Portal: Islam and Science: Difference between revisions

{{PortalArticle|image=Ancient-Cosmology.jpg|summary=|title=Cosmology of the Quran|description=Islamic cosmology draws on the cosmologies of its ancient neighbors and predecessors while being at the same time notably less sophisticated, developed, and accurate than the cosmologies of the Greeks and Romans. Islamic scholars, reading scriptures literally, accept at face value the descriptions found in religious scriptures of seven stacked disks, a sky-firmament, a universe centered around the Earth, the identity of stars and meteors, and a universe seated atop a cosmic ocean-dwelling whale and below the throne of God.}}{{PortalArticle|title=Islamic Views on the Shape of the Earth|image=Flat Earth The Wonders of Creation.jpg|summary=|description=Islamic scriptures imply, adhere to, and describe a flat-Earth cosmography (arranged in a geocentric system) which conceives of the earth as existing in the form of a large plane or disk. While some early Islamic authorities maintained that the earth existed in the shape of a "ball", such notions are entirely absent in the earliest Islamic scriptures.}}{{PortalArticle|image=Islamicwhale.png|summary=|description=The Islamic whale (in Arabic الحوت الإسلامي, ''al-hoot al-islami''), is a mythological creature described in Islamic texts that carries the Earth on its back. It is also called Nun (نون), which is also the name of the Arabic letter "n" ن. Two alternative names of the whale are Liwash and Lutiaya. The details behind the mentioning of this creature is a unclear topic. There is little mention of Nun in the Quran, however there is further mention of it in other Islamic scriptures such has Hadith and Tafsir along with context verses.|title=The Islamic Whale}}

{{PortalArticle|summary=|title=Geocentrism and the Quran|image=Geocentrism2.jpg|description=The Qur'an mentions a few times that the sun and the moon travel in an orbit (''falak'' - a rounded course), but does not mention once that the Earth does too. This is consistent with an Earth-centered (geocentric) view of the cosmos that places a motionless Earth at the center of the universe and all "heavenly bodies" travel around the Earth. This was the prevailing understanding of the universe prior to the 16th century when Copernicus helped explain and popularize a sun-centered (heliocentric) view of the universe.}}{{PortalArticle|summary=|description=Islamic scriptures describe the Earth as being the topmost of seven terrestrial disk existing at the top of the cosmic whale known as ''al-hoot al-islami'', or The Islamic Whale, which swims about universal ocean. These disks are said to be held to whale's back by the mountains, which act as pegs. While further detail on these disks is scant, some, less well-attested scriptures describe the lower disks as inhabited by progressively more bizarre creatures. Modern science has learned nothing that would suggest the accuracy of these ideas.|image=Islamic Whale.jpg|title=Science and the Seven Earths}}{{PortalArticle|title=The Ramadan Pole Paradox|summary=|image=Geographic Southpole.jpg|description=According to Islamic laws set out in the Qur'an and hadith, the keeping and breaking of a fast and the times of prayer, among other things, are related to times of sunrise and sunset. As one gets closer to the North or South Pole, the day or night can extend to up to several months each. At the North Pole itself, daylight and darkness lasts for more than 6 months at a time. Extending the five daily prayers of a period of several months appears to undermine the Islamic ritual, however, and fasting for such a period is evidently impossible.}}