Cosmology of the Quran: Difference between revisions

'''The Qur'anic universe''' comprises "the heavens and the earth, and all that is between them". Many verses expand on the various elements of this scheme, without going into great detail. Overall, a picture emerges of a flat earth (and perhaps seven of these), above which are seven heavenly firmaments of uncertain shape (commonly assumed to be domed; more recently some historians have argued that the Qur'anic heavens are flat) and held up by invisible pillars. Lamps adorn the lowest of these heavens. The sun and moon circulate in them in a partly ambiguous manner. Allah resides in heaven above the creation, sitting on a throne. Academic work has situated this picture within the context of earlier Mesopotamian and Biblical cosmological concepts, while noting its own distinctive identity.

Relatively few modern academics have made dedicated attempts to piece together the cosmography of the Quran, in whole or in part. The most comprehensive such survey has been conducted by Mohammad Ali Tabatabaʾi and Saida Mirsadri of Tehran University in 2016 (which can be read for free using a jstor.org monthly free article allowance).<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}} also available on [https://www.academia.edu/23427168/The_Quranic_Cosmology_as_an_Identity_in_Itself academia.edu]</ref> They note that the new movement in the field commenced with Kevin van Bladel's work regarding individual elements of the picture in the context of the journeys of Dhu'l Qarnayn<ref name="vanBladelLegend">Van Bladel, Kevin, “The Alexander legend in the Qur‘an 18:83-102″, In The Qur’ān in Its Historical Context, Ed. Gabriel Said Reynolds, New York: Routledge, 2007</ref> and the heavenly cords (asbab) by which he traversed the world, and which, for example, Pharaoh attempted to reach by building a tower<ref name="vanBladelCords">{{citation|last1=van Bladel |first1=Kevin |date=2007 |title=Heavenly cords and prophetic authority in the Qur’an and its Late Antique context |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40379198 |journal=Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies |volume=70 |issue=2 |pages=223-246 |doi= |access-date=25 April 2021}}</ref>.

By taking the Quranic descriptions in their own right and in the context of the more ancient cosmologies of Babylon and the Bible, but without appeal to later works of tafsir or hadith, which show the influence of Hellenistic (Greek) ideas acquired by the Muslims after the advent of Islam, Tabataba'i and Mirsadri argue that in various ways the Quranic cosmology has its own distinctive characteristics as well as inherited concepts, just as it interacts with the ideologies of its environment, taking some things and rejecting others. Their observations in particular are regularly cited in this article.

===The Heavens and the Earth===