Early Islamic Cosmology: Difference between revisions

While many people in some regions had [[w:Spherical_Earth|known for centuries]] that the Earth was round and not flat, the question is whether Muhammad and his nearby contemporaries in Arabia had this knowledge.

'''ibn Taymiyyah'''

'''Hadiths'''

The other hadith he mentions is in Sahih Bukhari, which says:

{{Quote|1=[http://main.altafsir.com/Tafasir.asp?tMadhNo=0&tTafsirNo=74&tSoraNo=88&tAyahNo=20&tDisplay=yes&UserProfile=0&LanguageId=2 Tafsir al-Jalalayn for Qur'an 88:20]|2=As for His words sutihat ‘laid out flat’ this on a literal reading suggests that the earth is flat which is the opinion of most of the scholars of the revealed Law and not a sphere as astronomers (ahl al-hay’a) have it even if this latter does not contradict any of the pillars of the Law.}}

The website goes on to quote from a 20th century book of fatwas, which claims that the Earth is egg shaped and also makes an argument using verse 39:5, both of which are debunked in the article [https://wikiislam.net/wiki/Flat_Earth_and_the_Quran Flat Earth and the Quran].

{{Quote||Entering into the debate was John Philoponus, a Christian philosopher of sixth-century Alexandria, who wrote his commentary on Genesis to prove, against earlier, Antiochene, theologians like Theodore of Mopsuestia, that the scriptural account of creation described a spherical geocentric world in accord with the Ptolemaic cosmology. [...]

A  number  of  Syrian  churchmen, notably but not only the Easterners working in the tradition of Theodore of Mopsuestia, took the view of the sky as an edifice for granted. Narsai d. ''c''. 503), the first head of the school of Nisibis, in his homilies on creation, described God's fashioning of the firmament of heaven in these terms: "Like a roof upon the top of the house he stretched out the firmament / that the house below, the domain of earth, might be complete". ''ayk taṭlîlâ l-baytâ da-l-tḥēt mtaḥ la-rqî῾â I d-nehwê mamlâ dûkkat ar῾â l-baytâ da-l῾el''. Also "He finished building the heaven and earth as a spacious house" ''šaklel wa-bnâ šmayyâ w-ar῾â baytâ rwîḥâ''. Jacob of Serugh (d. 521) wrote similarly on the shape of the world in his Hexaemeron homilies. A further witness to the discussion is a Syriac hymn, composed ''c.'' 543-554, describing a domed church in Edessa as a microcosm of the world, its dome being the counterpart of the sky. This is the earliest known text to make a church edifice to be a microcosm, and it shows  that  the debates over cosmology were meaningful to more than a small number of theologians.}}

Two easy ways to demonstrate that at least a large number of the earliest Muslims imagined the Earth to be flat are to look at hadiths and tafsirs. For the purposes of this article, it matters little whether the hadiths are authentic or not; either way they demonstrate beliefs of early Muslims.

The Prophet said, "Whoever takes a piece of the land of others unjustly, he will sink down the seven earths on the Day of Resurrection."}}

This next hadith is on the same topic. It is graded daif (weak), but shows what some early Muslims (if not actually Muhammad) thought about the world:

{{Quote|{{Muslim|1|297}}|It is narrated on the authority of Abu Dharr that the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) one day said:

Notice that it says, "from its rising place" (min matli'iha مَطْلِعِهَا ), and "from the place of your setting" (min maghribiki مِنْ مَغْرِبِكِ). The sun is commanded to go somewhere – it cannot be claimed that this is an idiomatic way of commanding the Earth to rotate, nor that the words mean the east and west here (despite mistranslations of similar hadiths), not least because the words al mashriq and al maghrib would have been used for that purpose and without the possessive suffixes. The words used in this hadith must refer to the sun’s rising and setting places - it is pure nonsense to claim otherwise.

==Flat Earth in Tafsirs==

===The Earth on the back of a whale===

==Conclusion==

==External links==