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

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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> ]]
The fact that the Earth is not flat has been known for thousands of years. The Ancient Greeks [[w:Spherical_Earth#History|had this knowledge]], possibly as early as the 5th Century BC. Contrary to popular myth, the sphericity of the Earth was 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 the Holy Roman Empire from as early as 395 AD used an orb to represent the spherical Earth.<ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Globus_cruciger&oldid=312872920 Globus cruciger] - Wikipedia, accessed September 9, 2009</ref>
Islamic [[scriptures]] widely attest and adhere to 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.
 
However, it is a common misconception that there was universal knowledge of the roundness of the Earth by the time of Muhammad. The first sections of this article will explore early Muslim beliefs about the shape of the Earth. These are informative to discussions about Islamic cosmography in general, the primary source being the Quran itself, which is examined in the remainder of the article.
 
It seems that despite classical and modern apologetics, there is no known evidence for a round Earth belief among the earliest Muslims, which would surely be abundant if Muhammad had such knowledge, and plenty of evidence for belief in a flat Earth. Indeed, the Qur'an itself seems to clearly maintain a flat-earth model of the planet (as well as [[Geocentrism and the Quran|geocentrism]]).
 


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.
==Statements of Scholarly Consensus==
==Statements of Scholarly Consensus==


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[https://islamqa.info/en/118698 One Islamic fatwah website]<ref>[https://islamqa.info/en/118698 IslamQA.info - 118698: Consensus that the Earth is round]</ref> (copied by others) is typical of this stance and quotes from scholars who lived hundreds of years after Muhammad in an attempt to show that there was always a Muslim consensus that the Earth is round.
[https://islamqa.info/en/118698 One Islamic fatwah website]<ref>[https://islamqa.info/en/118698 IslamQA.info - 118698: Consensus that the Earth is round]</ref> (copied by others) is typical of this stance and quotes from scholars who lived hundreds of years after Muhammad in an attempt to show that there was always a Muslim consensus that the Earth is round.


===ibn Taymiyyah===
===Ibn Taymiyyah===
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 – said there was consensus among the scholars that both heaven and Earth are balls, the latter based on astronomical reasoning. This evidence does not help determine earlier beliefs because from the 8th century CE Muslims had access to Greek and Indian astronomical knowledge (see below), so it is unsurprising that Muslim scholars had this view. The term 'consensus' (ijma) was used in different ways by different scholars, but essentially meant the agreement of Muslim scholars, or ideally, also of the salaf (the first three generations of Muslims)<ref>[http://www.sunnah.org/fiqh/ijma.htm sunnah.org] Questions on Ijma` (concensus), Taqlid (following qualified opinion), and Ikhtilaf Al-Fuqaha' (differences of the jurists) by Shaykh Hisham Muhammad Kabbani</ref>. In this case it is explicitly the scholars.
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 – said there was consensus among the scholars that both heaven and Earth are balls, the latter based on astronomical reasoning. This evidence does not help determine earlier beliefs because from the 8th century CE Muslims had access to Greek and Indian astronomical knowledge (see below), so it is unsurprising that Muslim scholars had this view. The term 'consensus' (ijma) was used in different ways by different scholars, but essentially meant the agreement of Muslim scholars, or ideally, also of the salaf (the first three generations of Muslims)<ref>[http://www.sunnah.org/fiqh/ijma.htm sunnah.org] Questions on Ijma` (concensus), Taqlid (following qualified opinion), and Ikhtilaf Al-Fuqaha' (differences of the jurists) by Shaykh Hisham Muhammad Kabbani</ref>. In this case it is explicitly the scholars.


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