WE LIVE IN AN EXPANDING UNIVERSE

WE LIVE IN AN EXPANDING UNIVERSE

47- With power did We construct heaven. Verily, We are expanding it. 
51-The Dispersing, 47 

Is the universe infinite? Or is it finite in a steady state? From the very 
beginning this has been a subject of debate between great minds. Hot debates and 
ratiocination of all kinds failed to clarify this dilemma. This had once been 
the subject of philosophical speculations before it yielded its place to the 
science of physics. Some of the great minds argued that the universe was not a 
confined space, while others contended that its boundaries were drawn. The Quran 
describes it as a continuously expanding and dynamic universe. According to this 
description, the universe has a new aspect every instant that deviates from the 
concept of an infinite space; its perpetual expansion defies the concept of a 
confined and steady state universe. Thus, the Quran propounds a third 
alternative, leaving the heated controversy of thinkers in abeyance. 

This may contribute to the formulation of a judgment for the inquiring minds, 
probing whether the Quran is God?s revelation or not. We have, on the one hand, 
Muhammad in the desert, neither a philosopher nor a physicist, and, on the other 
hand, the assumptions of great thinkers and philosophers such as Aristotle, 
Ptolemy,Giordano Bruno, Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton, to name but a few. The 
greatest minds in history, basing their arguments on observations and formulas 
they had ingeniously devised, claimed either that the universe had its confines 
or that it was an endless space, but it occurred to none of them to think of a 
dynamic expanding universe, until the 20th century when Edwin Hubble, by means 
of a telescope, demonstrated that the universe was expanding. The theory of 
expansion of the universe was first advanced in the 1920s. Until the descent of 
the Quran no other source had made such an assertion!

MUHAMMAD?S TELESCOPE
Unbelievers contended that the Quran was Muhammad?s own fabrication and not the 
revelation of God. How then would these dissenters explain the fact that 
Muhammad had been the only person who was aware of the expanding universe long 
before the 1920s. 

Could it be that in the 600s he had invented a telescope similar to the one 
contrived in the 1900s? Could it be that he had been familiar with the handling 
of such a telescope and acquainted with the motion of stars and that he had 
concealed it from his fellow men? If those who accused the Prophet of lunacy and 
alleged that in his delusional states he imagined himself the messenger of God 
were justified in their claims, how would they account for the fact that he knew 
facts not known to his contemporaries, facts that were to be discovered 1300 
years after his revelation of them? If those people assert that the Prophet had 
devised a religion to serve his own ends, how can they explain that his so-called 
delusions materialized after a lapse of 1300 years? His pronouncements at the 
time did not promote his interests in any way; quite the reverse was the case, 
since he unwittingly gave his enemies a hint they might take advantage of. Can a 
person whose own interests prevail over the interests of others declare 
something not to his own advantage that was sure to be bitterly censured and 
much derided by those whose naked eyes failed to observe the expansion of the 
universe? If, despite this, a person came up with the contention that Muhammad 
was an intelligent man who might have perceived this truth, what sort of an 
intelligence might this have been? 

And, instead of boasting of having been the depository of such knowledge, why 
would he have preferred to tell an untruth and claim that this was not his own 
discovery but the revelation by God? While the inventor or discoverer of a pin 
is inclined to brag about his breakthrough, why on earth would Muhammad choose 
to be modest and categorically declare that the Quran was not his own production, 
but the revelation of God? Was this due to humility? Would these people - who 
had denied his prophethood and accused him of having been an impostor - have 
dared qualify him with the laudable attribute of ?humility??

DISCOVERY OF THE EXPANDING UNIVERSE
There was a gap in Newton?s physics. Newton believed in an endlessly vast and 
static universe. His law of gravity encountered a problem. How was it that the 
physical bodies, in the course of eons, defied their mutual attractions and did 
not collapse into a unity? The formula that Einstein devised abandoned the 
absolute notions of space and time as reference points for all objects in the 
universe. Basing his studies on Einstein?s formulas, Alexander Friedmann, a 
Russian physicist, discovered that the universe must be expanding. Georges 
Lemaître, a Belgian cleric, astronomer and cosmologist, formulated that the 
universe had begun in a cataclysmic explosion of a small, primeval superatom, 
like the growing of an oak tree from an acorn. This theory explained the 
recession of galaxies within the framework of Albert Einstein?s theory of 
general relativity. This idea was so incredible that even Einstein had problems 
accepting it, despite the fact that this all had originated from his own 
formulas. Einstein, rather, countered that physics was not the forte of Lemaître, 
and the universe was an infinite expanse and in a steady state. 

Lemaître?s theory posited that the universe was expanding. This was a statement 
that no philosopher and no scientist had ever before set forth. Kant had said in 
his Critique of Pure Reason that this was an enigma unsolvable by human 
intelligence. This theory fit everything and explained the reason why the 
universe did not collapse in spite of gravity. The key had fit into the lock. It 
was the correct explanation of the enigma. However, this statement met with the 
usual adverse reaction: ?No, it is not the truth...? 

Remaining outside the sphere of theoretical controversy, American astronomer 
Hubble was, about the same time, making observations with his sophisticated 
telescope in the Mount Wilson observatory. He observed that galaxies were 
receding from each other, which proved that the universe was expanding. In 
answer to those who said they could not believe in things their eyes had not 
witnessed, Hubble?s discovery led to the following declaration: ?Now that you 
see it, you have got to believe it.? Hubble showed this by the Doppler Effect. 
Thus the wavelengths of receding bodies prolonged in the spectrum of light waves 
would shift to red, while, if the bodies approached each other, the wavelengths 
would shorten, shifting to blue. The light that came from galaxies that shifted 
to red showed that the galaxies were receding. In line with this observation, 
Hubble discovered a striking law: the speed of galaxies that receded was 
directly proportional to the distance between galaxies. The farther away a 
galaxy stood, the more its speed of recession accelerated. The result was tested 
again and again. In 1950, a high-magnification telescope was installed on Mount 
Palomar in the USA, the largest instrument of its kind. The new tests and 
controls justified this observation. The measurements made pointed to the fact 
that the creation of the universe occurred about 10-15 billion years ago. 

Both Einstein and Lemaître took an interest in Hubble?s work; Einstein, who did 
not agree with Lemaître at first, eventually acknowledged during a conference 
that Lemaître was right after all. He confessed that his failure to endorse 
these findings had been the gravest error in his life. Thus it was that the fact 
that the universe was of a dynamic nature and expanding, confirmed by 
observations, was also validated by the great physicist Einstein. 

In the examples presented by Hubble and Lemaître, we see illustrated how a 
physicist arrives at a conclusion both in theory and through observation. While 
Lemaître demonstrated how he had made inferences from Einstein?s formulas to 
substantiate his theoretical discoveries, Hubble presented the data of his 
observations and his conclusions. 

As we see, the result obtained by physicists is the consequence of cumulative 
and collective bits of knowledge and research. The Creator of physical laws 
provides the answer in the Quran to the issues of towering importance throughout 
human history. The Quran?s presentation of scientific facts is clear, direct, 
and concise; it is different than the presentation of scientists, which tends to 
be complicated by scientific methods and procedures. The provider of this answer 
does not have to go through all the labyrinths a scientist has to. The Quran?s 
method is perfectly straightforward, unswerving and explicit. 

If we had the possibility of looking at the universe from above and somebody 
asked us to describe what we saw, our answer would be that it was expanding. To 
achieve the Quran?s revelation of this fact 1400 years ago, man would have 
needed access to the assistance of accumulated scientific data acquired 
throughout long years and to sophisticated telescopes. When people claim that 
science and religion oppose each other, the Quran furnishes answers to the most 
complicated scientific problems. Observations made by sophisticated telescopes 
today confirm the statements of the Quran. 

The Quran, perfectly aware of the human psyche with its prescience, states that 
nonbelievers will insist on their convictions regardless how many miracles are 
presented to them. Some ask: ?Why did the people also not believe in Jesus, who 
had performed miracles and healed the sick and the blind?? This example 
demonstrates why the majority of people did not believe in Christ and the other 
prophets, despite their miracles. Miracles change in fact as time goes by, but 
the negative attitude of most humans remains unchanged.

REASON FOR THE USE OF THE ROYAL PLURAL
I think it advisable to explain the reason for the use of ?We? in the verse 
analyzed in this chapter. God uses both the royal plural ?We? and the first 
person singular ?I.? Some languages use the first person plural ?we? to express 
grandeur and exalted rank. 

In the hundreds of references addressing God in the second person, the pronoun 
used is ?Thou? and never the plural ?You? or ?Ye.? The thousands of references 
made to Him as a third person always use the pronoun ?He? and never ?They.? 
References in the Quran to God always use either the second or the third person, 
and none of them as a second or third person plural. Thousands of times in the 
Quran, God is referred to as ?Allah,? ?Gracious (Rahman),? Merciful (Raheem),? 
and ?Lord (Rab)? and all of these words are in the singular, never the plural.

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