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

However, every person who ever believed in a flat Earth, in so far as they had seen the sun setting and rising, understood that the transition from day to night and vice versa was a gradual and not sudden one. The key difference between a flat earth cosmology and modern cosmology in this regard is that a flat earth cosmology does not permit variant time zones across the surface of the planet, since day is day for everyone and night is night for all. Several other hadith confirm this ignorance of variant day times, most famously perhaps the hadiths describing the day of judgement as beginning one morning when the Sun "rises from the West". A sahih hadith in Ibn Majah attests that later on that same day, "at forenoon", the "Beast will emerge". This narrations vividly illustrates the scriptural notion of a common time-of-day taking place worldwide.  

“The first signs to appear will be at the rising of the sun from the west and the emergence of the Beast to the people, at forenoon.’” 'Abdullah said: "Whichever of them appears first, the other will come soon after." 'Abdullah said: "I do not think it will be anything other than the sun rising from the west."