise directions (Quran 37:8 states that the devils are pelted from every side, and pursued by a piercing flame if they escape with anything they overheard). Cosmic rays do not emit light as they travel through space and therefore nor could these be the flaming missiles of fire and smoke in the Quran.

Conclusion

The Quran and subsequent Islamic literature shows it confirming local folklore around stars being the same as shooting stars, and that one of their functions is to be used as missiles to keep spying evil jinn away from angel meetings, just how they were understood in their historical context. Modern times have meant apologists have come up with explanations often not included in the text, or that are themselves based on faulty science (such as cosmic rays).

This is an attempt to come up with an explanation for an unknown natural phenomena, being the flames across the sky which look like stars, which has made it into Islamic scripture. These verses and story would of course fit a relatively small universe as imagined by 7th century Bedouins, with the stars appearing visible distances away from each other, and were assumed to be the same thing as 'shooting stars'/meteors, as it was interpretated at the time (including by many other cultures), and backed up by 'sahih' (authentic) hadith.

On a separate note, though stars are described as an ornament or beauty for the sky in Quran 37:6, and Quran 67:5, there are an estimated minimum c.100 septillion stars in the known universe, but only a few thousand are actually visible to the naked eye.

There is also nothing said of their function of holding planetary systems together,^[19] which could have easily been done by differentiation of fixed stars from moving stars, and shown genuine scientific foreknowledge.

Further science on meteors

Technical definitions used throughout^[20]:

Meteors are the meteoroids that enter Earth’s atmosphere, where they often burn up—meaning they can often be seen with the naked eye. This is what we sometimes call a shooting star. When there are a lot of them at once, we call it a meteor shower.

Meteorites are the meteoroids that have made it all the way to Earth’s surface (though these two terms are sometimes used interchangeably).

Asteroids are rocky objects that vary in size, but on average they’re between the size of a meteoroid and a planet. Asteroids are mostly found within the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Comets are made up of mostly ice and dust and are known for the tail of gas and dust that gets blown away from them when they’re near the sun. Some, like asteroids, orbit the sun and come around in regular intervals.

Stars^[21] are a luminous ball of gas, mostly hydrogen and helium, held together by its own gravity. Nuclear fusion reactions in its core support the star against gravity and produce photons and heat, as well as small amounts of heavier elements. The Sun is the closest star to Earth.

Further Science on meteors

Although not the main argument of this page, which is to show the conflation of stars and meteors (shooting stars), it is worth noting the issues of meteors being used as weapons as many apologists claim, in light of modern science, and clarify the differences for the casual reader.

Asteroids:

Clarifying the technical definition again: Asteroids are rocky bodies in space found in space.^[22]

Meteors are objects that enter Earth’s atmosphere from space, which are typically pieces of dust no larger than a grain of rice, burn up before reaching the ground, though can be larger (meteorites refer to rocks that survive left over on Earth). As they vaporize, they leave behind the fiery trails sometimes called “shooting stars,” even though meteors are not really stars.

The main source of meteors are asteroids (~94% of all), either directly by them being pulled out of the belt by Jupiter's gravity, then moving to the inner solar system where they collide with Earth (99.8% of them),^[23] or indirectly as they collide with other rocky objects, i.e. the moon or Mars (0.02% of them) which then come into Earths gravitational tug.^[24]

Other than the fact that these asteroids are not stars or 'star-like', but just rocks and metal with no light source, and therefore cannot accurately be said to match the description of 'lamps' - the most densely populated space for these is the asteroid belt.

This is problematic as despite there being many millions of objects in the asteroid belt, the average distance between them is ~600,000 miles (about 1 million km).^[25] Making them very difficult to use for a protection as the angels could only be close to a maximum of one at a time, having to move millions of miles to pick up another, leaving them unable to ward off one if they miss just once, or one coming after another at different points in time, or multiple using any flanking method. Especially to line up with 'pelted every side', which only appears to match a meteor shower.

Another problem arises in that they are said to be pursued with flame, however there is no oxygen in space,^[26] so you can't start a fire (or get smoke).^[27] Let alone by throwing a rock through space. They only burn in Earths atmosphere due to friction from travelling extremely fast in a vacuum which takes no energy, to being compressed by air in the atmosphere, rising the temperature and setting fire where there is oxygen.^[28] (Stars like our sun create heat through nuclear fusion, which is a completely different process to chemical burning that creates flame).

The distance between Earth and the closest edge of the Belt is approximately a minimum ~179.5, to 329 million km (111.5 to 204.43 million mi). But of course, at any given time, part of the Asteroid Belt will be on the opposite side of the Sun relative to us as well, far, far further than that.^[29] Therefore, for them to make a 'clear flame' by turning into meteors, this would have to be thrown a minimum ~179.5 million km / 111.5 million miles while the jinn are still in the Earths atmosphere, with the flame 'pursuing them' for only a tiny fraction of the process (<0.01%), adding to the problematic nature of these verses. Also meteor paths are dictated by physics, so it is unclear how they could pursue a jinn/devil that moved of it's directed course.

Comets:

Comets, which are the other source (~6%) of meteors, almost all through leaving behind debris, are arguably just as if not more problematic than asteroids. These are similar to asteroids, however they aren't just made of rock but also frozen gases, ice and dust, and orbit the Sun.^[30]

Similar to asteroids in the asteroid belt, the source of comets are from extremely distant sections of the solar system, the Kuiper belt (beyond Neptune) being the closest source. The inner edge of the Kuiper Belt begins at the orbit of Neptune and a distance of around 2.8 billion miles (4.8 billion kilometers) from the sun, with its main concentration of bodies ending at around 4.6 billion miles (7.4 billion km) from the star. It's thickness is approximately ~930 million miles (~1.5 billion kilometers / (10AU)).^[31] The Kuiper Belt is far larger than the main asteroid belt, up to 20 times as wide and 20 to 100 times it's mass according to Nine Planets. In fact, astronomers estimate there are hundreds of thousands of objects in the region that are larger than 60 miles (100 kilometers) wide or larger, and potentially trillions overall, however, the total mass of all the material in the Kuiper Belt is estimated to be no more than about 10% of the mass of Earth.^[32] Occasionally, one will break of from this orbit and reach the inner solar system, though for one to come anywhere near Earth is rare,^[33][34] and for two that also happen to be appropriately sized, to be near enough to be used as objects is near impossible, making them extremely sparse for use as weapons to pelt jinn from every side from.

As mentioned briefly earlier, comets do not make flames or have fire at their head, but ice melting and disintegrating under a barrage of solar radiation. For this reason, they only sprout a tail near the sun. In fact the tails direction more influenced by direction of the sun than the Comet trajectory.^[35] Comet ion tails are comprised of glowing lightweight gases ionised by UV light, this reflecting sunlight, not a flame.^[36] These do not match the flaming pursuing lamps of the jinn - which would be scientifically inaccurate. When they are far from their stars comets are just cold dark space bodies movies on a highly eccentric ellipse path.

Once again to burn up in the atmosphere to create an actual flame would require them being thrown distances of usually hundreds of millions of miles to finally create a flame near Earth, other than an unbelievably rare instance of close planet encounters.

They also travel from around 2,000mph to over 100,000mph,^[37] making them very awkward sources for weapons to defend against a meeting being held.

Meteor Showers

It is extremely rare for comets to cause a meteor directly, but in theory meteorites could come from meteors from them directly from the few 'near' Earth (it's extremely rare for one to come within 0.1AU of Earth),^[38] but none (meteorites) have been traced indefinitely. As meteor shower occurs when the Earth passes through the trail of debris left by a comet or occasionally an asteroid.^[39] When a meteoroid from these enters Earth’s upper atmosphere, it heats up due to friction from the air. The heat causes gases around the meteoroid to glow brightly, and a meteor appears.^[40]

Meteors showers are what the later Muslim historians such as Al-Ya'qubi Ibn 'Idhari and Ibn al-Jawzi understood to being blocking jinn from listening to the exalted assembly.