Registration of new members is currently closed. Guestbook opened for now.  Guests who have questions may post at our guestbook.  No lengthy debates please. Kindly note: MV is a place for serious learning through mutual consultation where we have zero tolerance for trouble-makers, narcissists and needless disputants. We simply stand for what is compatible with the Noble Quran regardless of titles such as "traditionalism" or "modernism." We have the right to our opinion just as you have the right to yours. All disagreements must be left at that. Final Judgement belongs to The Almighty.
MUSLIM VILLA - QURAN ONLY
March 29, 2024, 06:32:01 am
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
 
  Home Help Search Arcade Gallery Links Staff List Calendar Login Register  

"Firmaments" are not planets: Misinterpretation of V.65:12 by Answering-Islam

+-
Shoutbox
November 01, 2023, 03:44:32 pm Zainab_M: Allahhuma ameen .. ameen.
November 01, 2023, 03:43:43 pm Ruhi_Rose: Yes .. making lots of dua everyday ..... watching those real life video clips, my face feels wet with tears all the time.  May ALLAH grant the best to these wonderful, brave & steadfast martyrs,  Ameen ya Allah.
November 01, 2023, 03:38:26 pm Zainab_M: Keep praying, praying a lot for Gaza. It's worse than a prison .. it's a concentration camp.  Children as young as 10 or 11 are having to care for their younger siblings ages 2, 3 and 4 becoz many have lost both parents.  It's a very, very, very tearful situation there.
October 26, 2023, 03:40:19 pm N. Truth Seeker: Don't forget to look up MV Blog Zainab's Lounge for our Gaza updates.
October 20, 2023, 04:24:44 pm Zainab_M: Right sister Heba.  Gaza hospital bombing has the fingerprints of Israel all over it.  For Israel this is no big crime.  They have done this and much worse many times in the past and intend to do the same and worse many more times in near future.
October 20, 2023, 04:20:20 pm Heba E. Husseyn: Catching Zionist lies isn't hard. Soon after Gaza hospital bombing killing and maiming hundreds, Israel was quick to accuse Islamic Jihad of a misfired rocket.  That didn't sound plausible because IJ does not have such sophisticated bombing devices.  Zionist lie was fully exposed when anglican archbishop of Jerusalem,Hosam Naoum,  said today that 3 or 4 days prior to boming Israel had warned Gaza hospital to evacuate. Yet CIA claims in its flawed analysis that the rocket did not come from Israel.  But conveniently does not explain how Israel could have known 4 days earlier that a "misfired" rocket from IJ was coming.  Yet on the basis of this flawed & bias analysis of CIA, Biden is comforting Israel he believes Israel didn't do that war crimes bombing.
July 29, 2023, 03:02:07 am Zainab_M: Yesterday was Ashura, Muharram 10, 1444 (July 27, 2023).  Read about this very tragic day and details of the world's greatest 7th century revolutionary: WHO WAS HUSSEIN.
June 28, 2023, 09:48:39 am Zainab_M: Walaikum As Salaam.  This was the first Hajj open to all after the pandemic. It was attended by 2.6 million Muslims.
View Shout History
Pages: [1]   Go Down
  Send this topic  |  Print  
Author Topic: "Firmaments" are not planets: Misinterpretation of V.65:12 by Answering-Islam  (Read 928 times)
0 Members and 7 Guests are viewing this topic.
Ruhi_Rose
TEAM MUSLIM VILLA The Avid Reader | Mom of 3 cute rascals
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 6287



WWW
Badges: (View All)
« on: March 21, 2015, 05:51:00 pm »

 BismEm


Amidst a ton of illogical and senseless misinterpretations, Islamophobe site 'Answering-Islam' has also misinterpreted Verse 65:12 of the Glorious Quran in their WikiIslam page.  I quote their misinterpretation as follows:

Quoting Answering-Islam at WikiIslam:

"Allah is He Who created seven Firmaments and of the earth a similar number. Through the midst of them (all) descends His Command: that ye may know that Allah has power over all things, and that Allah comprehends, all things in (His) Knowledge."  (65:12).

This verse claims there are seven planets. However, according to astronomers, there are eight ordinary planets and five dwarf planets, which leaves the grand total at thirteen in our solar system. Modern astronomy also has found hundreds of other planets in other solar systems and Cosmologists estimate that hundreds of billions of stars and planets exist in the universe. The author of the Qur'an singling out such a small number of celestial objects only reaffirms his ignorance of the makeup of the universe.


Unquoting them:

Let me first state my rejoinder in a nutshell comprising of a single sentence before a detailed analysis.  "Firmaments" mean heavens or sky, NOT planets.

Now taking a closer look at the offbeat approach of the hate filled anti-Islam radicals.

This criticism is not only grossly incorrect based on an utterly wrong translation but also totally meaningless on account of the critic's lack of knowledge of the Quran and the Arabic language.

I will begin by putting up the correct translation of Verse 65:12 (Surah At-Talaq).  I'm posting the English translations of Pickthall  and Haleem, and also the original Arabic and its direct English translation from Corpus Quran.

"Allah it is who hath created seven heavens, and of the earth the like thereof. The commandment cometh down among them slowly, that ye may know that Allah is Able to do all things, and that Allah surroundeth all things in knowledge."  (65:12).  Translation Pickthall.

"It is God who created seven heavens and a similar [number] of earths. His command descends throughout them. So you should realize that He has power over all things and that His knowledge encompasses everything."  (65:12)  Translation Abdel Haleem.


Verse 65:12 in Arabic:

"Al-lahu  alladhī  khalaqa  sabʿa  samāwātin  wamina 
l-arḍi  mith'lahunna  yatanazzalu  l-amru  baynahunna  litaʿlamū  anna  l-laha  alā  kulli  shayin  qadīrun  wa-anna  l-laha  qad aḥāṭa  bikulli  shayin ʿil'man."  (65:12) Surah At-Talaq.


Direct English translation of the original Arabic by Corpus Quran:

"Allah (is) He Who created seven heavens and of the earth (the) like of them.  Descends the command between them that you may know that Allah (is) on everything All-Powerful.  And that, Allah indeed, encompasses all things (in) knowledge."  (65:12) Surah At-Talaq.

NOTE:  "sabʿa  samāwātin" means "seven heavens" NOT seven planets as wrongly claimed by Answering-Islam.


In Verse 65:12 The Almighty mentions "sabʿa  samāwātin" which means seven heavens or the atmospheric layers (we have already posted our article on the existence of seven atmospheric layers), yet these critics confuse it with planets, then produce an incorrect translation and base their criticism on that wrong translation. Such can be the needless pandemonium caused by a combination of illiteracy and obduracy.

First off, "firmaments" used in the translation of the critics does NOT mean planets.  It means the seven heavens or the expanse of the sky.  Furthermore, the appropriate word to be used in an English translation for the Quranic term "sabʿa  samāwātin" is seven heavens and NOT "firmaments."

Also, the critics in their incorrect translation of Verse 65:12 have not stated the word 'planets' yet they take for granted that "firmaments" means planets.  The dictionary definition of "firmament" is heavens or sky.  Yet, committing such a blatant blunder proves the intentional bigotry of Answering-Islam combined with their poor knowledge of the English language as well. 

Concerning planets in Verse 65:12, if you read further you will find that the Quran only mentions that Allah has created more planets in addition to the earth - "and of the earth (the) like of them." But Allah has not stated the total number of planets.  The Quran does not anywhere mention the total number of planets.  Allah has created many planets but has left it for humans to gradually observe and discover as many as they can.  And isn't that is what's exactly happening gradually?

I repeat, the number of planets has not been stated in the Quran anywhere. 

For readers' information, in Surah 12:5 (5th Verse of Surah Yusuf) the Quran quotes the dream of Prophet Yusuf as seeing "11 stars," in original Arabic it's mentioned as "kawkaban" which means stars.  Some translators may have translated it as "11 planets" but that's again an incorrect translation.  'Kawkaban' in Arabic means stars, not planets.  Furthermore, in Verse 12:5  Allah Almighty merely quotes the dream of Prophet Yusuf.  Allah does not confirm that there are 11 planets.  This Verse must NOT be taken as a Quranic confirmation of 11 planets.

Coming back to Verse 65:12 of Surah At-Talaq, if you continue reading it, it says "The commandment cometh down among them slowly," (translated by Pickthall).  OR, "His command descends throughout them." (translated Haleem).  OR, "Descends the command between them" (translated Corpus Quran).  All these English translations of Verse 65:12 mention of the commandments of Allah gradually descending down from the different layers of the seven heavens.  The Quran always describes the Divine Commandments descending amidst the atmospheric layers, NOT through the planets.  The same phenomenon has also been described in Surah 97, Al-Qadr.   This aspect is another proof that the word "firmaments" has wrongly been presumed as planets.  The original I repeat again, Arabic expression "saba samawatin" means "seven heavens," NOT seven planets as the foolish and ignorant critics presumed.

Though irrelevant concerning this topic yet let me state that the critics' statement of 13 planets - 8 plus 5 dwarf - is by no means a standard information on planets in the vast field of astronomical studies.  The astronomical definition of what makes a planet has been constantly changing.  Just as the classification of atmospheric layers by various observers varies and doesn't have a high degree of consensus, similar is the case in determining the number of planets.  During our school days we were taught that there are 9 planets.  In 2005 someone discovered what they called Eris, an icy object thought to be about the same size as Pluto and the number of planets came to 10.  Okay.  Then in 2006 some astronomers claimed to have discovered Pluto's moon and an asteroid called Ceres and they brought the number of planets to 12.  But a while later Pluto was no longer considered a planet and was "demoted" to a "dwarf planet."  While some observers may refer to Ceres as a dwarf planet too, some simply look upon it as the largest object in the asteroid belt.  Similarly, some claim Eris is a dwarf planet; others are of the opinion that Eris doesn't fit into the category of a dwarf planet as it's 27% more massive than Pluto. 

Lately astronomers have also put up certain conditions for celestial bodies to be called 'planets' like it must orbit around the sun, needs enough gravity to pull itself into a sphere, it must clear out its own orbit of other objects and so on.  The astronomical wrangling goes on.  I don't see how these stories can ever be brought in conflict with the Quran.  The Quran has left it upon human perception to find out (if they can) how many bodies in the solar system and beyond they can discover and categorize as planets.  Hence, the observation is open and it's only on the Day of Judgement that The Almighty will confirm which observation was right.

It is more than shameful on the part of phoney and sub-standard critics with scant education to attack the Noble Quran with the wily strategy of gross mistranslations and then building up a senseless critical discourse on those incorrect translations only for the sake of quarreling.
Report Spam   Logged

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Zainab_M
TEAM MV Founder
Admin
Hero Member
*
Posts: 6318



WWW
Badges: (View All)
« Reply #1 on: March 21, 2015, 06:31:09 pm »

All praise be to Allah The Almighty, that was very methodically and logically illustrated within a profoundly articulate piece.


BismEm

I don't see how these stories can ever be brought in conflict with the Quran.  The Quran has left it upon human perception to find out (if they can) how many bodies in the solar system and beyond they can discover and categorize as planets.  Hence, the observation is open and it's only on the Day of Judgement that The Almighty will confirm which observation was right.


MashAllah, I concur 200% Sister Ruhi.  Actually, as we have reminded our readers again and again, brief Quranic references of astronomy and other scientific aspects are basic hints to prompt humans to search more information on those aspects, and simultaneously these basic hints with solid evidences of truth also serve as excellent reminders.  Not only concerning planets, but in regard of every aspect around us, beyond and far beyond us, the Noble Quran reveals the quintessential, intrinsic information or allusion.  It's up to us how far we can go in our lifetime by utilizing those fundamental Quranic materials as useful trails or clues for further investigation.  Unfortunately the characteristic of conceit within the balky human mind is far more common than the characteristics of cooperation and humility and thus they are widely using the Quranic help to vent their fury sprouting from the ideology of disbelief and the horrendous human spirit to challenge the Divine Power.

Many thanks dear Sister Ruhi for taking the time from your hectic family schedule to pen this brilliant retort.
 
Report Spam   Logged

Ruhi_Rose
TEAM MUSLIM VILLA The Avid Reader | Mom of 3 cute rascals
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 6287



WWW
Badges: (View All)
« Reply #2 on: March 21, 2015, 06:43:04 pm »

You're more than welcomed my dear Sister Zeynab.  I must thank my three colleagues just as much for sending me some extremely functional and practical points for clarifying the truth. 

I couldn't agree more with your elucidation and additional input on my last paragraph.  Thanks again dear sis  Smiley
Report Spam   Logged

Heba E. Husseyn
TEAM MUSLIM VILLA Villa Artisan
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 4974



WWW
Badges: (View All)
« Reply #3 on: March 21, 2015, 07:09:05 pm »

Excellent job and a real productive piece dear Sista Ruhi  Smiley   Those buggers need to read it; but as you also correctly pointed out, the combination of hawkish ignorance plus pigheadedness is so unpleasantly primitive that confronting such creatures with the Truth only increases their desire to transgress and catch the Hell bound train more eagerly than before.

Moreover, let the quaint creatures Answering-Islam know that the term "firmaments" is commonly used in the altered Old and New Testaments.  It is NOT a part of the Quranic vocabulary. To be more specific, this term  particularly comes from the Genesis.  Let the readers Google the term "firmament" and they'll find out for themselves.  Wiki and Answering-Islam critics being blind readers of the altered man-written bibles filled with rubbish keep dragging the human vocabulary from these man-written books into Quranic topics.  These creatures need to know that there is a the difference of Heaven and Hell between the Noble Quran  and the altered bibles, respectively.  While discussing the Quran, discuss on the basis of the terms and expressions stated in the Quran.  Do NOT use the expressions of the altered bibles as Quranic translations and criticize the Quran based on those expressions.  In addition to ignorance and illiteracy, that would also amount to cheating in which of course Answering-Islam is very proficient.


BismEm
It is more than shameful on the part of phoney and sub-standard critics with scant education to attack the Noble Quran with the wily strategy of gross mistranslations and then building up a senseless critical discourse on those incorrect translations only for the sake of quarreling.

Spot on. That's precisely their approach.  They're not looking to prove their point because they don't even have a clear enough idea of what they are themselves trying to peddle.  Their sole motive is to spark a shitstorm as br. TS often puts it. 
Report Spam   Logged

Ruhi_Rose
TEAM MUSLIM VILLA The Avid Reader | Mom of 3 cute rascals
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 6287



WWW
Badges: (View All)
« Reply #4 on: March 21, 2015, 07:47:41 pm »

You're warmly welcomed dear Sis Heba.  Always a pleasure to read your precise observations.  The more you unveil the truth, more it increases the hostilities of the disbelievers as the Quran confirms in Verse 41 of Surah 17 (Al-Isra or Bani Israel): "We have explained things in various ways in this Quran, so that such people might take notice, but it has only turned them further away." (17:41) Translation Abdel Haleem. 

Moreover, let the quaint creatures Answering-Islam know that the term "firmaments" is commonly used in the altered Old and New Testaments.  It is NOT a part of the Quranic vocabulary. To be more specific, this term  particularly comes from the Genesis.  Let the readers Google the term "firmament" and they'll find out for themselves.  Wiki and Answering-Islam critics being blind readers of the altered man-written bibles filled with rubbish keep dragging the human vocabulary from these man-written books into Quranic topics.  These creatures need to know that there is a the difference of Heaven and Hell between the Noble Quran  and the altered bibles, respectively.  While discussing the Quran, discuss on the basis of the terms and expressions stated in the Quran.  Do NOT use the expressions of the altered bibles as Quranic translations and criticize the Quran based on those expressions.  In addition to ignorance and illiteracy, that would also amount to cheating in which of course Answering-Islam is very proficient.
 

This is exactly what my husband and his brother were saying when I was in the process of writing this piece.  It's a wily and surreptitious strategy of Answering-Islam.  Thanks for exposing it Sister Heba. 



They're not looking to prove their point because they don't even have a clear enough idea of what they are themselves trying to peddle.  Their sole motive is to spark a shitstorm as br. TS often puts it.
 

 Cheesy Grin Cheesy   Couldn't agree more.  There are sandstorms, rainstorms, hailstorms.  But the one stirred by the ignorant dark clouds of Wiki Answering-Islam is a shirstorm  Cheesy   O man!  these guys need to chill out and get down to earth by wrestling with their tiny brains to re-focus them on the path of civilization.
Report Spam   Logged


Pages: [1]   Go Up
  Send this topic  |  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by EzPortal
Scammers & spammers will be reported | © If you borrow MV contents you must mention our link with hypertext | MV Team is not responsible for comments by members or guests.
Bookmark this site! | Upgrade This Forum
SMF For Free - Create your own Forum


Powered by SMF | SMF © 2016, Simple Machines
Privacy Policy