Qur'an and the Big Bang
This article analyzes the apologetic claim that the "Big Bang" is described in the Qur'an.
Apologetic Claim
The following words of Turkish apologist Adnan Oktar (writing under the pseudonym Harun Yahya) are a representative example of the claim being made.
- It is We Who have built the universe with (Our creative) power, and, verily, it is We Who are steadily expanding it. (Surat adh-Dhariyat: 47)
Another important aspect revealed in the Qur'an fourteen centuries before the modern discovery of the Big Bang and findings related to it is that when it was created, the universe occupied a very tiny volume:
- Do those who are disbelievers not see that the heavens and the earth were sewn together and then We unstitched them and that We made from water every living thing? So will they not have faith? (Surat al-Anbiya': 30)
Harun Yahya
Analysis
The first important point to consider is the actual statements of the Qur’an, and whether they have been honestly presented. Harun Yahya quotes the Qur’an as saying in 51:47 “It is We Who have built the universe with (Our creative) power, and, verily, it is We Who are steadily expanding it.”
Is that a fair translation of the ayah in question?
Well, not according to the three most highly regarded English translations generally available.
Pickthal: We have built the heaven with might, and We it is Who make the vast extent (thereof).
Shakir: And the heaven, We raised it high with power, and most surely We are the makers of things ample.Not one of them contains the idea of an ongoing expansion of the universe. In fact, none of them refers to the “universe” at all, but to the heavens or firmament, in contrast to the ayah immediately following which discusses the earth:
Pickthal: And the earth have We laid out, how gracious is the Spreader (thereof)!
Shakir: And the earth, We have made it a wide extent; how well have We then spread (it) out.The dualism of the heaven and the earth is a recurring theme in the Qur’an, and to ancient Arabs they together would have been considered the entire universe. And generally, when one is referred to, the other marches right along with it in the repetitive pattern of most Arabic poetry.
The problem here is that since the identical verb forms and grammar are used, to include tense, how can Harun Yahya claim the first ayah refers to an ongoing, continuing expansion of the heavens, without also concluding that the second must also refer to an ongoing, continuing spreading of the earth?
Qur’anic cosmology is firmly geocentric, with the flat earth at the center of the universe surrounded by seven solid spheres (the “seven heavens”) within which orbited the stars, planets, sun and moon.
But here Yahya has deliberately and deceptively altered the meaning of 51:47 in three ways.
He has mistranslated “heaven” as “universe” in the attempt to make the Qur’an sound conceptually more sophisticated than it really is, and to provide a stronger basis for his second and more significant distortion.
He then not only translates the Arabic noun for “a vastness” into a verb meaning “expanding,” but he then adds the entirely superfluous adverb “steadily” in an attempt to insert into the Qur’an additional ideas that are not actually there. With these three translational liberties, he has completely changed the meaning of this ayah from a simple description of Allah’s creation of the heavens into a scientific statement of Hubble’s expanding universe that is not actually contained in the Qur’an.
Harun Yahya’s misuse and abuse of Qur’an 21:30 is no more legitimate than his mutilation of 51:47 although at least his translation is more loyal to the original. In this case his primary tool for distortion comes from the decision to take this single ayah completely out of context, and so disguise its actual (and obvious) meaning.
Here is the single verse as quoted by Yahya in his own translation.
How convenient for his argument that he has not included the next two ayat. Here are (again) the three most highly regarded translations of the three ayat in question.
Pickthal: Have not those who disbelieve known that the heavens and the earth were of one piece, then We parted them, and we made every living thing of water? Will they not then believe?
Shakir: Do not those who disbelieve see that the heavens and the earth were closed up, but We have opened them; and We have made of water everything living, will they not then believe?Pickthal: And We have placed in the earth firm hills lest it quake with them, and We have placed therein ravines as roads that haply they may find their way.
Shakir: And We have made great mountains in the earth lest it might be convulsed with them, and We have made in it wide ways that they may follow a right direction.Pickthal: And we have made the sky a roof withheld (from them). Yet they turn away from its portents.
Shakir: And We have made the heaven a guarded canopy and (yet) they turn aside from its signs.Now that we have returned the verse to its actual context, let’s take a moment to contrast Yahya’s argument with what the Qur’an is actually describing. He claims that this is a description of the scientific fact that “when it was created, the universe occupied a very tiny volume.” In fact, there is no description at all in this verse that could be interpreted at referring to volume in any sense.
But more importantly, Yahya is claiming that the “unstitching” of heaven and earth described here is a reference to the “Big Bang,” or the primordial creation of the universe. If this were the case, then the “earth” mentioned here can not refer to the planet Earth, as its creation was still billions of years in the future from the event he claims is being described.
In other words, Yahya is implying (and many Islamic websites and publications claim explicitly) that “earth” here means “matter,” and not the planet Earth itself.
But the very next verse proves that this cannot be true. For in that very next verse Allah is setting on that same “earth” mountains and highways. How could this be if the “earth” in these ayat meant anything other than the planet Earth? When you further consider that the next ayah after that concerns the “heaven” as a “canopy” or “roof” to that same planet earth, then the idea that this verse is a description of the “big bang” becomes completely impossible.
These verses are exactly what they appear to be; they are a description of Allah’s creation of the planet Earth and the heavens above it, and not a description of the creation of the universe as understood by modern science.
The idea that the heavens and earth were once joined and then separated by the activity of Gods and Goddesses was actually quite common among pagans of the Middle East. Among the Egyptians for example, it was the involuntary separation of Geb (the earth god) from his wife and sister Nut (the sky goddess) that was responsible for the division of the earth from the sky. The Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh likewise describes the moment “when the heavens had been separated from the earth, when the earth had been delimited from the heavens” as a result of the separation of a sky God (An) from a earth Goddess (Ki). If you remove the pagan references, you have the same story as found in the Qur’an.
Remember that in Prophet Muhammad’s day, the heavens and the earth were the entire universe. All the celestial bodies that could be observed were believed to reside within the concentric spheres of the “seven heavens.” The stars were even contained in the closest sphere to Earth in ignorance of the fact that their tiny size was simply an illusion caused by their great actual distance. This truncated understanding of the universe is responsible for the fact that there is no actual discussion of the creation of a “universe” in the Qur’an at all.
Conclusion
The claim that the "Big Bang" is described in the Qur’an is shown to be in error. It is actually silent on the “big bang” because it clearly has no awareness whatsoever of a universe that preexisted the creation of the planet Earth, or extended outwards into infinite space. It has no understanding of galaxies, or clusters of galaxies, or quasars and pulsars or any of the other things that could have easily been mentioned by an omniscient Allah, and left us no room for quibbling.
See Also
- Creation - A hub page that leads to other articles related to Creation
- Harun Yahya - A hub page that leads to other articles related to Harun Yahya
