Missionaries are today using science to attack our error-free religion, they are doing this because they say:



A: We have developed tools to confirm certain realities about nature that we didn't know about when the Qur'an was revealed

B: The Qur'an contradicts these realities that we indeed have confirmed

C: Qur'an cannot be from an All-knowing God.



All of this is of course just falsehood sprinkled with some sugar on top of it with an agenda to turn the pious worshipers of Allah away from the faultless deen (faith) of Islam.

I will use the traditional scholars as a reference, and I ask everyone who's reading this to please stay away from the Fitan of disagreements among the scholars (I.e. if you necessarily don't like one that I will use in this post, please overlook it, because this topic is just too important for those issues), Ahl-us-Sunnah wal-Jama'ah didn't reject various Ulama who made mistakes in understanding stuff (that were not fiqh) who were Ahl-us-Sunnah, and neither should we! The focus of this post is to defend Islam, not to promote personalities! The obvious innovators are of course completely rejected! So let's get to it:


The Islamic scholarly consensus about The shape of heaven: not a “dome”, it’s like a ball, encompassing the earth from all sides:



Ibn Taymiyah (1263 – 1328 CE): narrated that from Abu’l-Husayn ibn al-Munaadi, when he said:

"Imam Abu’l-Husayn Ahmad ibn Ja‘far ibn al-Munaadi narrated from the prominent scholars who are well known for knowledge of reports and major works in religious sciences, from the second level of Ahmad’s companions, that there was no difference of opinion among the scholars that the sky is like a ball. He said: Similarly they were unanimously agreed that the Earth, with all that is contains of land and sea is like a ball. He said: That is indicated by the fact that the sun, moon and stars do not rise and set over those who are in different parts of the earth at the same time; rather that occurs in the east before it occurs in the west."*
(Majmoo‘ al-Fataawa 25/195)
Ibn al-Qayyim (1292 - 1350) wrote:

“That the heaven does not encompass the earth and is only above it, is a view that goes against scholarly consensus and that which is indicated by reason and tangible evidence.”
(al-Sawaa’iq al-Mursalah, 4/1308)
So the unanimous opinion among the scholars was and is that the earth and the universe is round. This refutes half of the argument these disbelievers bring against the Qur'an. Surely, the scholars of old would never agree on it if there even was an indication that say otherwise, because these men didn't have science as a measuring rod, they looked at the Qur'an and Sunnah and then looked at what the learned men of science said.


The Islamic consensus on the shape of the earth among all scholars (and companions of the prophet ﷺ ): spherical



The Muslim consensus among all scholars and even the companions of the Prophet is that the earth is a sphere:

Imam Ibn Hazm (d. 1064 CE), wrote:

"I do not know of a single scholar worth the title of scholar who claims other than that the Earth is round. Indeed the evidences in the Quran and Sunnah are numerous to this effect"
(al-fasl fi al-milal wa al-ahwa' wa al-nihal, v. 2 p. 78)
Imam Ibn Taymiyah (1263–1328) wrote:

“The heavenly bodies are spherical, according to the Muslim scholars among the companions of the prophet and those who followed them in guidance; that was also proven from them with isnaads mentioned in the appropriate places. In fact, more than one of the Muslim scholars narrated that there was consensus among the Muslims on that point.”
(Minhaaj as-Sunnah an-Nabawiyyah 5/442)
They based their opinions on the verses of the Qur’an and the Hadith of the prophet, one of which is this verse:

“He created the heavens and earth for a true purpose; He wraps the night around (Yukawwir) the day and the day around the night”
(The Holy Qur’an 39:5)
Ibn Hazm and others used this verse as evidence of the spherical earth, as did a 20th century scholar of Islam called Ibn Uthaymin:

“The word yukawwir (translated here as “wraps around” means to make something round, like a turban. It is well-known that night and day follow one another on earth, which implies that the Earth is round, because if you wrap one thing around another thing, and the thing that it is wrapped around is the Earth, then Earth must be round.”
And he goes on to describe the earth’s shape as not being completely spherical, but rather more of an egg shaped form (I.e. oblate ellipsoid), and modern science completely agrees with that. What is there to expect other than the truth when the information stems from the only Truth, Islam. If the companions of the Prophet UNANIMOUSLY agreed that the earth is round, then there is nobody, not even a major scholar of Islam, who can differ and say otherwise, not even if the scientific community were to oppose this view.

The Muslim community is in fact obliged to adhere to this view and not speak from themselves and form personal opinions and act as scholars without proper studies etc (see Tanqeeh al-Fataawa al-Haamidiyyah 7/431 for reference to what I just wrote)


What does this (that the earth indeed is round) entail?


  1. That there are other people at the other side of the earth
  2. That the sun never sets completely (this is obvious and confirmed with satellites, phones etc) and by phones I mean: you call your friend at night when it is sunny on the other side of the earth.


The sun and its orbit:



Firstly, to make it absolutely clear, The Qur’an says that the sun is in an orbit:

“And it is He who created the night and the day and the sun and the moon; all [heavenly bodies] in an orbit are swimming.”
(The Holy Qur’an 21:33)
Now here's where some modern scholars fell into some confusion. They read these verses and then read what the disbelieving scientists wrote (I.e. that the earth orbits the sun) and formed an opinion and said:

"The earth does not orbit the sun, so we have to reject science when it contradicts the Qur'an"
And the disbelievers have adamantly used these verdicts to mock the believers and Islam. We have to remember and keep in mind that the 'Ulama (scholars) are not infallible, they err, they don't know everything, and neither do the companions or the prophets and messengers, none of them are all-knowing. But when the Prophets and Messengers say something, they do not say it from themselves.



The famous early commentator of the Qur’an, al-Jalalayn (1459–1505) wrote while commenting on ch. 18, verse 86 of the Qur’an:

“fi ra’y al-`ayn wa illa fahiya a’zamo min ad-dunya”
meaning: “it appeared to his own eyes, otherwise the Sun is bigger than the Earth.”

So we know indeed that the sun is much bigger than it looks. These ancient polymaths weren't ignoramuses, as these atheists would dearly want you to believe. Ibn Qayyim explicitly detailed the nature of the sun when he wrote:

"The scientific progress, however, has revealed the distances of stars, which were unknown to humans over the ages. The sun, for instance, is 93 million miles from us (150 .million km), a distance that light travelling at a speed of 300 km/sec covers in eight minutes. Light covers the distance between the nearest star to earth in four and a quarter years. Some stars are one hundred light years away from us (i.e. light takes a hundred years to cover the distance from that star to the earth), some are one thousand light years away, some are a million years away, some are 340 million years away, and some are many more million years away!" (Men and The universe, reflections of Ibn Qayyim, p. 141)
And al-Albani (1914-1999 CE) also wisely said:

“And these verses that have come with regard to the earth, about whether it is moving, round or whether it is stationary - there isn't a decisive text that would support either of the two different views. Therefore, we said that this is not an affair related to belief about which there must be a united opinion as we believe to the case with the ʽaqīdah (belief) of the salaf (righteous predecessors). It could be understood from some of the verses from the noble Qur’ān related to this subject that the earth is stationary and flat, and it could be understood from some other (verses) that it is moving and orbiting. And this (latter) opinion is that which carries more weight in our view and agrees with the natural reality which all people among humanity perceive (to be true), whether he is a Muslim or a disbeliever.”
That there isn't a decisive text just goes to show that Islam didn't come to teach the people science as the main objective, it came to remind people and teach them about Tawheed (monotheism), which means that we shouldn't busy ourselves (like many Muslim laymen do today) with finding verses and Hadith that agree with science in order to make a point. There are indeed things that "seemingly" contradict science (such as phrases like "All that is within the breasts"), science says that thoughts are within the head, but this is simply how Arabs spoke and maybe even believed. Because science has progressed, translators have made it a habit of adding as a note/comment: "This is how the Arabs spoke, what is meant is the mind and brain". Not to mention that modern discoveries that indeed have shown to indicate that the heart has a direct connection with the brain and stores some key parts of memory within it (go to ncbi(dotnlm(dot)nih(dot)gov) to find the ref or just google: "The Memory of the Heart"). But all in all, the Qur'an is not a science book and should not be treated as such! This is not to say that Islam is against science, because as a Hadith beautifully puts it, the believers should indeed look at nature:

"Think of Allah's creation, not of Allah" (I.e. don't try to imagine Him, The Most Exalted is He)
(Source: Sahih al-Jami', graded: good, by al-Albani)
Similarly, Allah says in the Qur'an:

"Do they not look into the realm of the heavens and the earth and everything that Allah has created and [think] that perhaps their appointed time has come near? So in what statement hereafter will they believe?" (The Holy Qur'an 7:185)
A Muslim should not be afraid to observe nature, it was created by The One who revealed the Qur'an.


The Hadith about the sun’s prostration (after sunset?) that was narrated by Abu Dharr:



There’s a Hadith where the Prophet asks Abu Dharr at sunset “Do you know where it goes?” (‏”tadri 'ayna tadhhabu") and thereupon says “It goes and prostrates beneath the Throne, then it asks for permission”, so some scholars interpreted this as saying that the sun revolves around the earth, but we know very well that it is not the sun that revolves around the earth, but rather the earth that spins on its axis and makes it seem as if everything is revolving around it. The spin of the earth can be confirmed by anyone on this earth and not only scientists, to confirm the spin yourself you just have to set a pendulum into swinging and it will continue to swing in the same direction unless it is pushed or pulled in some other direction, while the earth beneath it, on the other hand, will rotate a full rotation every 24 hours (This is due to a basic law of nature called Newton's First Law). So what is intended here in this Hadith can’t possibly be:



“Do you know where it goes (after sunset)?”

Because we have now confirmed with our own eyes that the earth indeed spins. The pendulum would not make a full spin every 24/h if this was not the case. There are other ways we have confirmed it (such as space travels, observation of the position of the stars and all other planets etc) but we will not go into that right now. What we will be talking about here is this Hadith.



There are narrations where the Prophet does not say the words "After the sunset", and there's narrations where these words are added to his saying "after sunset". Now can it be possible that some of the narrators said "After sunset" because they (just as the translators) thought that this is what the Prophet meant? Of course it can. People are prone to make miniscule wording mistakes that do not change the Aqidah or any fundamentals at all, especially if some of them did believe the sun orbited the earth. It's a completely fine "mistake" that really even isn't a mistake. But the fact that there are narrations where the Prophet explicitly doesn't mention words that render us to oblige to this view, just goes to show that this indeed has to have been what he actually literally said (because it agrees to what we have indeed confirmed today). The Hadith in question:


Narrated Abu Dharr: I entered the mosque while Allah's Apostle was sitting there. When the sun had set, the Prophet said, "O Abu Dharr! Do you know where this (sun) goes?" I said, "Allah and His Apostle know best." He said, "It goes and asks permission to prostrate*, and it is allowed, and (one day) it, as if being ordered to return whence it came, then it will rise from the west." Then the Prophet recited, "That: "And the* sun runs on its fixed course (for a term decreed)," (36.38) as it is recited by `Abdullah.

حَدَّثَنَا يَحْيَى بْنُ جَعْفَرٍ، حَدَّثَنَا أَبُو مُعَاوِيَةَ، عَنِ الأَعْمَشِ، عَنْ إِبْرَاهِيمَ ـ هُوَ التَّيْمِيُّ ـ عَنْ أَبِيهِ، عَنْ أَبِي ذَرٍّ، قَالَ دَخَلْتُ الْمَسْجِدَ وَرَسُولُ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم جَالِسٌ، فَلَمَّا غَرَبَتِ الشَّمْسُ قَالَ ‏"‏ يَا أَبَا ذَرٍّ هَلْ تَدْرِي أَيْنَ تَذْهَبُ هَذِهِ ‏"‏‏.‏ قَالَ قُلْتُ اللَّهُ وَرَسُولُهُ أَعْلَمُ‏.‏ قَالَ ‏"‏ فَإِنَّهَا تَذْهَبُ تَسْتَأْذِنُ فِي السُّجُودِ فَيُؤْذَنُ لَهَا، وَكَأَنَّهَا قَدْ قِيلَ لَهَا ارْجِعِي مِنْ حَيْثُ جِئْتِ‏.‏ فَتَطْلُعُ مِنْ مَغْرِبِهَا ‏"‏‏.‏ ثُمَّ قَرَأَ ‏{‏ذَلِكَ مُسْتَقَرٌّ لَهَا‏}‏ فِي قِرَاءَةِ عَبْدِ اللَّهِ‏.‏

Reference : Sahih al-Bukhari 7424


"As if being ordered" in Arabic:



"كَأَنَّهَا قَدْ قِيلَ لَهَا ارْجِعِي مِنْ حَيْثُ جِئْتِ"



Which can be directly translated as:

"as if it has been said to it: 'Return from where you came.'"
"As if being" here seems to imply that this Hadith is talking about the unseen matters (or not exactly literal behavior) but rather it emphasizes the submissiveness of all creation to the will of Allah, rather than providing a scientific explanation of the sun's movement.




The companions (even the cousin of the Prophet, Ibn 'Abbas) knew that the sun never ACTUALLY sets or stops at any time, which further solidifies my conclusion above:

Digging a little bit deeper into this subject, we indeed see that even the companions (and even the cousin of the Prophet) have given a more detailed description of the behavior of the sun that doesn't contradict science at all. And I will enumerate them here because it is indeed needed in this time in history:

If we were to imagine (as the enemies of Islam would love us to do) that The Prophet and the Sahabah believed in a flat earth with a revolving sun around it, then how does it make any sense that the sun is traveling downwards and under the earth so it can go to Allah’s Throne while it is known from Islamic Scripture that God is "above" the entire creation including the earth? Not to go into this topic (but the evidences say "Above", and we do not try to explain it, we take it as it has come, end of story) But wouldn’t it be more logical that the sun is closest to the Throne at noon when it is crossing the local meridian and reaches its highest position in the sky? The reality of the matter is that our "up" and "down" indeed doesn't even have to be at the direction of "Above" and "Below" because the earth is round and it is spinning and our "above" is pointing to different directions constantly.

The noble and the great Qur’an commentator Ibn Kathir wrote:

Ibn Mas’ud and Ibn Abbas (cousin of the Prophet), may God be pleased with them, read, “And the sun runswithout settling,” that is, it has no resting place or stillness, rather it moves day and night, not fading or stopping”
(Tafsir for 36:38)
Ibn Kathir further quotes this verse to prove Ibn Abbas and Ibn Mas’ud’s understanding:

“And He has made the sun and the moon, both constantly pursuing their courses, to be of service to you; and He has made the night and the day to be of service to you. “*
(The Holy Qur’an 14:33)
And argues that the sun nor moon stop at any time but they are rather in constant orbit and in service to us, as the verse says, which is true however you twist and turn it, there's no apparent "resting place" we can observe while observing the sun. Allah wouldn't say that they are in constant pursue in their courses and then contradict Himself and say that the sun stops once every 24h. We have to be open minded and take all interpretations into consideration, and the fact that there are SAHABAH who literally described the sun in perfect truth and agreement to what modern science today teaches, goes to show that this indeed is an opinion we can adhere to. They wouldn't blatantly contradict the Qur'an like that.


So it’s not a daily stop every 24 hours, but it’s headed towards a stopping/resting place in the future right before Yawm al-Qiyamah. So the interpretation would be:




  1. The sun orbits the Milky way Galaxy once every 230 million Earth years.


  2. It has a "resting place" at one certain point each orbit


  3. And in the future it will reach this point (i.e. resting place), and this is when "as if being ordered" it will start to traverse backwards (the same way it came from). So no verse contradicts each other nor is this any scientific blunder at all!


Now what is interesting with this interpretation is something that indeed goes to show that this must be the correct way to interpret the Hadith. Because there is not a single other scenario that would make the sun appear as if rising from the west other than if the sun stopped orbiting and started spinning and orbiting the opposite way. This is literally the ONLY way according to science, if the sun somehow miraculously started to both spin and orbit in the opposite, it would make our earth do the exact same thing; which would indeed make the sun rise in west. Some have argued that there are other possible scenarios, an example is that it would happen if a big comet hit the earth and changed its axis (from one side to the other, making the earth be upside down). But this way would also exterminate all humans before we even get to see a sunrise.

What the Prophet said would happen (the sun being ordered to go back from where it came) is scientifically the only possible way for the sun to appear as if rising from the west, and of course, everything is possible for Allah, but looking at it from a natural behavior of the celestial bodies, the Prophet couldn't be more correct. The correct understanding is that it has a stop, but this stop is in the future, which completely makes sense and even strengthens the authenticity of the Prophet-hood of Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him. Moreover, the sun is not asking to rise (as some erroneously have said that it does), it begs permission for prostration:

“Verily it goes and begs permission, for prostration (to Allah) and the permission is granted to it. Once it would be said: Return to the place whence you came ...“
(Reference : Sahih Muslim 159c, In-book reference : Book 1, Hadith 306)
also, Al-Khattaabi (may Allah have mercy on him) said:


"It cannot be denied that it halts beneath the Throne, in a manner that we cannot see or comprehend; rather this is speaking about a matter of the unseen. So we should not disbelieve in it or ask how it happens, because our knowledge cannot comprehend it."

(A‘laam al-Hadeeth Sharh Saheeh al-Bukhaari p. 1893)

So to say that it stops every 24/h and begs permission to "Rise again" is wrong, and this Hadith above further just goes to solidify the correct interpretation that I have argued in this post. And the prostration is, as the 'Ulama clearly have stated, from the things of the unseen. We should neither try to figure it out. There's more important things we need to focus on, namely Tawheed and doing good deeds and avoiding Haram, and 'ilm in general of the Sirah of the Prophets and things like that. Ibn Kathir further demonstrates all of what I have written in this post in his Tafsir:

“That is, the way he saw the sun was as if it was setting in the ocean, which is something that happens to everyone who stands on the shore: he sees the sun as if it is setting into the sea, when in fact it does not leave the celestial path on which it is firmly established.”
(Tafseer al-Qur’an al-Kareem 5/191)
Ibn Kathir is seemingly clearly contradicting the words of the Qur'an, while in fact he was not contradicting them at all, he was explaining how this matter should be understood. There's some things that appear to the human view and understanding that actually aren't like that in reality. This is how the 'Ulama (scholars) of Islam interpret our religion and this is how the people of old (the children of Israel and the Christians) also interpreted their Books. None other than a denying ignoramus would object to this. And this is why some 'Ulama have erred when they narrate a Hadith where a Prophet of the past calls out and says (not exact wording): “O sun, you are under Allah’s command, as am I, stop…” and Allah stops it in the middle of the sky (by Divine intervention and Miracle of course), and these scholars say that the Prophet was calling to the sun and told it to stop, hence it has to mean that the sun moves and not the earth. So then the question is to be posed to these scholars: What about Dhul-Qarnayn? Does the sun set in a muddy pool according to you? Of course it doesn't.


What about the Hadith where the Prophet (Saws) says it sets in a muddy spring? It's sahih! Well... not so fast!

The version (I.e. “in a spring of warm water”) was narrated only by al-Hakam ibn ‘Utaybah from Ibraahem, and al-Hakam – although he was trustworthy – was described by an-Nasaa’i as mudallis [i.e., he used vague wording to give a wrong impression] in Dhikr al-Mudalliseen (no. 11). Ibn Hibbaan stated that he had a tendency towards tadlees, as noted in ath-Thiqaat (4/144). It's interesting to observe that none of the narrators who conveyed his hadeeth directly asserted that they heard it firsthand from the preceding narrator. Instead, they consistently employed the term ‘an (from) in their reports. In Maraatib al-Mudalliseen, Ibn Hajar positioned him among the second tier of mudalliseen (p. 30). This designation was reserved for individuals whose instances of tadlees were tolerated by the imams or eminent scholars. These notable figures, by virtue of their reputation and infrequent involvement in tadlees compared to their counterparts like ath-Thawri, often received this leeway. Alternatively, their permission for tadlees may have been granted because they solely engaged in it when transmitting from reliable sources, much like Ibn ‘Uyaynah.The presence of this account in contradiction to the narrative reported by reliable narrators underscores the potential occurrence of tadlees in this specific hadeeth.Moving on to the versions, the first rendition found its way into the collections of both al-Bukhaari and Muslim, whereas the second variant was excluded from their compilations. This omission was guided by their belief in the superiority of the first version's accuracy over others. It's worth noting that the narratives within the pages of al-Bukhaari and Muslim hold a higher status, as recognized by critics and scholars, compared to those present in other compilations and Musnads.


But what if there's Hadiths where Prophet Muhammad actually does say stuff that completely contradict science and common sense in modern medicine (worldly affairs)?

Much to your surprise, but the scholars of Islam have told us that it is fully possible for the Prophet to make such mistakes and misunderstandings. He was not a scientist, he was a merchant before he became a Prophet (saws). So if there are any Hadith where the Prophet might have said something to Abu Dharr (that he believed was the truth), but it in fact is a scientific blunder, then, and all praise is due to Allah Alone, we are not obliged to say the same thing. The scholars used the Sahih Muslim Hadith about the pollination of Date Palms and the advice of the Prophet that led to negative consequences and the words of the Prophet:


“I am only a human being like you. If I tell you to do something with regard to religion, then follow it, but if I tell you to do something based on my own opinion, I am only a human being.”
(Narrated by Muslim, 2361).

Islam is a wonderful religion! It covers everything and God hasn't left anything out! The path is super clear my brothers and sisters... And with this I end this post with an excerpt from a modern Muhaddith (Hadith scholar) called al-Albani, when he was asked about this topic (the spin of the earth):

“...It is sufficient, for knowing that there isn't a clear text contradicting this idea or this astronomical view, that many of the Muslim scholars whose knowledge and excellence all of the Muslims acknowledge - especially us Salafis (I.e. fundamental Muslims) who believe in the leadership of the Shaykh of Islām ibn Taymiyah in knowledge of the Book and the Sunnah, and Ibn Qayyim az-Jawziyyah, let alone other than them - used to believe the opposite of what is being spread now based on some apparent indications of the Qur’ān, such as the verse {And the mountains He has fixed firmly} for example, {And after that He spread the earth} and similar verses. They did not understand (and deduce) this opposing rigid opinion from (I.e. that it’s flat and stationary), firstly due to the apparent indications of other (Qur’ānic) texts, and secondly due to astronomical, scientific fact. And the like of the verse that describes the mountains with respect to the earth to be like anchors with respect to ships does not necessitate linguistically that the earth does not move at all, but rather it negates a disordered movement.[7] And similar to this verse is the verse: {And the mountains [We have made] as pegs},[8] because we know by observation that the peg with respect to the animal does not prevent it from moving [I.e, when you tie the animal to the peg], but rather the peg prevents it from moving chaotically such that it would flee and go off however it wants – no, our Lord has arranged the orbiting of the earth like the circulating of the horse around the peg. Hence, Him making the mountains as pegs is contrary to what they claim; it (actually) confirms the movement of the earth, but it confirms a scientific movement that is well-known today to be organized and very precise throughout the year such that it does not change by a single second. Likewise, the anchors doesn’t prevent the ship from moving (I.e. it’s there to prevent it from swaying away chaotically, not to stabilize it completely)”*
(silsilat ul-hudā wa nnūr ~ the series of guidance and light ~ tape no. 435 & 436 )
Wa jazakum Allahu khairan ya ikhwah, enjoy your wednesday. Re-share, no need to credit, but would be nice. "By Exion".