CHAPTER ONE The Quran: The Book of God

Britannica (1984), this is ‘the theory now favoured by most cosmologists.’ Once the process of expansion had set in – about six billion years ago – it had to continue, because the more the celestial bodies moved away from the centre, the less attraction they exerted over one another. Estimates of the circumference of the original matter place it at about one thousand million light years and now, according to Professor Eddington’s calculations, the present circumference is ten times what it was originally. This process of expansion is still going on. Professor Eddington explains that the stars and galaxies are like marks on the surface of a balloon which is continuously expanding, and that all the celestial spheres are getting further and further apart. Ancient man supposed quite wrongly, that the stars were as close to one another as they appeared to be. How significant that the Quran should state in Surah 51, verse 47, ‘The heaven, We have built it with power. Truly, We are expanding it.’ Now science has revealed that since the universe came into existence 90 thousand million years B.C., its circumference has stretched from 6 thousand to sixty thousand million light years. This means that there are inconceivably vast distances between the celestial bodies. And it has been discovered that they revolve as part of galactic systems, just as our earth and the planets revolve around the sun. Just as within the Solar System, many planets and asteroids are situated at great distances from each other, yet revolve according to one system, likewise every material body is composed of innumerable ‘Solar Systems’ on an infinitesimally small scale. These systems are called atoms. While the vacuum of the Solar System is observable, the vacuum of the atomic system is too small to be visible. All things, however solid they appear, are hollow from the inside. For instance, if all the electrons and protons present within the atoms of a six foot tall man were to be squeezed in such a manner that no space were left, his body would be reduced to such a tiny spot as would be visible only through a microscope. The farthest galaxy that has been observed is situated several million light years away from the sun. Yet it is held that if the total quantum of cosmic matter as worked out by astrophysicists – and it is enormous­ – were to be compressed so as to eliminate all space, the size of the universe would be only thirty times the size of the sun. In view of how recently these calculations have been made, it is quite extraordinary that 1500 years ago the Quran asserted that not only had the universe expanded from a condensed form but that its original quantum of matter had remained constant, so that it could conceivably be re-condensed into a relatively small space. It describes the end of the universe thus: “On that day, we shall roll up the heaven like a scroll of writing.” (21:104) The moon is our nearest neighbour, in space, its distance from the earth being just two lakh and forty thousand miles. Due to this proximity, its gravitational force affects the sea waves, causing an