Quran Tells A Heliocentric Cosmos With Sun In Motion
Geocentric Vs Heliocentric
In past scientists believed that the Earth stood still in
the center of the universe and Sun, stars and everything else revolved around
it. Then Copernicus told the Heliocentric Theory which says that the Sun is
motionless at the center of the solar system with the planets revolving around
it. Then we came to know that planets not only revolve around the Sun but also
rotate around their own axis. Now we know that our Earth rotates around its
axis at 1600km/hr, which causes day and night on Earth. Then it revolves around
the Sun at 107,000km/hr which is responsible for our 12 months year and
different seasons on Earth.
Rotation Of Sun & Galactic Year
The Sun is also not stationary but is in motion with a speed
of 800,000 km/hr in the direction of the bright star Vega in the constellation
of Lyra along with all the solar system including planet earth and our moon. It
takes our Sun approximately 225 million years to make the trip around our
Galaxy. This is sometimes called the galactic year. Since the Sun formed, about
20 Galactic years have passed; we have been around the Galaxy 20 times. The Sun
also rotates around its own axis with a speed of 7000 km/hr and takes 24 days
to complete this rotation. This knowledge is very recent, and only 100 years
back scientists believed that the Earth revolved around a stationary sun.
Quran Miracle As It Says Sun Is Not Stationary
But Quran almost around 1400 years ago told us that the Sun
is also not stationary and also tells about the movement of planets, Earth and
all celestial bodies in space and also around their own axis.
“And it is He who created the night and the day and the Sun and the moon; all in an orbit are swimming.” (Quran 21:33)
“And the sun runs its course for a term and place appointed for it. That is the decree of the All-Mighty, the All-Knowing.”(Quran 36:38)
For many years critics mocked at these verses, claiming that
it explained the doctrine of Geocentricity i.e the Sun revolves around the
Earth. Scientists at that time thought the Sun was stationary. However, it has
been discovered in recent years that the Sun is, in fact, moving through space
as I mentioned above and it is traveling through the heavens and has a فَلَكٍ “Orbit” just as the Quran says. Its orbit is
so large that it would take approximately 225 million years to complete one
orbit.
Miracle in The Use Of Word “تَجْرِي لِمُسْتَقَرٍّ”
Also in Surah Yasin verse 38 Quran tells exclusively about
the motion of sun in the universe and used the word “تَجْرِي لِمُسْتَقَرٍّ” for
this which has in it a sense of both “Running for its fixed term” and “Running
towards its appointed place” that’s why I translated it as “sun runs its course
for a term and place appointed for it” which gives us a sense that all these celestial
bodies also have a life span and not eternal and they will end their life at
some appointed time and place in the universe. Despite what we observe from our
everyday experience and the feeling that the sun and planets they just move
around same orbits, the fact of matter is that at the same time we are also
traveling in space and every other morning the sun never rise from the place it
rose a day before but at billions of kilometers distance from that as I clearly
mentioned in detail in my article “How fast we are traveling when sitting
still”. Just during this conversation of 2 minutes we have traveled almost
120,000 km and left that area where we were just 2 minutes ago.
