The Holy Quran Miracles/Ahmed Rouas

The Holy Quran Miracles

The Big Bang theory between science and Quran

Ahmed Rouas

The scientific discoveries about the developments of the universe after the creation, is consistent with what the Holy Quran has notably mentioned.

This is a quick tour on  the development of the universe according to what the cosmologists and astrophysicists ended up  after centuries of researches.

Scientists agree nowadays that the universe has started in a specific point of time which goes back to some13.7 billions years ago, some other estimates put that time point  to 16 billion years ago. The once long aged absurd  idea of the timeless and eternal universe is no more attractive in the theories auction market anymore. Science proved, beyond any doubt, that the universe has a beginning and thus should have an end. 

The universe before this time was just one huge massive ball of sediments with  immense heat and extremely hot gazes and cosmic clouds and smoke. Surrounded by neck-breaking pressure which eventually  led to the biggest ever “explosion” called the Big Bang! Such explosion marks the start of the world and the universe that we know today.

Such theory has become almost a scientific fact after being supported by all researches and scientific experiments and the modern discoveries derived from Hubble space telescope and other telescopes around the globe. The last of which was the LHC scientific giant project which was called : Large Harold Collieder run by the European Organization for Nuclear research and which took place underneath the Alps mountains between France and Switzerland, in a 27 kilometre tunnel. more than 1700 of scientists and engineers from 60 countries participated is this project  which aimed at getting a glimpse of the nature of the physics of the high energy by imitating  the Big Bang through  accelerating the electron speed around this long tunnel, and at the same time accelerating protons in the opposite direction.  

the goal being head-on collisions of protons that can offer clues to the origin of mass and new forces and particles in the universe. The second beam made one turn around the LHC.

Some scientists expressed their concern about the possibility of creating a tiny black hole which may arbitrarily endanger the life on earth!

Many Muslim scholars agree that the Big Bang theory perspective is clearly supported in the Holy Quran. In Surat al Anbia (the Prophets)We read:

“ Do not the unbelievers see that the heaven and the earth were joined together( in one unit of creation ) before We clove them asunder ? and We made from water every living thing. Will they not believe?”

Some unbelievers seem to have been  taken by surprise to find such facts in the Holy Quran, they hastened to accuse the translators of the Quran with forgery and thought they made these claims up! However going back to the original text of the Quran Arabic, We find it even clearer .Let us examine the vocabulary used in this particular Aya.

The words and verbs used are : Fatq and Ratq

Ratq is an infinitive and verbal noun derived from the verb Rataqa that means: to mend to patch, to sew up, to darn. to join together etc. this description give us a glimpse of  how the  universe was initiated  before it developed to the way humans see it today. The description clearly indicates that the universe was one entity before and that the earth belongs to the same matter as other celestial bodies that we see in the heavens. Some may wonder why would Quran compare between the heavens and earth, or pair and usually links between heavens and earth? while we know today, that earth is nothing compared to other celestial bodies and galaxies. Well, the answer to that is that this collation is nothing more than an emphasise that both heavens and earth came from the same matter and origin. Nothing in the Quran or the Saheh Sunna and sayings of the Prophet that suggests earth, for instance, is equal in its volume or size to the universe! As viewed by old civilisations. Is it not enough  proof of the Quranic divine origin the fact that it is completely free of all the once overwhelming legendary theories concerning earth shape and position in this universe!? Such ridiculous concepts companied humanity all the way, and they are still around even today, and we all know, for instance, the story of that old British lady which wrangled with

Alfred Russel  (1823 –1913) As he was explaining to his audience the orbiting of  earth around sun , and the sun around galaxy, she said

'What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.' The scientist gave a superior smile before replying: 'What is the tortoise standing on?' 'You're very clever, young man, very clever,' said the old lady, 'But it's turtles all the way down.!!
(ST: Steven Hawking, A Brief History of Time)

A lot of people are still turtling all the way down even today!

In the contrary, the Quranic repeated emphasise that the heavens are  seven facing one earth, makes us strongly sense and perceive that heavens are not to be compared in their size to the planet earth, Plus there are many sayings of the Prophet that speaks of cosmic distances between one sky and another, there are Ahadith that speak of 500 years distance between the earth and the lowest sky. Now the Hadith did not tell us about this 500 years distance, is it of light years or cosmic years .We already know from the Quran that time is relative and may stretch or contract in this vast universe, the Holy Quran said in Surat Al Ma’arejj 

  " Day the measure whereof is (as) fifty thousand years:”  In other contexts  it speaks of another criteria of time :“Verily a Day in the sight of thy Lord is like a thousand years of your reckoning".[Al-Qur’an 22:47]

Furthermore, The Holy Quran draw our attention to the fact that all that we see in the sky of  innumerable stars and galaxies are indeed small part of what really exist , what we see occur  in the nearest layer of the universe to us! Quran says:  "Behold, We have adorned the skies nearest to the earth with the beauty of stars" Mohammed Assad

"We have indeed decked the lower heaven with beauty (in) the stars",- Yusuf Ali

 "We have adorned the lowest heaven with the beauty of the planets." Aisha Bewley

Drawing human attention to the fact that stars and galaxies that they see in the sky are of the same matter, and were once sewed up together is, in all regards, a revolutionary idea and an unprecedented approach for more than 13 centuries.

Using this descriptive word( Ratq) to represent and depict the universe, gives a strong sense that the universe- including earth- was once a huge massive block, which is  in a complete consistence with the latest agreeable theory among the scientific community of  the universe state prior to the Big Bang.

There is no blurring in this denotation of such indicative Arabic word, It was always understood the way I explained and still is.   

This was comments on the word Ratq, Now what is the verbal meaning of  Fatq.?

Fatq Is an infinitive and a verbal noun derived from Fataqa which literally means: to rip open, to tear, to detach, to unsew, to unstitch, to slit open, to unrip , to set off ,to clove asunder ….,etc

some may argue that the above mentioned synonyms aren’t restrict to the word explosion .The answer to that is 1/ the word Fataq is an additional synonym of explode and blast. in Arabic literature , including old poetry Arabs used to deploy this word to mean- symbolically of course- the explosion of the dawn light! In fact, Fajr in Arabic is Dawn, And it is not difficult, even for none-Arabic speaking people, to note that Fajr( dawn) and Fajar(explode) come from the same source. Now one of the phenomenon in Arabic language is that every single synonymous word or verb  has its own additional meaning. therefore, although we can conveniently say that Fataq is a synonym of Fajar( explode) the  two verbs do possess some specific hints and even indications. For instance, the word explosion implies inevitably, disarray, chaos, anarchy, and disorder. While the word: Rataqa ( to detach, to unstitch, to slit open, to unsew) implies more careful  and controlled action. If we concentrate on the original verbal meaning of Rataqa which describes the sewer act as he unsew and separate two clothes apart without impairing them in order to resew them  differently, we get a strong sense of control , order and coduct.

Now after going deeply to the real verbal meanings and implications of  these two words let us ask this unusual question: Which of the two words are more  suitable to describe the Big Bang? Explosion, which is solely used by the scientific community, or Fatq used by the Holy Quran?

We already know that any explosion will scatter and disperse matter randomly and arbitrarily everywhere, Is that what happened with the Big Bang? The Answer is absolutely not! This universe is extremely harmonious, extremely controlled, and miraculously organised, its delicacy and manifest perfection could be seen everywhere, from the perfect harmony of the particles in the atom, to the marvellous order within every galaxy in this universe. All seem to be controlled by identical  laws of physics and energy.

So, how much credibility remains for the word “explosion” to describe the emerging of this miraculous universe!?

The Quranic expressions seem clearly more precise. For  the above-mentioned reason.