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

{{Main|The Ramadan Pole Paradox}}{{Quote|{{Quran|2|187}}|It is made lawful for you to go in unto your wives on the night of the fast. They are raiment [clothing] for you and ye are raiment for them. Allah is Aware that ye were deceiving yourselves in this respect and He hath turned in mercy toward you and relieved you. So hold intercourse with them and seek that which Allah hath ordained for you, and eat and drink until the white thread becometh distinct to you from the black thread of the dawn. Then strictly observe the fast till nightfall and touch them not, but be at your devotions in the mosques. These are the limits imposed by Allah, so approach them not. Thus Allah expoundeth His revelation to mankind that they may ward off (evil)}}This verses outlines some of the requirements of the fourth [[Five Pillars of Islam|Pillar of Islam]], fasting: one can not eat, drink, or have [[Reproduction|sexual intercourse]] between "dawn" and "nightfall". The Qur'an conceives of itself as containing guidance for all people in all times in all places, yet the instructions contained here are, taken literally, impracticable for those who live near the North and South poles of the globe, where a single day/night cycle can take any where from weeks to months. While Islamic scholars were and are content to permit exceptions to the literal meaning of the verse for those who live in extreme climes, the original authors and audiences of Islamic scriptures do not seem to have appreciated this problem. Based on this evidence, the earliest believers were either mistaken about the details of the dynamic system existing between the rotating Earth and the star it orbits or, more likely, simply unaware of the system altogether.

Similar scriptural instructions for worship based on the position of the Sun relative to the observer confirm the implications of the {{Quran|2|187}}.

For instance, in Aberdeen, Scotland, the time between the night prayer (Isha) and the dawn prayer (Fajr) is around 4 and a half hours in June, such that a practicing Muslim would be required to regularly awaken around 3:20am for prayer. These matters are further complicated by the increasingly relevant and real cases of space travel, and even simply travel through the air aboard a plane, as it is not entirely clear whether someone flying in or opposite the direction of the sun would be required to repeat or skip certain prayers due to the rapidly changing time of day. By these appearances, the rituals and instructions set out in the Qur'an were intended for the more limited audience and understanding of a 7th-century desert city.

The Qur'an says paradise is the width of the heaven and Earth. Some academic scholars cite this verse in support of their argument that the Qur'anic heavens are flat layers above a flat earth (see [[Cosmology of the Quran]]). Then in a very similar verse below states paradises' width is as the width of the heavens (plural) and the Earth.{{Quote|{{Quran|3|133}}|And hasten to forgiveness from your Lord and <b>a Garden - its width (is like that of) the heavens and the earth</b> prepared for the pious.}}The interchangeable width of the heaven singular (57:21) with heavens plural (3:133) lends further support to that view. The verses most naturally indicates that the author imagined the heaven(s) to be of similar width to the earth, whether they were imagined to be dome shaped or flat [[Science and the Seven Earths#The%20solid%20universe|solid layers]], and that the earth's flatness makes for an ideal width yardstick.

 

 

A whirl or whorl was a small wheel or hemisphere that was constructed around a spindle for the purpose of clothes-making<ref>الفَلَكُ falak - [http://www.studyquran.org/LaneLexicon/Volume6/00000228.pdf Lane's Lexicon] Volume 1 page 2444. See also the [http://www.studyquran.org/LaneLexicon/Volume6/00000227.pdf previous page]. Lane says that the falak was generally imagined as a celestial hemisphere by the Arabs, but also that the Arab astronomers applied the term to seven spheres for the sun, moon, and the five visible planets, rotating about the celestial pole. This must reflect the post-Qur'anic influence of Ptolemy, whose astronomical work was translated for the Arabs from the 8th century onwards.</ref>. As the sun and moon appear to arc across the sky, even those who imagined the Earth was flat and the heavens a dome (or a sphere) would also imagine some path for the two celestial bodies to continue beneath the Earth upon setting so they could return the for the following day and night cycle. In his commentary on another, related verse ({{Quran|31|29}}), Ibn Kathir quotes Ibn Abbas again, saying exactly this. The sun runs in its falak (فَلَكهَا) in the sky / heaven (السَّمَاء) during the day, and when it sets it runs during the night (بِاللَّيْلِ - omitted from the translation) in the very same "falak" beneath the Earth until it rises from its rising place (من مشرقها - translated below as "in the east").<ref>[https://tafsir.app/ibn-katheer/31/29 Tafsir Ibn Kathir 31:29]</ref>

Verse 79:30 uses the word دَحَىٰهَآ (dahaha), commonly translated as ‘He spread it’ or ‘He stretched it’, to describe to describe a step in the creation of the Earth. Today, it is sometimes argued that word means something to the effect of "he made it to be like an ostrich egg", the implication being that because an ostrich egg is both spherical and slightly oval-shaped, it is comparable to the shape of the Earth. Such a translation and interpretation is, however, not backed by any dictionary of classical Arabic and features in no authoritative translation or tafsir of the Qur'an.   

'''Word by word:''' ''Waal-arda'' وَٱلْأَرْضَ (''wa'' - وَ - and; ''al'' - ٱلْ - the; ''ard'' - أَرْضَ - Earth, feminine in Arabic) ''baAAda'' بَعْدَ (after) ''thalika'' ذَٰلِكَ (that) ''dahaha'' دَحَىٰهَآ (''dahaa'' - دَحَىٰ - [he] spread, verb; ''ha'' - هَآ - her or "it" in the English translation, referring to the Earth)}}The هَا (''-ha'') suffix pronoun meaning literally "her" is also repeated in the surrounding verses as a literary device, all referring the different acts of creation Allah is imparting upon the Earth and "the heaven":{{Quote|{{Quran|79|27-32}}|أَأَنْتُمْ أَشَدُّ خَلْقًا أَمِ السَّمَاءُ ۚ بَنَاهَا 79:27 - Aantum ashaddu khalqan ami alssamao bana'''ha''' - Are ye the harder to create, or is the heaven that He built?

 

 

 

 

 

79:32 وَالْجِبَالَ أَرْسَاهَا - Waaljibala arsa'''ha''' - And He made fast the hills,}}

'''Arberry:''' and the earth-after that He spread it out,}}

'''Shakir:''' And the earth, He expanded it after that.}}Some less reliable translations, such as the one rendered by the controversial [[Rashad Khalifa]] and the notoriously edited and confessedly non-literal QXP translation (indeed, the QXP translation is better described as a tafsir rather than a translation of the Qur'an, comparable in style to Tafsir al-Jalalayn)<ref>{{citation|title=The Qur'an As It Explains Itself|url=https://archive.org/details/qxpvi-english/page/n5/mode/2up|first=Shabbir|last=Ahmed|publisher=Lighthouse|publication-date=2003|page=12|isbn=978-0974787985|chapter=Introduction}}{{Quote||QXP is a Tasreef-based understanding of the Qur’an that is easy enough even for teenagers. <b>It is not a literal translation</b>.<br>