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

An ostrich egg is a prolate spheroid (a sphere-like shape with pointed poles) like most eggs. This is fundamentally different to the shape of the Earth, which is a very slightly oblate spheroid (a sphere-like shape with flattened poles). The Earth is 0.3% wider at its equator than it is tall between its poles.<ref>{{Citation|title=Shape and Size of the Earth|publisher=University of Hawaii Center for Aerospace Education|publication-date=2010|author=Joseph Ciotti|url=http://aerospace.wcc.hawaii.edu/Curriculum_Voyagers/shape.html|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20191031005204/http://aerospace.wcc.hawaii.edu/Curriculum_Voyagers/shape.html}}</ref> This is not merely a matter of perspective or orientation. An oblate spreroid cannot be made prolate simply by rotating it.

The shape of the ''madaahi'', whether in the form of a stone or some other object, is said to be like a "small round cake of bread" or a "قرصة".<ref name=":0" /> Such cakes of bread are defined as being "very small", "of a round, flattened form", like the apparent "disk of the sun"<ref>{{Citation|title=Lane's Lexicon|page=2572|chapter=قرض|url=http://ejtaal.net/aa/#hw4=h898,ll=2609,ls=h8,la=h3587,sg=h848,ha=h610,br=h777,pr=h126,aan=h519,mgf=h722,vi=h296,kz=h2114,mr=h532,mn=h1107,uqw=h1300,umr=h875,ums=h734,umj=h652,ulq=h1407,uqa=h345,uqq=h305,bdw=h711,amr=h517,asb=h787,auh=h1286,dhq=h452,mht=h732,msb=h197,tla=h84,amj=h640,ens=h1,mis=h633}}</ref>, and, on the whole, far more similar in shape to discs or extremely-oblate spheroids than they are to the only very slightly oblate Earth.