๐๐๐ข๐๐ง๐ญ๐ข๐๐ข๐ ๐๐ซ๐จ๐จ๐ ๐จ๐ ๐๐จ๐ฐ ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐๐ฎ๐ง ๐๐จ๐ญ๐๐ญ๐๐ฌ ๐ข๐ง ๐๐ก๐ ๐๐ฎ๐ซ๐๐ง
Mohamad Mostafa Nassar
Twitter:@NassarMohamadMR
๐๐ซ๐๐ข๐ญ๐ข๐ง๐ ๐๐๐ฅ๐๐ฌ๐ญ๐ข๐๐ฅ ๐จ๐๐ฃ๐๐๐ญ๐ฌ ๐ข๐ง ๐๐ก๐ ๐๐ฅ๐จ๐ซ๐ข๐จ๐ฎ๐ฌ ๐๐ฎ๐ซ๐๐ง
For a long time, European philosophers and scientists believed that the earth stood still in the center of the universe and every other body including the sun moved around it.
In the West, this geocentric concept of the universe was prevalent right from the time of Ptolemy in the second century B.C. In 1512, Nicholas Copernicus put forward his Heliocentric Theory of Planetary Motion, which asserted that the sun is motionless at the center of the solar system with the planets revolving around it.
In 1609, the German scientist Yohannus Keppler published the โAstronomia Novaโ. In this he concluded that not only do the planets move in elliptical orbits around the sun, but they also rotate upon their axes at irregular speeds.
With this knowledge, it became possible for European scientists to explain correctly many of the mechanisms of the solar system including the sequence of night and day.
After these discoveries, it was thought that the Sun was stationary and did not rotate about its axis like the Earth. I remember having studied this fallacy from Geography books during my school days.
Consider the following Qurโaanic verse:
โIt is He Who created The Night and the Day, And thesun and the moon: All (the celestial bodies) Swim along, each in itsRounded course.โ [Al-Qurโaan 21:33]
The Arabic word used in the above verse is yasbahรปn . The word yasbahรปn is derived from the word sabaha. It carries with it the idea of motion that comes from any moving body. If you use the word for a man on the ground, it would not mean that he is rolling but would mean he is walking or running.
If you use the word for a man in water it would not mean that he is floating but would mean that he is swimming.
Similarly, if you use the word yasbah for a celestial body such as the sun it would not mean that it is only flying through space but would mean that it is also rotating as it goes through space.
Most of the school textbooks have incorporated the fact that the sun rotates about its axis. The rotation of the sun about its own axis can be proved with the help of equipment that projects the image of the sun on the tabletop so that one can examine the image of the sun without being blinded.
It is noticed that the sun has spots which complete a circular motion once every 25 days i.e. the sun takes approximately 25 days to rotate around its axis.
In fact, the sun travels through space at roughly 150 miles per second, and takes about 200 million years to complete one revolution around the center of our Milky Way Galaxy.
โIt is not permitted To the Sun to catch up The Moon, nor can The Night outstrip the Day: Each (just) swims along In (its own) orbit (According to Law).โ [Al-Qurโaan 36:40]
This verse mentions an essential fact discovered by modern astronomy, i.e. the existence of the individual orbits of the Sun and the Moon, and their journey through space with their own motion.
The โfixed placeโ towards, which the sun travels, carrying with it the solar system, has been located exactly by modern astronomy. It has been given a name, the Solar Apex.
The solar system is indeed moving in space towards a point situated in the constellation of Hercules (alpha Layer) whose exact location is firmly established.
The moon rotates around its axis in the same duration that it takes to revolve around the earth. It takes approximately 29ยฝ days to complete one rotation.
One cannot help but be amazed at the scientific accuracy of the Quranic verses. Should we not ponder over the question: โWhat was the source of knowledge contained in the Qurโan?โ