ثُمَّ
اسْتَوَىٰ إِلَى السَّمَاءِ وَهِيَ دُخَانٌ فَقَالَ لَهَا وَلِلْأَرْضِ
ائْتِيَا طَوْعًا أَوْ كَرْهًا قَالَتَا أَتَيْنَا طَائِعِينَ
Then
He turned to the heaven while it was smoke and
said to it and to the earth, "Come [into being], willingly or
by compulsion." They said, "We have come willingly."
(and said to it and to the earth: "Come willingly or
unwillingly.'') meaning, `respond to My command and be subjected to this
action, willingly or unwillingly.'
This command addressed to the earth and sky and
their compliant and obedient reply is an expression for the readiness of the earth and the sky to
comply with every order from Allah Almighty. Nothing here is about a 'contracting universe' !
The Quran on the Origin of the Universe: |
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The science of modern cosmology, observational
and theoretical, clearly indicates that, at one point in time, the whole
universe was nothing but a cloud of ‘smoke’ (i.e. an opaque highly dense and
hot gaseous composition).1
This is one of the undisputed principles of standard modern cosmology.
Scientists now can observe new stars forming out of the remnants of that ‘smoke’
(see figures 10 and 11).
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Figure 10: A new star forming out of a
cloud of gas and dust (nebula), which is one of the remnants of the ‘smoke’
that was the origin of the whole universe. (The Space Atlas,
Heather and Henbest, p. 50.)
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Figure 11: The Lagoon nebula is a cloud of gas and
dust, about 60 light years in diameter. It is excited by the
ultraviolet radiation of the hot stars that have recently formed within
its bulk. (Horizons, Exploring the Universe, Seeds, plate 9, from
Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc.) (Click
on the image to enlarge it.)
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The illuminating stars we see at night were, just
as was the whole universe, in that ‘smoke’ material. God has said in
the Quran:
Then He turned to the heaven when it was smoke... 
(Quran, 41:11)
Because the earth and the heavens above (the sun,
the moon, stars, planets, galaxies, etc.) have been formed from this same ‘smoke,’
we conclude that the earth and the heavens were one connected entity. Then
out of this homogeneous ‘smoke,’ they formed and separated from each other.
God has said in the Quran:
Have not those who disbelieved known that the heavens and the earth were one
connected entity, then We separated them?...
(Quran, 21:30)
Dr. Alfred Kroner is one of the world’s renowned
geologists. He is Professor of Geology and the Chairman of the Department
of Geology at the Institute of Geosciences, Johannes Gutenberg University,
Mainz, Germany. He said: “Thinking where Muhammad came from . . . I
think it is almost impossible that he could have known about things like the
common origin of the universe, because scientists have only found out within the
last few years, with very complicated and advanced technological methods, that
this is the case.”2 (To
view the RealPlayer video of this comment click
here 
). Also
he said: “Somebody who did not know something about nuclear physics fourteen
hundred years ago could not, I think, be in a position to find out from his own
mind, for instance, that the earth and the heavens had the same origin.”3
(View the RealPlayer video of this comment ).
). Also
he said: “Somebody who did not know something about nuclear physics fourteen
hundred years ago could not, I think, be in a position to find out from his own
mind, for instance, that the earth and the heavens had the same origin.”3
(View the RealPlayer video of this comment ).
____________
Footnotes:
(1) The First Three
Minutes, a Modern View of the Origin of the Universe, Weinberg, pp. 94-105. 
(2) The reference for this
saying is This is the Truth (videotape). For a copy of this videotape, please
visit this page.
(3) This is the Truth
(videotape).
The Arabic word for “smoke” in the above verse is “dukhanun,”
which describes the hot, cosmic smoke in question. This word in the
Qur’an, in pinpoint fashion, describes this smoke very accurately for it
is a warm body of gas containing mobile particles connected to solid
substances. Here, the Qur’an has employed the most appropriate word from
the Arabic language for describing the appearance of this phase of the
universe. Let us note that only in the 20th century have scientists discovered that the universe emerged from a hot gas in the form of smoke.
The Expansion of the Universe
 Edwin Hubble with his giant telescope |
In the Qur'an, which was revealed 14 centuries
ago at a time when the science of astronomy was still primitive, the expansion of the
universe was described like this:
"And it is We who have constructed the heaven
with might, and verily, it is We who are steadily expanding it."
(The Qur'an, 51:47)
(The Qur'an, 51:47)
The word "heaven", as stated in this verse, is used in various
places in the Qur'an with the meaning of space and universe. Here again, the word is used
with this meaning. In other words, in the Qur'an it is revealed that the universe
"expands". And this is the very conclusion that science has reached today.
Until the dawn of the 20th century, the only view prevailing in the world
of science was that "the universe has a constant nature and it has existed since
infinite time". The research, observations, and calculations carried out by means of
modern technology, however, have revealed that the universe in fact had a beginning, and
that it constantly "expands".
At the beginning of the 20th century, the Russian physicist Alexander
Friedmann and the Belgian cosmologist Georges Lemaitre theoretically calculated that the
universe is in constant motion and that it is expanding.
This fact was proved also by observational data in 1929. While observing
the sky with a telescope, Edwin Hubble, the American astronomer, discovered that the stars
and galaxies were constantly moving away from each other. A universe where everything
constantly moves away from everything else implied a constantly expanding universe.
The observations carried out in the following years verified that the universe is
constantly expanding. This fact was explained in the Qur'an when that was still unknown to
anyone. This is because the Qur'an is the word of God, the Creator, and the Ruler of the
entire universe.
 From the moment of the big bang, the universe has been constantly expanding at a great speed. Scientists compare the expanding universe to the surface of a balloon that is inflated. |
