Cosmology According to the Qur'an and Sunnah

Prior to the advent of such devices as the telescope, the ancients failed to see beyond the seven heavenly bodies which are visible to the naked eye (in descending order of apparent distance from Earth):

7. Saturn
6. Jupiter
5. Mars
4. Sun
3. Venus
2. Mercury
1. Moon

In order to explain the movements of these heavenly bodies, the ancients devised various geocentric models based on overlapping "spheres." Aristotle's model involved fifty-four spheres altogether to account for the motions of these seven "planets". (The Borderlands of Science, Micheal Shermer, p.144) Muhammad combined his own imagination as well as the tales and theories of the ancients in his own cosmology.

The seven "asmaa`" (literally "ceilings") which correspond to the seven visible heavenly bodies are mentioned in the Qur'an numerous times (2:29, 17:44, 23:17, 23:17, 41:12, 65:12, 67:3, 71:15, 78:12). As for the stars they were attached to the "ad-dunya" sky (literally the nearest: either to Allah or to the earth, i.e.: either the first or the seventh) according to 67:5. The meaning of the seven skies/ceilings/heveans was ambiguous neither to the companions nor the enemies of Muhammad. It was accepted that above the Earth stand seven ceilings with invisible pillars, each containing a corresponding planet. Also, in 65:12, there is a mention of "a similar number of earths." In this context, Islamic scholars understand "similar" to mean "equal," because of the following hadith: "Narrated Said bin Zaid: Allah's Apostle said, "Whoever usurps the land of somebody unjustly, his neck will be encircled with it down the seven earths (on the Day of Resurrection)." (Sahih Bukhari, Volume 3, Book 43, Number 632) Thus, Islamic cosmology differs little from Dante's (pictured in Figure 21 in The Borderlands of Science on p.147). The prophetic narrations of Muhammad further clarify his understanding of the cosmos:


"Narrated Al-Abbas ibn AbdulMuttalib: I was sitting in al-Batha with a company among whom the Apostle of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) was sitting, when a cloud passed above them. The Apostle of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) looked at it and said: What do you call this? They said: Sahab.He said: And muzn? They said: And muzn. He said: And anan? They said: And anan. AbuDawud said: I am not quite confident about the word anan. He asked: Do you know the distance between Heaven and Earth? They replied: We do not know. He then said: The distance between them is seventy-one, seventy-two, or seventy-three years. The heaven which is above it is at a similar distance (going on till he counted seven heavens). Above the seventh heaven there is a sea, the distance between whose surface and bottom is like that between one heaven and the next. Above that there are eight mountain goats the distance between whose hoofs and haunches is like the distance between one heaven and the next. Then Allah, the Blessed and the Exalted, is above that."

(Abu Dawood, Book 40, Number 470; there are many ahaadith narrated by Muhammad ibn 'Abdi-l-Wahhab in his Kitabu-t-Tawhiid which indicate that the distance beteen each heaven is 500 years)

Commentary of the preceding hadith: Notice that upon being asked "Do you know the distance between Heaven [i.e.: the first ceiling containing the Moon] and Earth?" the companions did not respond with "what is Heaven?" Thus, it is safe to assume that the understaning of the meaning of "ceiling" in this context was already present and most likely equivalent to that of other ancient cultures (i.e.: that each ceiling contains one of the seven visible planets).

Thus, between each ceiling containing one of the seven planets, there is a distance of a journey lasting between 71 and 500 years. One thing remains constant in all these narrations: the distance between each planet is the same, i.e.: the distance between the Earth and the Moon is the same as the distance between the Moon and the Sun. In the context of 7th century bedouins, a distance measured in years referred to a journey by horse, camel or foot, not by a photon. The journey in kilometres would be at most 500 x 354 x 24 x speed (there are 354 days in the Arabic lunar year). Suppose one was travelling on a relatively fast horse, say 30 km/h. Also, suppose that the horse needed neither food, drink nor rest during the journey. In that case, the maximum distance between each heaven would be 127,440,000 km. The minimum distance at that speed would be 71 x 354 x 24 x 30 km/h = 18,096,480 km. Thus, the distance between the Earth and the heavenly sea is between 126,675,360 km and 892,080,000 km. The heavenly sea is most likely an archaic explanation for the blueness of the sky during daytime.

-- Mojo