A Red Rose In The Sky: The Rosette Nebula
When the Heaven shall be cleft asunder, and become rose red, like stained leather. (Surat ar-Rahman, 37)
The Arabic expression translated above as "become rose red, like stained leather" is "wardatan kaalddihani." This term compares an image appearing in the sky to a red rose. This description bears a close similarity to red celestial bodies with a crumpled appearance, especially the "Rosette Nebula."
Nebula is the name given to cloud-like masses of gas in space. Before they become nebulae, they are stars - and since these stars are very large, they release gasses into space because of their high internal pressure and temperatures. These eruptions of gas are very large and fast. These gasses then coalesce to form a gas cloud, with a temperature of more than 15,000 0C.32
One type of nebula is known as the "Rosette Nebula" because of its close resemblance to a rose. The Rosette Nebula is also a vast cloud of gas and seems to have an area five times greater than that of the full moon.33 Its true diameter is estimated at 130 light years.34
A team led by Leisa Townsley, a senior Penn State University researcher in the field of astronomy and astrophysics, examined the Rosette Nebula using the renowned Chandra X-ray telescope. They imaged hundreds of stars in the Rosette Nebula and determined that by crashing into one another, stars produce gas at temperatures of six million degrees. Townsley describes what she saw:
A ghostly glow of diffuse X ray emission pervades the Rosette Nebula and perhaps many other star-forming regions throughout the Galaxy. We now have a new view of the engine lighting the beautiful Rosette Nebula and new evidence for how the interstellar medium may be energized.35
The existence of this body seen in the illustrations can only be confirmed by high-tech observation equipment. This state of affairs regarding the skies noted in the Qur'an is in great agreement with the findings of present-day astronomy. In one verse of the Qur'an, we are told:
You do not engage in any matter or recite any of the Qur'an or do any action without Our witnessing you while you are occupied with it. Not even the smallest speck eludes your Lord, either on earth or in heaven. Nor is there anything smaller than that, or larger, which is not in a Clear Book. (Surah Yunus, 61)
The Heliocentric System
He created the heavens and the earth with truth. He wraps the night around the day and wraps the day around the night, and has made the Sun and Moon subservient, each one running for a specified term. Is He not indeed the Almighty, the Endlessly Forgiving? (Surat az-Zumar, 5)
In the above verse, the movement of the Earth is described by the word "yukawwiru," which comes from root verb "takwir." This means "to cover up a spherical body," in the way that the rotation of the Earth gives rise to night and day, like the winding of a turban around the head of a man. In addition to the spherical shape of the Earth, the word is also the most accurate expression of its movement around the Sun. Because of the Earth's spherical shape and its movement around the Sun, the Sun always illuminates one side of the Earth while the other is in darkness. The side in shadow is shrouded by the darkness of night, only to be replaced seamlessly by the brightness of day when the Sun rises. The positions of the Sun and Earth are revealed as follows in Surah Ya Sin:
And the Sun runs to its resting place. That is the decree of the Almighty, the All-Knowing. And We have decreed set phases for the Moon, until it ends up looking like an old palm spathe. It is not for the Sun to overtake the Moon nor for the night to outstrip the day; each one is swimming in a sphere. (Surah Ya Sin, 38-40)
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| Like the Earth, other planets in the Solar System follow specific orbits. |
The movements of the Sun and Moon in the final verse of this excerpt are described by the Arabic word "yasbahoona," meaning "flowing, passing or swimming." This word refers to an action performed by someone without any help from others. Someone acting according to this verb continues to perform it alone, with no intervention from anyone else. The above verses may therefore be referring to the Sun's independent movement in the universe, independent of any other celestial body. (Allah knows the truth.) It is impossible for us to see or follow the movement of the Sun with our own eyes. In reality, the true nature of its existence is beyond us. It is only possible to determine that movement using special technological equipment. As stated in verse 39 of Surah Ya Sin, in addition to rotating around its own axis once every 26 days, the Sun also moves through its own course.
It is also reported in the verse that the Sun is not allowed to "overtake the Moon", and it stated in the Qur’an that the Sun and Moon do not revolve around the same body, as astronomers put it. At the same time, it is made clear in the verse that there is no connection between the motion responsible for night and day and the movement of the Sun and Moon. (Allah knows the truth.)
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| The above manuscript dating from the 1750s shows the geo-centric (Earth-centered) model of the universe. It took many years for this to be abandoned and replaced by the helio-centric model. | The model below is the helio-centric (solar-centered) one that has been proved today, while the model on top is the geocentric (Earth-centered) model that was thought to be true for many hundreds of years. |
Until the 16th century, it was thought that the Earth was the center of the universe. This view is known as the "geocentric model," from the Greek wordsgeo (Earth) and kentron (center). This belief was questioned by the famous astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus in 1543 in his book De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (Of the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres), in which he suggested that the Earth and the other planets revolve around the Sun. As a result of observations using a telescope performed by Galileo Galilei in 1610, it was scientifically established that the Earth revolves around the Sun. Up until this point, it had been widely accepted that the Sun revolved around the Earth – so most scholars of the time stubbornly rejected Copernicus' theory. The famous astronomer Johannes Kepler's views setting out the movements of the planets confirmed the heliocentric model in the 16th and 17th centuries. In this model, whose name comes from the words Helios (Sun) and kentron (center), the Sun is the center of the universe, rather than the Earth. Other heavenly bodies also revolve around the Sun. Yet this was all revealed 1400 years ago in the Qur'an.
By saying that the Earth was the center of the universe, the ancient Greek astronomer Ptolemy was responsible for the geocentric idea of the universe that dominated scientific thought for hundreds of years. For that reason, at the time of the revelation of the Qur'an, nobody knew that the Earth-centered model was incorrect. The information in the Qur'an refutes the thesis that the Earth is fixed while the Sun revolves around it. It was believed that the stars and planets revolved around the Earth. Despite these prevalent errors of the time, the Qur'an contains information which was not known, or even considered, at that time. Many expressions in the Qur’an on this matter agree with the scientific facts regarding day and night:
By the Sun and its morning brightness, and the Moon when it follows it, and the day when it displays it, and the night when it conceals it. (Surat ash-Shams, 1-4)
As set out in the above verse, day – which is essentially the brightness of the Sun – results from the movement of the Earth. Our planet spins on its own axis. It is not the movement of the Sun that is responsible for night and day. In other words, the Sun is immobile in terms of night and day. The Qur'an is clearly descended from the presence of our Lord. As science and technology advance more and more, examples of the compatibility between the Qur'an and science are coming to light. This is set out in another verse from the Qur'an:
There is instruction in their stories for people of intelligence. This is not a narration which has been invented but confirmation of all that came before, a clarification of everything, and a guidance and a mercy for people who believe. (Surah Yusuf, 111)
Quasars And The Gravitational Lens Effect
Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The metaphor of His Light is that of a niche in which is a lamp, the lamp inside a glass, the glass like a brilliant star, lit from a blessed tree, an olive, neither of the east nor of the west, its oil all but giving off light even if no fire touches it. Light upon Light. Allah guides to His Light whoever He wills and Allah makes metaphors for mankind and Allah has knowledge of all things. (Surah an-Nur, 35)
Quasar is the name given to the extremely dense and bright bodies that look like stars and emit radio waves in space. Quasars are acknowledged as the brightest celestial bodies in the universe. The brightness of the brightest quasars in the universe is more than two trillion times greater than that of the Sun (2x1012) – this is approximately 100 times greater than the total light emitted by a galaxy such as the Milky Way.36
The word "noor" (nur) in the verse means "light, brightness, daylight, shining, illumination." The light referred to in the verse is suggestive, in terms of its brightness, of these celestial bodies known as quasars. Here, the visibility of quasar light and the source of that light seems to be the reason for this intricate description. (Allah knows the truth.)
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| NASA's Hubble Space Telescope caught a single quasar in space producing images of five separate stars for the very first time. Bodies with a high density –a group of galaxies here– produce more than one image by giving rise to the gravitational lens effect, bending the light from objects behind them, in this case quasars. |
The word "duriyyun" meaning "bright" in the expression "kaannaha kawkabun durriyyun" in the verse, itself meaning "like a brilliant star," is highly compatible with the scientific description of quasars as "bright, stellar bodies".37 In addition, it is mentioned of "giving off light even if no fire touches it." It is probable that this is a reference to the way quasars burn without fire, ie., nuclear fusion. Since oxygen is not naturally present in space, there can be no question of the burning of the brightness of quasars having anything to do with fire. The burning taking place here does so as hydrogen atoms are compressed and produce helium. The energy released during this process then illuminates space.
The expression "light upon light" in the verse may well be a reference to the "gravitational lens effect" in astronomy. (Allah knows the truth.) Many astronomers investigating sources of light in the universe will easily understand this description. It seems to be a reference to the way light from a source behind a body with a very dense mass, such as a black hole, departs under the effect of that dense body. Thus, it reaches us from different angles. It appears that there is therefore more than one source of light for the images that we see. Due to this "gravitational lens effect," an object appears to be somewhere different to where it actually is, and in greater numbers.
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| If a star is immediately behind the black hole, as in the illustration, the star will appear to be both to the right and to the left of the black hole. | Gravitational lens effect |
The term "a niche in which is a lamp" –known as “the light verse” - may allude to the area of gravitational lens effect of a black hole. (Allah knows the truth.) It is significant that in describing the effect that arises, NASA scientists use the analogy of the effect of a drinking glass:
The gravitational effect of the galaxy on the distant quasar was similar to the lens effect of a drinking glass on a distant street light–it created multiple images.38
In his book The Whole Shebang, regarded as one of the leading books of the 20th century by the New York Times, the science writer Timothy Ferris clarifies the subject as follows:
As light from a quasar travels towards us… it may pass through either side of an intervening cluster of galaxies. The warped space surrounding the cluster can act as a lens, with a result that we see two images of what is (or was) actually one quasar.39
The reference in the verse to "light upon light" may be a description of reflected light forming more than one image. In addition, the term "neither of the east nor of the west" in the verse is in all likelihood a reference to the uncertainty of the light's source. (Allah knows the truth.)
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| The illustration shows a quasar appearing to be in four separate places due to the gravitational lens effect. The images, obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope (Chandra), represent a distance of 11 billion light years. |
Quasars are the brightest known objects in the universe. They are also the nuclei of growing galaxies with black holes in their center. Black holes arise as the result of the contraction of stars and gasses belonging to galaxies.40 They are the source of quasar energy. A quasar's brightness is spread by stars falling into the black holes at the centers of galaxies. Thinking of the "lamp" in the verse as a quasar, the "niche" may well be a reference to the black hole that feeds the quasar. (Allah knows the truth.)
Einstein suggested that due to the effect described as the "gravitational lens," bodies in space could bend light and that it was possible for an observer to see several images from one single source.41 However, this effect was only observed for the first time in the quasar known as the "Twin Quasar" in 1979. Quasars were first discovered in 1963, some fourteen centuries after the revelation of the Qur'an. The status of the heavenly bodies described in the 35th verse of Surat an-Nur is in total agreement with current scientific thinking. This, along with a many other scientific miracles, confirm that the only possible source of the Qur'an is our Omniscient Lord, the Creator of all things.
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