From: imustafa@slate.mines.colorado.edu (MUSTAFA IBRAHIM )
Newsgroups: soc.culture.pakistan,soc.culture.indian,soc.culture.bangladesh
Subject: The Quran and the Modern Science (2)
Date: 30 Dec 92 05:25:30 GMT
Organization: Colorado School of Mines

ASTRONOMY ----  LIGHT AND MOVEMENT

Let us now turn to the subject of Astronomy.

Whenever Dr.Bucaille describes the details, the Quran contains on certain
points of astronomy, to westerners, it is unusual for someone not to
reply that there is nothing special,in this, considering the Arabs made
important discoveries in this field long before the Europeans. 
This is , infact, a singularly mistaken idea resulting from an ignorance of
history. In the first place, science was developed in Arabian countries at
a time that was considerably after the Quranic Revelation had occurred; in
the second, the scientific knowledge prevalent at the highpoint of Islamic
civilazition would not have made it possible for a human being to have
written statements on the Heavens comparable to those in the Quran. 
Here again , the subject  is so wide that Dr. Bucaille provides an outline
of it.
Whereas the Bible talks of the Sun and the Moon as two luminaries differing
in size, the Quran distinguishes between them by the use of different
epithets; LIGHT (NOOR) for the Moon,torch(siraj) for the Sun. The first is
an inert body which reflects light the second a celestial formation in a 
a state of permanent combustion, and a source of light and heat. 
The word 'star' (najam) is accompanied by another qualifying it which which
indicates that it burns and consumes itself as it pierces through the
shadows of the night ; it is the work thakib.
In the Quran the kawkab definitely seems to mean the planets which are
celestial formations that reflect and do not produce light like the Sun.
Today it is known how the celestial organisation is balanced by the
position of stars in a defined orbit and the interplay of gravitational
forces related to their mass and speed of movement , each with its own
motion. But is not this what the Quran describes, in terms which have only
become comprehensible in our own day, when it mentions the foundation of
this balance in the sura Al Anbiya (21:33)

" God is the one who created the night, the day , the sun and the moon.
Each one is travelling in an orbit with its own motion.
 
The arabic word which expresses this movement is a verb sabaha(yasbajun in
the text); it carries with it the idea of a motion which comes from any
moving body, be it the movement of one's leg as one runs on the ground, or
the action of swimming in water. In the case of celestial body, one is
forced to translate it in the original sense, that is, ' to travel with
one's own motion.'

The description of the sequence of day and night would, in itself, be
rather commonplace were it not for the fact that ,in the Quran, it is
expressed in terms that today are highly significant. This is because it
uses the verb kawwara in the sura Al Zumar (39:5) to describe the way the
night ' winds ' or ' coils' itself about the day and the day about the
night, just as, in the original meaning of the verb, a turban is wound
around the head. This is a totally valid comparison; yet at the time the
Quran was revealed, the astronomical data necessary to draw it were
unknown.
The evolutions of the Heavens and the notion of a settled plae for the Sun
are also described. they are in agreement with highly detailed modern
ideas. The Quran also seems to have alluded to the expansion of the
Universe. 
There is also the conquest of space. This has been undertaken thanks to
remarkable technological progress and has resulted in the man's journey to
the moon. But this surely springs to mind when we read the sura Al-Rahman
(55:33)

"  On assembly of jinns and men, if you can penetrate regions of the heavens  nd the earth , then penetrate them ! You will not penetrate them save with
our Power. 

This power comes from the All-Mighty, and the subject of the whole sura is
an invitation to recognize God's Beneficence to man.


Next topic will be  THE EARTH  
Xref: sparky soc.culture.pakistan:18706 soc.culture.bangladesh:7035 soc.culture.indian:41819