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Islamic Views on the Shape of the Earth: Difference between revisions
Islamic Views on the Shape of the Earth (view source)
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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 | Islamic [[scriptures]] imply, adhere to, and describe a flat-Earth cosmography ([[Geocentrism and the Quran|arranged in a geocentric system]]) which conceives of the earth as existing in the form of a large plane or disk. While some early Islamic authorities maintained that the earth existed in the shape of a "ball", such notions are entirely absent in the earliest Islamic scriptures. | ||
Nonetheless, as knowledge of the Earth's spherical form has existed to greater or lesser degree since at least classical Greek (4th Century BCE) - even rising to the level of common knowledge among early medieval Europeans<ref>{{cite web|url= http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Myth_of_the_Flat_Earth&oldid=556807448|title= Myth of the Flat Earth|publisher= Wikipedia|author= |date= accessed June 12, 2013|archiveurl= http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FMyth_of_the_Flat_Earth&date=2013-06-12|deadurl=no}}</ref> and with the Holy Roman Empire opting to use an orb to represent the spherical Earth from as early as 395 CE<ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Globus_cruciger&oldid=312872920 Globus cruciger] - Wikipedia, accessed September 9, 2009</ref> - it has been frequently argued in recent times that early Islamic scholars and indeed scripture itself supported the spherical-earth model, although evidence for these claims is lacking. | Nonetheless, as knowledge of the Earth's spherical form has existed to greater or lesser degree since at least classical Greek (4th Century BCE) - even rising to the level of common knowledge among early medieval Europeans<ref>{{cite web|url= http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Myth_of_the_Flat_Earth&oldid=556807448|title= Myth of the Flat Earth|publisher= Wikipedia|author= |date= accessed June 12, 2013|archiveurl= http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FMyth_of_the_Flat_Earth&date=2013-06-12|deadurl=no}}</ref> and with the Holy Roman Empire opting to use an orb to represent the spherical Earth from as early as 395 CE<ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Globus_cruciger&oldid=312872920 Globus cruciger] - Wikipedia, accessed September 9, 2009</ref> - it has been frequently argued in recent times that early Islamic scholars and indeed scripture itself supported the spherical-earth model, although evidence for these claims is lacking. | ||
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{{Quote||In 762 [Muhammad’s] successors in the Middle East founded a new capital, Baghdad, by the river Tigris at the point of nearest approach of the Euphrates, and within reach of the Christian physicians of Jundishapur. Members of the Baghdad court called on them for advice, and these encounters opened the eyes of prominent Muslims to the existence of a legacy of intellectual treasures from Antiquity - most of which were preserved in manuscripts lying in distant libraries and written in a foreign tongue. Harun al-Rashid (caliph from 786) and his successors sent agents to the Byzantine empire to buy Greek manuscripts, and early in the ninth century a translation centre, the House of Wisdom, was established in Baghdad by the Caliph al-Ma’mun. […] Long before translations began, a rich tradition of folk astronomy already existed in the Arabian peninsula. This merged with the view of the heavens in Islamic commentaries and treatises, to create a simple cosmology based on the actual appearances of the sky and unsupported by any underlying theory.<ref>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</ref>}} | {{Quote||In 762 [Muhammad’s] successors in the Middle East founded a new capital, Baghdad, by the river Tigris at the point of nearest approach of the Euphrates, and within reach of the Christian physicians of Jundishapur. Members of the Baghdad court called on them for advice, and these encounters opened the eyes of prominent Muslims to the existence of a legacy of intellectual treasures from Antiquity - most of which were preserved in manuscripts lying in distant libraries and written in a foreign tongue. Harun al-Rashid (caliph from 786) and his successors sent agents to the Byzantine empire to buy Greek manuscripts, and early in the ninth century a translation centre, the House of Wisdom, was established in Baghdad by the Caliph al-Ma’mun. […] Long before translations began, a rich tradition of folk astronomy already existed in the Arabian peninsula. This merged with the view of the heavens in Islamic commentaries and treatises, to create a simple cosmology based on the actual appearances of the sky and unsupported by any underlying theory.<ref>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</ref>}} | ||
== | ==Direct references to a flat Earth in the Qur'an== | ||
The Qur'an frequently describes, in explicit terms, the creation of "al-'ard", which can be translated as either "Earth" or "land", as a flat structure. This use of metaphors and words intimately associated with flat objects (such as beds and carpets) is especially common in cases where the context of the verse makes it clear that the word "al-'ard" is being used to describe the creation of the Earth at the beginning of time alongside the creation of the "heavens" (rather than in the more limited sense of a certain portion of "land"). The best example of this is perhaps [[Islamic Views on the Shape of the Earth#Qur.27an 88:20 - sutihat .28spread out flat.29|verse 88:20]]. | |||
The | |||
===Qur'an 2:22 - firashan (thing spread to sit or lie upon)=== | ===Qur'an 2:22 - firashan (thing spread to sit or lie upon)=== | ||
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By the Earth and its (wide) expanse}} | By the Earth and its (wide) expanse}} | ||
== | ==Indirect references to a flat Earth in the Qur'an== | ||
===Qur'an 18:86 - Setting and rising places of the sun=== | ===Qur'an 18:86 - Setting and rising places of the sun=== | ||