Many subjects referred to in The Qur'an have a bearing on modern knowledge

CELESTIAL ORGANIZATION By Dr. Maurice Bucaille

The information the Qur'an provides on this subject mainly deals with the solar system. References are however made to phenomena that go beyond the solar system itself: they have been discovered in recent times. There are two very important verses on the orbits of the Sun and Moon:
--sura 21, verse 33: "(God is) the One Who created the night,and day, the sun and the moon. Each one is travelling in an orbit with its own motion."
--sura 36, verse 40: "The sun must not catch up the moon, nor does the night outstrip the day. Each one is travelling in an orbit with its own motion."

Here an essential fact is clearly stated: the existence of the Sun's and Moon's orbits, plus a reference is made to the traveling of these bodies in space with their own motion. A negative fact also emerges from a reading of these verses: it is shown that the Sun moves in an orbit, but no indication is given as to what this orbit might be in relation to the Earth. At the time of the Qur'anic Revelation, it was thought that the Sun moved while the Earth stood still. This was the system of geocentrism that had held away since the time of Ptolemy, Second century B.C., and was to continue to do so until Copernicus in the Sixteenth century A.D. Although people supported this concept at the time of Muhammad, it does not appear anywhere in the Qur'an, either here or elsewhere...

The Sun: It is more difficult to conceive of the Sun's orbit because we are so used to seeing our solar system organized around it. To understand the verse from the Qur'an, the position of the Sun in our galaxy must be considered. and we must therefore call on modern scientific ideas. Our galaxy includes a very large number of stars spaced so as to form a disc that is denser at the centre than at the rim. The Sun occupies a position in it which is far removed from the centre of the disc. The galaxy revolves on its own axis which is its centre with the result that the Sun revolves around the same centre in a circular orbit. Modern astronomy has worked out the details of this. In 1917, Shapley estimated the distance between the Sun and the centre of our galaxy at 10 kiloparsecs i.e., in miles, circa the figure 2 followed by 17 zeros. To complete one revolution on its own axis, the galaxy and Sun take roughly 250 million years. The Sun travels at roughly 150 miles per second n the completion of this. The above is the orbital movement of the Sun that was already referred to by the Qur'an fourteen centuries ago. The demonstration of the existence and details of this is one of the achievements of modern astronomy...

In the Sixth century B.C., they defended the theory of the rotation of the Earth on its own axis and the movement of the planets around the Sun. This theory was to be confirmed by modern sciece. By comparing it with the case of the Pythagoreans, it easy to put forward the hypothesis of Muhammad as being a brilliant thinker, who was supposed to have imagined all on his on his own what modern science was to discover centuries later. In so doing however, people quite simply forget to mention the other aspect of what these geniuses of philosophical reasoning produced, i.e. the colossal blunders that litter their work. it must be remembered for example, that the pythagoreans also defended the theory whereby the Sun was fixed in space; they made it the centre of the world and only conceived of a celestial order that was centered on it.

It is quite common in the works of the great philosophers of antiquity to find a mixture of valid and invalid ideas about the Universe. The brilliance of these human works comes from the advanced ideas they contain, but they should not make us over look the mistaken concepts which have also been left to us. From a strictly scientific point of view, this is what distinguished them from the Qur'an. In the latter, many subjects are referred to that have a bearing on modern knowledge without one of them containing a statement that contradicts what has been established by present-day science.

The Bible, The Quran and Scienceby Dr. Maurice Bucaille [Extracts from the book "The Bible, The Quran and Science" by the famous French physician Maurice Bucaille]

The Basic Process Of The Formation of the Universe according to the Quran and Science.
Celestial Organization according to the Quran and Science. Evolution Of The Heavens according to the Quran and Science. Conquest Of Space predicted 1400 years ago by the Quran.