EXAMPLES FROM ASTRONOMY

The Challenge of The Qur’an ~ 359 ~ Up until barely a century ago, the concept of this material universe as having a beginning and an end was something which appeared to have its origin in religiously inspired texts, but which did not seem to have any scientific basis in fact. Of the origin of the universe, the Quran said: “Do not the disbelievers see that the heavens and the earth were one solid mass which was tore asunder, and that we made every living thing of water? Will they not have faith?” (12:30). But now we find that modern studies in astronomy have confirmed the truth of this concept, various observations having led scientists to postulate that the universe was formed by an explosion from a state of high density and temperature (the “bigbang” theory) and that the cosmos evolved from the original, highly compressed, extremely hot gas, taking the form of galaxies of stars, cosmic dust, meteorites and asteroids. The present outward motion of the galaxies is a result of this explosion. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1984), this is “the theory now favored by most cosmologists.”