River

Its also interesting to note that the 1400+ year old Scripture, the Qur'an mentioned the existence of multiple universes and plurality of Earths.


[65:12 Qur'an]

Allah is He Who created seven* Firmaments and of the earth a similar number. Through the midst of them (all) descends His Command: that ye may know that Allah has power over all things, and that Allah comprehends, all things in (His) Knowledge.


* the expression "Seven" is often used to denote "plurality" or "many in number" in semitic languages like Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic and Akkadian.

Aaron Thrash

I believe it was speaking of the planets in our solar system. However does the book speak of trillions of stars and billions of planets orbiting them?

It often amazes me how such an obscure mention in a book written before man could even understand the moon, is then extrapolated to explain a news report in todays time.

I wrote in my dream journal when I was 15 that there was definately life on other planets, because in a dream I visited these places. Will I be regarded as a prophet, or just an dreamer?

-A

BioBeing

Are you using this as justification for the truth of the Qur'an? If so, please
define "firmament", in specific scientific terms. How many, exactly, did he create? Did he create 7 (or more? how many?) "earths" or earth-like planets? "A similar number" to a poorly defined number is not very precise. Define earth and/or earth-like for this context. If firmament means "universe" then is each universe going to have its own earth, or are there going to be multiple earths in each of the universes?

BTW - if 7 meant many, how did they say "one more than 6"? 8?

Rhaedas

I thikn you should start here, and back this conveniently placed footnote first. Then we can move on from there.

lpetrich

One can find similar "evidence" of the truth of other religions. In doing research on The Great Debate in Panadura, Sri Lanka, 1873, I discovered this interesting statement from the Satta Suriyuggamana Suttani of the Anguttara; the Nikaya Buddha says:
(slightly rewritten from the original)

This can be interpreted as an awareness of what the Sun will eventually do. It is currently becoming brighter, and in a few billion years, it will eventually make the water evaporate, into either a Venus-like cloud layer or else into outer space. In either case, the Earth's surface will become bone-dry and all its plant life will die.

After about 5 billion years, the Sun will become a Red Giant, acquiring the brightness and size of several present-day Suns, and thoroughly baking the Earth's surface.

So shall we convert to Buddhism? Shall we become followers of the Enlightened One (the Buddha) and accept his Four Noble Truths?

And it's not just Buddhism -- consider Epicureanism. Lucretius's On the Nature of Things leaves the Koran (and the Bible) in the dust, as Epicurus vs. Mohammed: Who Predicted Modern Science Better? explains.

River

(ii) More than one world



The very first verse of the first chapter of the Quran is a miracle. It says:



“Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds.�? (The Quran, 1:1)





At a time when, perhaps, scientific knowledge was not even at the nascent stage, the Quran revealed about the presence of worlds other than the earth and testified to the fact that, “Allah is the Lord of the worlds�?. As a matter of fact, the words, “the Lord of the worlds�?, appear in the Quran a total of 73 times. With scientific advancement and use of sophisticated telescopes now we know that there are other planets and multitude of galaxies besides earth. And all this was disclosed to us by the God Almighty through his prophet Mohammad ( P.B.U.H ) 14 centuries ago.

http://www.scienceprovesislam.com/more.htm

Hyndis

"Planet" used to mean "wandering star", and now due to the discovery of what these wandering stars are, a planet now refers to a world; a spherical object that orbits a star.

So, I'm wondering if that verse actually refers to wandering stars. Translation issues and whatnot.

Sven

(1) This is a verbatim copy from the link; you should indicate this in some way.
(2) You/the link would only have a point if you could demonstrate that "worlds" or the respective Arab(?) word meant the same 14 centuries ago as it means today.

Sven

Edit: my first double post! Hurray!

River

[QUOTE=BioBeing]Are you using this as justification for the truth of the Qur'an? If so, please
define "firmament", in specific scientific terms. How many, exactly, did he create? Did he create 7 (or more? how many?) "earths" or earth-like planets? "A similar number" to a poorly defined number is not very precise. Define earth and/or earth-like for this context. [QUOTE]


According to Dr. Maurice Bucaille who stated in his book " The Bible , the Quran and Science ( written in the 1970's)....He mentioned the Qur'anic reference to plurality of Universes and plurality of Earths. To be precise, even from a scientific perspective....we do NOT have the exact number of Earth like bodies that are in existence....Thus, the Science of our times is on par with what is mentioned in the Quran....

Secondly this is what Dr. Bucaille stated about the expression " Seven":


The terms 'worlds' reappears dozens of times in the Qur'an. The Heavens are referred to as
multiple as well, not only on account of their plural form, but also because of their symbolic
numerical quantity: 7.
This number is used 24 times throughout the Qur'an for various numerical quantities. It often
carries the meaning of 'many' although we do not know exactly why this meaning of the figure was used.
The Greeks and Romans also seem to have used the number 7 to mean an undefined idea of plurality. In
the Qur'an, the number 7 refers to the Heavens themselves (samawat). It alone is understood to mean
'Heavens'.