Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge & Truth — Page 312
THE QURAN AND COSMOLOGY. A. T the time the Holy Quran was revealed, the human understanding of the nature of the cosmos and the movement or the stillness of the heavenly bodies was extremely primitive and obscure. This is no longer the case, as our knowledge of the universe has considerably advanced and expanded by the present age. . Some of the theories relating to the creation of the universe have been verified as facts, whereas some others are still being explored. The concept of the expanding universe belongs to the former category, and has been universally accepted by the scientific community as 'fact'. . This discovery was first made by Edwin Hubble in the 1920s. Yet some thirteen centuries before this, it was clearly mentioned in the Quran: وَالسَّمَاء بَنيتها بِلَيْدٍ وإِنَّا لَمُوسِعُونَ 51:48. And the heaven We built with Our own powers (aydin) and indeed We go on expanding it (musi'un). '. It should be remembered that the concept of the continuous expansion of the universe is exclusive to the. Quran. No other Divine scriptures even remotely hint at it. . The discovery that the universe is constantly expanding is of prime significance to scientists, because it helps create a better understanding of how the universe was initially created. It clearly explains the stage by stage process of creation, in a manner which perfectly falls into step with the theory of the Big Bang. The Quran goes further and 303