Islamic Views on the Shape of the Earth: Difference between revisions

Ptolemy’s ''Almagest'', written in the mid 2nd century CE, was translated into Arabic in the 9^th century CE after the Qur’an had been completed and [[Textual History of the Qur'an|standardized]]. Ptolemy recorded in book five of the ''Almagest'' 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, as well as the Aristotelian view which maintains that the Earth is spherical and that the heavens are celestial spheres.<ref>{{citation| chapter=Ptolemy and his Greek predecessors| title=Astronomy before the Telescope| first=G. J.| last=Toomer| location=New York| publisher=St. Martin's Press| year=1996| url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/astronomy-before-the-telescope/oclc/36922915| archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20171215163704/https://www.worldcat.org/title/astronomy-before-the-telescope/oclc/36922915| editor-last=Walker| editor-first=Christopher| ISBN=9780312154073|page=86}}</ref>

{{Quote|{{citation | last = Van Bladel| first =Kevin| title=Heavenly cords and prophetic authority in the Quran and its Late Antique context| date=July 11th, 2007| publisher=Cambridge University Press| periodical=Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies| volume=70| issue=2| pages=223-246, p. 241| url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/bulletin-of-the-school-of-oriental-and-african-studies/article/abs/heavenly-cords-and-prophetic-authority-in-the-quran-and-its-late-antique-context/DDF890784AD2034CAE98DC46561204F5| archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20201226172221if_/https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/bulletin-of-the-school-of-oriental-and-african-studies/article/abs/heavenly-cords-and-prophetic-authority-in-the-quran-and-its-late-antique-context/DDF890784AD2034CAE98DC46561204F5}}|When the worldview of educated Muslims after the establishment of the Arab Empire came to incorporate principles of astrology including the geocentric, spherical, Aristotelian-Ptolemaic world picture – particularly after the advent of the ‘Abbāsid dynasty in 750 – the meaning of these passages came to be interpreted in later Islamic tradition not according to the biblical-quranic cosmology, which became obsolete, but according to the Ptolemaic model, according to which the Quran itself came to be interpreted.}}

{{Quote|{{citation| chapter=Islamic Astronomy| title=Astronomy before the Telescope| first=David A.| last=King| pages=143-174| location=London| publisher=British Museum Press| year=1996| url=https://muslimheritage.com/islamic-astronomy/| archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20201222044602/https://muslimheritage.com/islamic-astronomy/| editor-last=Walker| editor-first=Christopher| ISBN=978-0714127330}}|The Arabs of the Arabian peninsula before Islam possessed a simple yet developed astronomical folklore of a practical nature. This involved a knowledge of the risings and settings of stars, associated in particular with the cosmical setting of groups of stars and simultaneous heliacal risings of others, which marked the beginning of periods called naw’, plural anwā’. […] Ptolemy’s Almagest was translated at least five times in the late eighth and ninth centuries. The first was a translation into Syriac and the others into Arabic, the first two under Caliph al-Ma’mūn in the middle of the first half of the ninth century, and the other two (the second an improvement of the first) towards the end of that century […] In this way Greek planetary models, uranometry and mathematical methods came to the attention of the Muslims.}}

{{Quote|{{citation| last=Hoskin| first=Michael| last2=Gingerich| first2=Owen| chapter=Islamic Astronomy| title=The Cambridge Concise History of Astronomy| ISBN=9780521576000| url=https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/physics/history-philosophy-and-foundations-physics/cambridge-concise-history-astronomy?format=PB&isbn=9780521576000| pages=50-52| year=1999| publisher=Cambridge University press| location: Cambridge| archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20201226174539/https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/physics/history-philosophy-and-foundations-physics/cambridge-concise-history-astronomy?format=PB&isbn=9780521576000}}|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.}}

 

Mohammad Ali Tabatabaʾi and Saida Mirsadri of Tehran University note in their paper surveying Qur'anic cosmography that the Qur'an "takes for granted" the flatness of the earth, a common motif among the scientifically naive people at that time, while it has "not even one hint of a spherical earth"<ref>{{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. 211; also available on [https://www.academia.edu/23427168/The_Quranic_Cosmology_as_an_Identity_in_Itself academia.edu]</ref> They also note that the pre-Islamic poet Umayya ibn Abī al‐Ṣalt (d. 5 / 626) described the earth as a carpet and likened it to the uplifted heavens.

 

{{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|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>

{{Quote|[https://tafsir.app/jalalayn/88/20 Tafsir al-Jalalayn 88:20]|And the earth how it was laid out flat? and thus infer from this the power of God exalted be He and His Oneness? The commencing with the mention of camels is because they are closer in contact with it the earth than any other animal. '''As for His words sutihat ‘laid out flat’ this on a literal reading suggests that the earth is flat which is the opinion of''' most [the word "most" is not included in the original Arabic: "وعليه علماء الشرع"; see citation for full text] '''of the scholars of the revealed Law and not a sphere as astronomers ahl al-hay’a have it''' even if this latter does not contradict any of the pillars of the Law.

{{Main|Dhul-Qarnayn and the Sun Setting in a Muddy Spring - Part One}}{{Quote|{{Quran|18|86}}| حتى اذا بلغ مغرب الشمس وجدها تغرب في عين حمئة ووجد عندها قوما قلنا ياذا القرنين اما ان تعذب واما ان تتخذ فيهم حسنا  

==Flat Earth in the hadiths==

==Flat Earth in tafsirs==

{{Main|Dhul-Qarnayn and the Sun Setting in a Muddy Spring - Part One}}

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 the round shape of the heavens is a narration where ibn 'Abbas and others comment on {{Quran|36|40}}, which describes the heavenly bodies [[Geocentrism and the Quran|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<ref>الفَلَكُ falak - [http://www.studyquran.org/LaneLexicon/Volume6/00000228.pdf Lane's Lexicon] Volume 1 page 2444. See also the [http://www.studyquran.org/LaneLexicon/Volume6/00000227.pdf previous page]. Lane says that the falak was generally imagined as a celestial hemisphere by the Arabs, but also that the Arab astronomers applied the term to seven spheres for the sun, moon, and the five visible planets, rotating about the celestial pole. This must reflect the post-Qur'anic influence of Ptolemy, whose astronomical work was translated for the Arabs from the 8th century onwards.</ref>. 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}}), Ibn Kathir quotes Ibn Abbas again, saying exactly this. 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").<ref>[https://tafsir.app/ibn-katheer/31/29 Tafsir Ibn Kathir 31:29]</ref>

{{Quote|1=[http://m.qtafsir.com/Surah-Luqman/The-Might-and-Power-of-Allah-A--- Tafsir ibn Kathir 31:29]|2=Ibn Abi Hatim recorded that Ibn ’Abbas said, “The sun is like flowing water, running in its course in the sky during the day. When it sets, it travels in its course beneath the earth until it rises in the east.” He said, “The same is true in the case of the moon.” Its chain of narration is Sahih.}}

===Qur'an 22:61 and 31:29 - night and day merging===

====39:5 - night and day overlapping====

In the very similar verse 39:5 the word يُكَوِّرُ yukawwiru (he overlaps / winds around<ref>كور kawara - [http://www.studyquran.org/LaneLexicon/Volume7/00000165.pdf Lane's Lexicon] page 2637</ref>) is used, and the verb كور was used for, among other things, wrapping a turban around a head. Today, it is also sometimes argued that this wrapping connotation of the word comports with a spherical conception of the Earth. Additionally, {{Quran|21|33}}, which mentions the "falak" or "rounded course" (now popularly translated as "orbit") of the sun and the moon seems to confirm this wrapping-like pattern of movement.  

While the words used in 39:5 and 21:33 do not violate a spherical model of the Earth, they are also equally comfortable with a flat model of the Earth. Since all positive evidence in the Islamic scriptures demonstrates that the earliest Muslims though the Earth to be flat, and since these two verses do not contradict that worldview, the simplest explanation of these verses is that they describe the motions of the night, day, sun and moon around what was thought to be a flat Earth, even if the verses don't clash in any obvious ways with modern cosmology. Verse 39:5 specifically describes the night and the day as overlapping (or wrapping) each other, with no mention of the Earth, its shape or its rotation. In any case, these two verses are largely irrelevant to the question of the Earth's shape, as it is possible for one to "wrap around" and "orbit" an object of any shape, whether it be flat, spherical, cylindrical, or cubical.  

{{Quote|{{citation| url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010427234331/http://www.binbaz.org.sa/RecDisplay.asp?f=n-04-1407-0300007.htm#| title=هل الأرض كروية أم سطحية؟| publisher=Bin Baz official website| author=Abd al-Aziz ibn Baz| trans_title=Is the Earth spherical or flat?| date=accessed April 27th, 2001}}|'''Translation of audio:''' According to the people of knowledge the Earth is round. Indeed, Ibn Hazm and other scholars have declared that there is consensus on this matter among the people of knowledge This means that all of the surface of the Earth is connected together so that the form of the planet is like a sphere.