Modern Cosmology and Islam

Modern Cosmology and Islam

Muhammed H. l. Dobinson

During the past half-century or so, there have been enunciated a number of theories as to how the universe began to come into existence. By the mid -1920’s, the American astronomer, Edwin Hubble, using the new 100-inch telescope on Mt. Wilson, had shown that the fuzzy objects outside the Milky Way were galaxies like our own, and that the faintest of the extra-galactic nebulae radiated light which was reddened, or shifted towards the red end of the spectrum, apparently, indicating that the galaxies were rapidly receding from us. This gave rise to the simple postulation that the universe was expanding and this theory was consistent, with Einstein's new Theory of Gravitation, in the 19th Century poctrines of an evolving universe and the species which it contained. The leading supporters of the theory of an expanding universe, who were most vocal on the subject, were personalities as different as Jeans and Eddington.

Given that the universe is expanding, it was possible to deduce that all the matter in the universe must at some time in the distant past have been compressed into a very small volume, no larger than, say, a Pin’s head, about 10,000—15,000 million years ago when it began to expand. Some cosmologists such as Sir Fred Hoyle and his associates, notably Sir Herman Bondi and Professor Thomas Gold, argued that the universe might not always have been expanding; and in the 1950’s They put forward the so-called “Steady State” theory which accepted that the galaxies were constantly receding from each other, but that the matter in the space between them was continually being replenished by the creation of a new matter in the form of hydrogenated atoms; A fierce argument took place in the 1950’s between the supporters of the Steady State theory, which stated that the universe had always existed, and those on the other side who postulated that the universe had a finite beginning. The Steady State theory is now discredited and has been abandoned, because it is in conflict with observed facts.

During the last decade, observations of the microwave background radiation by two American radio-astronomers, who are also Nobel Prize winners, namely Penzias and Wilson, have very strongly supported those who believe that the universe had a finite beginning; and from these observations has emerged the so-called “Big Bang” theory which postulates that the universe began with an explosion, or “big bang”, and that for the first 100,000 years or so of its existence, the universe had been a rapidly expanding fire-ball in which radiation worked transformations on the particles of which -matter itself is made. Moreover, the calculations of the Big Bang theorists have shown that the helium in the universe, of which it forms about a quarter and is evenly distributed amongst all the stars, would have been formed in the first few minutes of the beginning of the universe and that after this, due to the temperature and density of the universe being “insufficient, nothing much more would have happened between the separation of matter and radiation, said to be about 10 million years after the big bang, and the formation of the galaxies after 1,000 million years or so.

Professor Martin Rees, of the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge, has recently put forward a new theory that this period was not the uneventful time that has previously been popularly supposed, but that, although the universe would have been still too dense for the matter in it to have condensed into galaxies as we now know them, conditions were nevertheless just ripe for the formation of individual stars, most of which were bigger than the sun. This theory is substantially in conformity with the observations and known facts of the universe; and, if it is correct, the consequences are important. This new theory provides another explanation for at least one, and perhaps both, pieces of evidence supporting the Big Bang theory of the beginning of the universe.

So much for modern scientific theories; but what does Islam teach on the subject and what does the Muslim believe? Islam teaches that the beginning of the universe was a spontaneous act of creation on the part of a Supreme Being, known to the Muslims as Allah, and He took “six days” to complete the work, vide the Holy Qur’an Surah 6 : 101.

“To Him (Allah) is due the primal origins of the heavens and the earth”. When He decreeth a matter, He saith to it: “Be”, and it is”.

And again, Snrah 7: 54;

“Your guardian-Lord is Allah, Who created the heavens and the earth in six Days”.

First of all was created a gaseous substance (helium ?), vide Surah 41 : 11

“Moreover, He comprehended in His design, the sky, and it had been as vapour”.

Then the heavens were formed including our own planet, earth, with all its physical features vide Surah 37 : 6 :

“We have indeed decked the lower heaven with beauty in the stars”. Finally, man was created out of mud, vide Surah 15 : 26;

“We created man from sounding clay, from mud moulded into shape”.

Modern science also tells us that life itself first appeared in the ooze at the bottoms of the oceans, So, compare that with what is written in the Holy Qur’an, Surah 21:30;

“Do not the unbelievers see that the heavens and the earth were joined together as one unit of creation before We clove them asunder? We made from water every living thing”.

Thus the Holy Qur’an is vindicated in one of its verses by modern science which has postulated the Big Bang theory and that life began in water!

So far Islam and modern science and its theories about the beginnings of life and the universe are in complete conformity, but what modern science does not tell us is: Who created the immensely dense, pin-head size ball of sub-atomic particles which exploded with a big bang when the time was ripe bringing about the beginning of the universe as we know it today, or if there was a time before the big bang, when time had no meaning. On their own admission, scientists studying the cosmos rely on 10% fact and 90% speculation while formulating their theories about the universe and its origins and, in the present state of knowledge, they can give us no reliable answers to this question. It is, therefore, left to religion to provide an answer; and Islam does so by telling us that there is a Supreme Being, Allah, Who is Uncreate, or has always existed, and Who is the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, vide Surah 2 : 255;

“Allah! There is no God but He, the Living, the Self-subsisting, the Eternal”.

And again, Surah 13 :16;

"Say (O Muhammad): ‘Who is the Lord and Sustainer of the Heavens and the earth?’ Say: ‘It is Allah’”.

Is it not then reasonable to suppose, taking into account the progress of scientific discovery, that scientific observations and deductions will one day confirm unequivocally, as they have done already with so much of what had been revealed in the Holy. Qur’an 1,400 years ago, that every word of that Illustrious Book is true and capable of verification by scientific and every other means as it tells us to observe the very signs of Allah Himself, vide Surah 42 : 29:

“And among His Signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the living creatures He has scattered through them”.

Then, perhaps, the unbelievers will recognize what all Muslims already know, that Islam is the One True Faith; of God, and from God; and the only natural religion and way of life for all mankind; and the Holy Qur’an is God’s Own True Word and Testimony. May Almighty Allah, the Omniscient, the Omnipotent, the Omnipresent; the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe, bring that great day ever nearer. Ameen............