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

Appeal is sometimes made to a lengthy hadith in which Muhammad instructs Muslims to make an estimate of prayer times in the last days when the Dajjal comes and when one day will be like a year, then like a month, and then like a week. It is argued on this basis that Muhammad provided a principle by which people at extreme latitudes should fast and pray.  

Critics note a number of shortcomings with this argument: Firstly, this hadith contains only an instruction for the end of time and when the whole world will have some very long days. The question remains why there are not specific instructions for praying (not to mention fasting) near the polar regions on our round planet. While a stretched analogy can be made with polar regions where the sun cannot be seen rising or setting at all for months at a time, places such as the north of Scotland in the example above still have very short nights in summer yet maintain a 24 hour day-night cycle all year round. This is not like the month or year long days affecting the world in the hadith. A further problem is that the hadith does not explain how an estimate is to be made. The assumption must be that in the last days scenario, people can use the intervals they had been used to in normal times and that this is possible all over the world (which therefore must also be flat). However, on our round earth, people in the polar regions cannot in any sense "estimate" what their prayer (and fasting) intervals would normally be when the sun no longer rises or no longer sets each day. Instead, typically they have to chose the times pertaining at the nearest lower latitude, or if possible, to pray (and fast) at the prescribed times if there is still some brief period of daytime (or night).

The hadith further demonstrates a flat earth and pre-scientific worldview. On a round earth, there would equally be a long night for half the world. Crops would soon fail on both the daylit and night sides of the earth during the day lasting a year and the day lasting a month. The world would starve before the other events could unfold.