Astronomy in Islam - where science and religion meet?
In its own way, science is a religion of sorts; with some choosing to believe in solely empirical evidence over spirituality or intuition. We know spiritual religions to be beliefs one would adhere to in search of a better moral compass, inner peace, guidance, or forgiveness. But how does religion help in the search for scientific knowledge? Is the Quran a credible source to site in an essay about black holes? Religion is a tricky topic to consider when discussing something as matter-of-fact as science, but in this post, I’ll try to find the middle ground between the two worlds. Yes, I am very brave.
As there are, predictably, too many religions to cover, I chose to cover the religion recommended by a reader – Islam.
Islam is one of the three major Abrahamic religions of the world: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. “Abrahamic”, referring to the figure mentioned in all three of their holy books – Abraham. As the fastest growing religion in the world, Islamic beliefs are now more widespread than ever. These beliefs centre heavily around monotheism, which highlights that there is one creator (Allah) to all things in the universe, including life. So, Allah is not only governing our little planet, but the entire universe and everything within it as well. In that case, does the Quran, the holy book in Islam, make mention of astronomical objects like stars and black holes? And if so, how are they portrayed?
Supernova remnant in the Crab Nebula imaged by the James Webb space telescope
Stars in the Quran – Al Najm
Supernovae
Starting with the most evident of references, the Quran has an entire chapter (Surah 53) dedicated to the stars; titled “Al-Najm”. The most interesting astronomical line being the first one of the surah, “By the star when it goes down”. Where the translation makes it out to seemingly refer to the setting sun, the original Arabic text clarifies that it in fact refers to a collapsing star. The reason it is most interesting, is because the idea of a “collapsing star” could be linked to what we know today as stellar supernovae.
A supernova is, basically, the explosive death of star. We know now that there are three different types of supernovae, with the first ever being theorized in the 16th century. Though they can be visible from earth, the first one to be observed was found in records only from 11th century China. And they didn’t really understand what they were looking at. That’s what makes Al-Najm so fascinating because it suggested the idea of a supernova long before people could fathom the idea of an exploding star. To be fair, the main line of the surah is to tell people that they are to believe the prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in his sayings, and spoke of Allah as the creator of all things including the heavens and life itself. What more convincing to the average 7th century arab, than the idea of a collapsing star?
Sirius
Also mentioned in this Surah, is the brightest star in the sky: Sirius. At just over 8 light years away, Sirius is part of our local group of stars. Two stars make up this bright spot in the sky, as Sirius A, a bright, hot, massive star and Sirius B, a dim, cool white dwarf star orbit each other to make a seemingly singular star. Sirius A shines the brightest of the two, and is the reason why the binary system is so prominent in the night. Verse(ayah) 49 of Al-Najm says, “He is the Lord of Sirius (the Mighty Star)”. As light pollution was, of course, far less in the 7th century AD than it is today, astronomy played a valuable role in people’s everyday (or should I say everynight?) lives. The brightest star in the sky was, as you can imagine, far more notable in comparison to the tens of thousands visible to the naked eye. Sirius was, in turn, one of the stars that was worshipped by certain groups before the introduction of Islam. Since mentioned in the surah, the star’s significance is highlighted contextually and can even still be applied today. As it seeks to show Allah’s might in his creation of all stars, collapsing, bright, and dim.
The brightest star in the sky: Sirius
Pulsars – Tariq
Stellar remnants
1967 marks the year of the discovery of pulsars. After a star goes supernova, it leaves something behind; a white dwarf, a neutron star, or a black hole. The cores of stars become extremely dense and hot on their deathbed, collapsing into white dwarfs if they are average-to-small mass stars. Just about larger than Earth, these shine cool and dim until they run out of nuclear fuel and fizzle out of existence. Black holes are, well, black holes. With the largest gravitational pull of anything in the universe, everything that enters them can never get out, including light. Only the most massive of stars collapsing in on itself can create something as intense on spacetime gravity as a black hole. If they’re less dramatic, giant stars collapse to create neutron stars as their remnants. These celestial bodies also have extreme gravitational pulls, as a result of very tightly packed atoms, and mainly, of course, neutrons. Like white dwarfs, but far scarier. Neutron stars can also be very dramatic, as they can take the forms of magnetars or pulsars. Magnetars have, as presumable, very strong magnetic fields around them – caused by the tightly packed moving atoms in the star. Pulsars are their evil twin – spinning at extremely high velocities and spewing out beams of radiation from the magnetic poles. Radio telescopes can detect pulsars due to these strong radiation beams being sent out at regular intervals of less than seconds.
Knock knock
Surah 86 of the Quran seems to have suggested the presence of pulsars 1400 years before their discovery. Ayahs 1-3 state, “By the sky and the night comer, and what can make you know what is the night comer? It is the piercing star”. As this is an inexact translation of the original Arabic, “night comer” is actually meant to describe “one who knocks at the door”. This is significant because it does not speak of a knock at the door literally, but the sound of a door knock. Knock, knock, knock. Interestingly, when radio astronomers discovered the pulsar, it was through the detection of knocking sounds at really short intervals. Scholars have proposed that the Surah directly indicated the presence of pulsars, proving the words must have come from Allah, as intellectuals did not even consider such a celestial body existing.
Stars for navigation – Al An’am
One big theme in the Quran is the idea of everything having a purpose. When it comes to the stars, it is no coincidence that humans are able to see patterns in their positions, create constellations, and use them as nighttime navigation tools. In Surah 6 “Al An’am”, Ayah 97, “And He it is who created the stars so that you use them to navigate in the depths of darkness” details the purpose of the stars in the night sky. Celestial navigation was no new invention in the 7th century, with the first records of it dating back to the 3rd millennium B.C. The constellations were used as a form of landmark one could orient themselves by, like that one oddly shaped building in an otherwise regular town. Some are, admittedly tough to identify, especially in a particularly starry night sky. But to the desert-dwelling 7th century Arab, a familiarity with the stars and their orientations was second-nature. To suggest that their placements are no coincidence, and that they were created by the grace of Allah to help us navigate the night must have certainly been an idea to behold. Certainly one that answers the question of “why” there were so many bright dots in the dark night sky.
While scientists still use constellations to orient and categorize celestial findings today, a purpose isn’t suggested. Their positions are deemed as random, determined only by the aftermath of the big bang itself. But wouldn’t that mean they aren’t randomly distributed amongst space? If the big bang was the determining factor to everything, as it created all of time and space and everything within it?
The Big Bang - Al Anbiya
First theorized by Georges Lemaitre in 1931, the Big Bang theory stated that the entire observable universe was created by an expansion of a single particle billions of years ago. Basically, everything that ever was(that we can see), was all a single tiny dot at one point, which then exploded to become the universe we know today. The idea radicalized scientist’s perceptions of the universe and its creation, with it gaining steam in the 1970s.
The Cosmic Microwave Background - an image of the early universe. Red represents hotter, more gas-rich areas. Blue represents cooler, gas-poor areas.
The first believed proofs of the theory were the Hubble constant - showing that objects in space are accelerating away from us - meaning the universe is expanding, and the cosmic microwave background(CMB). The CMB was accidentally found by radio astronomers in 1965, who detected the hot, dense gas theorized to have formed just 400,000 years after the big bang. Simply put, they found an image of our baby universe and the spread of the gases which would later be formed into galaxies, planets, and us.
Though the big bang theory is less than a century old, it may have already been suggested millennia ago in the Quran. In Surah 21,Al Anbiya, Ayah 30, “Do the disbelievers not realize that the heavens and earth were once one mass then We split them apart?” leads the present-day reader to link the creation of the universe with the Big Bang. The question of how it took so long for someone to develop the Big Bang theory then arises. Have Muslims always had this theory in mind and known it to be true, so did not seek to find proof? Or have the ideas and studies of Islamic scholars been lost to time due to outside influences? But that’s a story for another blog.
What is the significance of this?
Though there is definitely far more to cover related to the intersection of science and faith, let alone the Islamic faith, I chose to cover those which I knew of, and found interesting to think about. In faith, it may be significant to cover astronomical topics, to show the majesty of the universe and hence God, a force far greater than we could imagine. In a way, it humbles the person reading, as it brings to light just how tiny we are and how massive the universe is and thus, the power of its creator. Though it must have been scary to learn about these things in 700AD and prior (I’m sure they were not as casual about it as we are today) I believe it must have also been eye-opening to imagine the previously inconceivable.
I personally don’t understand why science and religion are so often painted as enemies rather than allies. To me, science is a beautiful way people can make sense of the world around them, satiate their natural curiosity and also connect far more to whomever or whatever they believe created the universe. Its always good to keep an open mind not only in religion, but also in science. People can be wrong, right, and, most times, somewhere in between both.
Thanks to Omar for the topic suggestion!