A
History of Creation
Zeeshan
Hasan
The Qur'anic verse, which is
typically interpreted as talking about the Big Bang is better
dealt with as story; specifically, as a summary of the earlier
Biblical creation story. Additionally, the existence of
earlier Mesopotamian mythological elements in the Biblical
story will be examined to show how the divine revelations
of the Qur'an and Bible have changed over time to accommodate
specific historical needs. The results will support a view
of revelation as dynamic and evolving, which ultimately
argues against the possibility of a single set of universally
applicable Islamic laws.
First, let us look at the following Qur'anic
verse, which has been used to claim that Islam predicts
the Big Bang.
Have not the unbelievers then beheld that the heavens and
the earth were a mass all sewn up, and then We unstitched
them and of water fashioned every living thing? (Qur'an
21:31)
So what are the Qur'anic verses on creation
referring to, if not the Big Bang? A simple answer presents
itself; since Islam sees itself as a continuation of the
Judeo-Christian tradition, it is only natural that the Qur'an
contain a retelling of the Biblical creation story. The
Qur'anic verses quoted earlier serve as a summary of the
Biblical account given below.
When God began to create the heavens and
the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered
the face of the deep (tehom), while a wind from God swept
over the face of the waters. Then God said, "Let there
be light"; and there was light... and God separated
the light from the darkness. God called the light Day and
the darkness He called Night. And there was evening and
there was morning, the first day. (Genesis 1:1-5)
Perhaps the most interesting word in the
above account, though, is the word for the primordial sea
or “deep” (tehom in Hebrew), which apparently existed before
God started creating the heavens and earth. The presence
of “tehom” tells us that the Bible assumes that God did
not create the world out of nothing; but rather that there
was already something there. This serves as a clue to the
existence of a much older tradition than the Biblical one
underlying this account, which we will come to later. The
account starts with the world “a formless void”, and earth,
sky and sea were not fully formed until the third day. Hence
the Qur'anic description of the heavens and earth as a “mass
all sewn up”.
And God said, "Let there be a dome in the midst of
the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters."
So God made the dome and separated the waters that were
under the dome from the waters that were above the dome...
God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there
was morning, the second day. (Genesis 1:6-8)
The Biblical account above is obviously
not scientific by modern standards; it reflects the view
of the ancient world that the blue sky is really like made
of water like the sea, only prevented by crashing down by
the “dome” of the firmament. At the same time, this decidedly
unscientific account is apparently the source for the Qur'anic
“unstitching” of the heavens and the earth.
And God said, "Let the waters under
the sky be gathered together in one place, and let the dry
land appear." And it was so. God called the dry land
Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called
Seas... Then God said, “Let the earth put forth vegetation...”.
And there was evening and there was morning, the third day.(Genesis
1:9-13)
The water referred to in the Qur'an as the
source of all life could either be this mysterious pre-existent
“deep” (tehom) mentioned earlier, or the waters mentioned
below as the source of marine life;
And God said, “Let there be lights in the
dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and
let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years,
and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light
upon the earth.” And it was so. God made the two great lights
the greater light to rule the day and the lesser to rule
the night and the stars... And there was evening and there
was morning, the fourth day.
And God said, “Let the waters bring forth
swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the
earth across the dome of the sky...” and there was evening
and there was morning, the fifth day. (Genesis 1:14-23)
From a scientific perspective it is impossible
to think of a “day” or a “night”occurring before the creation
of the sun or moon; but in the Biblical account above, there
were three such days. The story continues with the creation
of the animals of the earth's surface, including man, on
the sixth day (Genesis 1:24-31). Then finally we get to
the conclusion of the creation story told thus far, which
is a justification of the sabbath as the Jewish weekly day
of rest.
And on the seventh day God finished the
work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day
from all the work he had done. So God blessed the seventh
day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the
work he had done in creation. (Genesis 2:2-3)
All of the above Biblical passages were
from the Old Testament source that modern Biblical scholars
refer to as P, or the “priestly” source, due to P's role
in contributing much of the legal and ritualistic material
found in the first few books of the Bible. One of P's characteristic
concerns is justifying Israelite religious practices through
his historical narrative. This shows us the apparent reason
for the creation narrative spanning seven days. P uses this
to establish the seventh day as the shabbat, the Jewish
weekly day of rest, from the example of God himself. The
shabbat law is made explicit in a later passage in P, which
contains most of the laws and commandments which Judaism
traditionally attributed to Moses:
Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.
Six days shall you labour and do all your work; but the
seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; in it you
shall not do any work... for in six days Yahweh made heaven
and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested
on the seventh day; therefore Yahweh blessed the sabbath
day and consecrated it (Exodus 20:8-11)
P's account thus contains all the elements
of the Qur'anic account, but with much greater detail. The
Qur'anic verse with which we started thus seems to be a
summarised retelling of the P's creation story. The Qur'anic
retelling is continued in the following passage:
Surely your Lord is God, who created the heavens and the
earth in six days, then sat Himself upon the Throne, directing
the affair... It is He who made the sun a radiance, and
the moon a light, and determined it by stations, that you
might know the number of the years and the reckoning. (Qur'an
10:3 and 5)
So P's week-long creation story of heavens,
earth, sun and moon is retained in the Qur'an, but the detailed
breakdown of each day is eliminated. This makes sense, as
there is no ritual day of rest in the Muslim week; Fridays
are marked for congregational prayers, but there is no religious
law against working on that day. The sabbath-establishing
rationale of P's week-long story no longer exists in a Muslim
framework. An additional point worth noting is that the
fact that the Qur'an accepts P's six days of creation is
the strongest evidence that the Qur'anic creation story
can not be talking about the Big Bang or any other physical
cosmological theory, as none of these could possibly have
taken place in six days.
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