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I Swear by the positions of stars
Men & The Universe
By Capt Anas Abdul Hameed Al-Qoz
A primitive observer will think that stars are close to us, that if he climbed a mountain he might be able to touch some of them. This was the attitude of Pharoah of Egypt when he declared, as recounted by the Quraan:
“O Haman! Build for me a tower that haply I may reach the roads, The roads of the heavens, and may look upon the God of Moses,...”
[Surah Ghafir Ayah 36-37]
The scientific progress, however has revealed the distances of stars, which were unknown to humans over the ages. The sun for instance, is 93 million miles from us (150 million km), a distance that light travelling at a speed of 300 km/sec covers in eight minutes. Light covers the distance between the nearest star to earth in four and a quarter years. Some stars are one hundred, light years away from us (i.e. light takes a hundred years to cover the distance from that star to the earth), some are a million years away, some are 340 million years away, and some are many more million years away! Does not this reveal to us new meanings, unknown to previous generations, of the following verses:
“Nay, I swear by the Mawaqi (positions) of the stars - And lo! that verily is a tremendous oath, if you but knew”
[Surah Al-Waqiah Ayah 74-75] |
