He was the first person to prove it, but apparently, from what I've been told, the Sumerians postulated a round earth long before Drake. This posulate strangely dissappeared for a while, probably because of the Catholic church.
format_quote Originally Posted by
Fi_Sabilillah
Consider the following Qur’aanic verse regarding the alternation of day and night: “Seest thou not that Allah merges Night into Day And He merges Day into Night?” [Al-Qur’aan 31:29]
Merging here means that the night slowly and gradually changes to day and vice versa.
That is completely observable to the naked eye. Any caveman will tell you that. No9thing special yet
format_quote Originally Posted by
Fi_Sabilillah
This phenomenon can only take place if the earth is spherical. If the earth was flat, there would have been a sudden change from night to day and from day to night.
That is not true at all. In both cases, there will be a observable, gradual dissappearance of the sun. A flat earth has a dividing point between visible and not visible, and a horizon on a round planet has a dividing point between visible and not visible. Visualize it. As far as the naked eye is concerned, the effect is the same in both cases
format_quote Originally Posted by
Fi_Sabilillah
The following verse also alludes to the spherical shape of the earth: “He created the heavens And the earth In true (proportions):
He makes the Night Overlap the Day, and the Day Overlap the Night.” [Al-Qur’aan 39:5]
That doesn't sound like it's describing a round earth at all. In fact, how could the day overlap the night and vice versa unless each were blankets of some sort. This doesn't make any sense to me. I'm trying, but I don't see it yet. How could the night "overlap" the day? It's odd because somewhere else, I forget the verse, it says the night veils over top of the day. No it doesn't. So this is still very very odd to me.
format_quote Originally Posted by
Fi_Sabilillah
The Arabic word used here is Kawwara meaning ‘to overlap’ or ‘to coil’– the way a turban is wound around the head. The overlapping or coiling of the day and night can only take place if the earth is spherical.
That isn't neccesarily true, but let's say it is for the sake of argument. Also, again, when something coils or wraps around something else, which object is doing the moving? I would say it's the coiling object not the object being coiled. When you wrap a turban around the head, is the head spinning or is the cloth moving around the head? Obviously, the cloth moves around the still head. So this would be a verty poor example. Why was the Quran misleading like this?
format_quote Originally Posted by
Fi_Sabilillah
The earth is not exactly round like a ball, but geo-spherical i.e. it is flattened at the poles. The following verse contains a description of the earth’s shape:
The Qur’aan and Modern Science: Compatible or Incompatible?
11 Distributed by AHYA Multi-Media
http://www.ahya.org
“And the earth, moreover, Hath He made egg shaped.” 2 [Al-Qur’aan 79:30]
The Arabic word for egg here is dahaha, which means an ostrich-egg. The shape of an ostrich-egg resembles the geo-spherical shape of the earth.
Someone who knows arabic very well told me that it actually is talking about how an ostrich spreads out the dirt to lay it's eggs. I don't know if that's true, but it certainly matches up well with 91:6
091.006
YUSUFALI: By the Earth and its (wide) expanse:
PICKTHAL: And the earth and Him Who spread it,
SHAKIR: And the earth and Him Who extended it,
Spread it and extended it doesn't sound lioke a ball, it sounds more like a carpet, and this matches what the guy told me that that word really is refering to.
Ostrich Egg:
http://img329.imageshack.us/img329/7...richeggmm3.jpg
If you need more info. please don't hesitate to ask. You can download the whole book from here:
http://www.sunnahonline.com/ilm/quran/qms.pdf
You need adobe reader to view it, which you can download from here insha'Allah (God willing):
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html
Or you can watch the authors vids:
http://www.youtube.com/results?searc...&search=Search
http://video.google.co.uk/videosearch?q=zakir+naik
Peace.
[/QUOTE]
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