When the sun is 'overthrown', Takwir, emperics?

Salam guys

Today I was at a Physics lecture by "Andrew Melatos" at the University of Melbourne, the lecturer was presenting simulations of the behaviour of bodies in the universe due to gravitational effects.. one thing that struck me was when he presented a physical simulation of our Galaxy (the milkyway) merging with andromeda (one of the nearer galaxies to us), and in particular when you look at the motion of the sun, it is exactly the description given in surat at-takwir, it actually undergoes takwir!! this animation might giv a good translation.. takwir laregly translated as 'overthrown, or revolved about'.. somethign like that.. the word is best defiend when u look at the actual simulation, i was blown away by the precision of that description.. if anyone can help giv a definition for the non arabs here that would b cool

http://www.cita.utoronto.ca/~dubinski/tflops/

The simulation the presenter showed at the talk had the sun represented by a dot in the sim, but just assume that the sun is a dot and its rotating with the galaxy and it follows its path as it coallesces with andromeda...

subhanallah its amazing.. also, the other thing that came to my mind, was that the hadith specifically said, after all that happens (the first few verses fo surat takwir), there will be no life for a period of 40, and the hadith literally does not mention any unit of time, infact the companions commented "we did not know whether the prophet meant 40 years, 40 decades or 40 centuries", and the thing that occurred to me was.. we know that after our solar system might get lost somewhere in the new galaxy.. the rest of the universe will still be functional, hence the period between when earth is destroyed and when the Universe itself collapses on itself. But ofcourse, Allah knows best.

The neat thing about the information Allah gives us in the Quran, is such that it really inspires us to go out and learn more, rather than Allah giving us a physics manual, he encourages the believers to go out, explore and through that we understand with a higher degree of Iman what Allah has told us in the quran, no wonder why Allah says "Verily, those who fear Allah are those with knowledge". [needless to say there are priorities!]

Also... the other thing relevent to astrophsyics (this wasn't mentioned in the lecture but it's still nice pointing out), was that astronomers only till a few decades ago discovered that the Sun really was 'heading' towards constellation Hercules, something that the Quran explicitly illuded to in (surat yaseen i think) "Washamsu fee mustaqarrin lahaa, thaalika taqdeerul '3azeezil '3aleem"

Here's a page on the website of the University of Tennesee (in America) which explains the concept.. if ur interseted for more info, most common astrophysics books cover this topic in greater detail.

http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr162/lect/motion/solar.html

Subhanallah indeed
tc guys
salam

PS: The point about the 'period of 40', was that, we know now that these cosmic events don't happen over periods of a few days or a few years, they take billions and billions of yeras (many lightyears).. hence why the prophet may not have mentioned any units since it's simply mindboggling.. as well as the fact that the exact timing of the day of judgement is not known to anyone except Allah.

A good post.

From my perspective, man's evolutionary path has really only just begun and we face numerous threats to our very existence. To survive long enough as a species to witness this event and more compelling surviving it might just be too much to ask and again it might be just what mankind might be able to pull off. Unfortunately, statistically the odds are very much stacked against us.

Great post though.............

Very informative post, Jazzakallah Khairun for sharing this.

salams jazakum allah khayr 4 the feedback,
there was a bro or sis who asked me to give the reference to the verse number, this is the actual verse "And the Sun runs to its course to a ‘settled place’ for it; that is the decree of (Him) the exalted in Might, the All - knowing." [Al-Qur’an 36:38]

For those interested in astrophysics, there's this pretty neat article out there as well:
http://www.islamvision.org/Astronomy.asp

i had a quick skim throuhg it and it's pretty interesting.

bro/sis root, you're comment is interesting, hence why Islam commands Muslims to implement Allahs commands on earth (individually, socially and politically) so that they can keep it in good order.. otherwise it'll become a chaos. It is Muslims responsibility to keep it in check... otherwise everyone on board the ship will be in danger.

One important point though, it's so important to not keep our beliefs clinging to pieces of scientific discoveries which very possibly could change or evolve over time... Allah SWT encourages the believers to explore and learn about the universe to have a better appreciation of his power SWT. A Muslim's stance should always be 'we hear and Obey' when we hear whatever Allah tells us, keep in mind that the companions and people of previous generation never had access to any of this scientific information, yet their Iman was much higher than ours...

Unfortunately today you present people with so much facts and stats and they're never contented, when Allah tells us that zina is haram they ask 'why', and when they hear that science discovered it can be the cause of aids, they refrain from it, not because they fear Allah, but because they fear the AIDS.

(surat yaseen i think) "Washamsu fee mustaqarrin lahaa, thaalika taqdeerul '3azeezil '3aleem"

sis, you got the aya wrong, please follow the link http://quran.al-islam.com/Targama/DispTargam.asp?nType=1&nSora=36&nAya=37&nSeg=1&l=ger&t=eng which shows the arabic with english translation the refernce to the aya is 36:38

wa alaikum salam

Darusalam's Saheeh International also translates it the way i did, infact more explicitly:

"And the sun runs[on course] towards its stopping point. That is the determination of the Exalted in Might, the knowing"

36:38 page 614 in the pocket edition of 'The Quran Arabic Texwt with Corresponding English meanings'

I think some translations blur up the meaning because they're hesitant about writing that the sun is actually moving.. when i first read that verse a while back i was like 'wow huh??' and astaghfirullah it took me a few science articles b4 i was like 'wow cool subhanallah'. Hence why we shouldn't let our belief hang to emperics! - inshalah ill never do that again-

The translation you provided isn't all that precise, 'runs its course' is definately not the word for 'mustaqarrun'. Anyone who's proficient in arabic will tell you that.

ps: what made you think i'm a sis? lolwatever
salam