Question:
Kindly help me to understand it better. In verses 7;54,10;3,11;7,25;59,32;4,50;38,57;4. God states that he created Heavens & Earth in six days. For the above verses today Islamic scholars try to give some scientific explanations by saying that the word "yawm" in the above verses not only refers to the 'day' but also for a long period of time "era"(without any proof) in order to justify the Quranic verse with modern science. But ironically I found, Quran itself explains the meaning of god's 1 day in the following verse as, god's 1 day is equal to humans 1000 yrs of reckoning. In verse 22;47......And indeed, a day with your Lord is like a thousand years of those which you count. Now if we interpret verse 7;54 according to the verse 22;47,the whole heavens & earth are created in just(6 God days x 1000 human yrs) 6000 human yrs by God. As u know today modern science tells us that universe is 10 billion yrs old & earth is 4.5 billion yrs old. Moreover it took millions of years to form the heavens & earth gradually after big bang which it seems to me cosmology, contradicting with the above Quoted Quranic verses. How can I reconcile the above Holy Quran verses with modern cosmology?
Answer:
First the fact that Yaum (day) in the language of the Qur'an does not always mean 24 hours is not without proof. The language of the Qur'an is the language of Quraysh at the time and the poems of Quraysh are the best sources of understanding this language. You can see the usage of Yaum in the meaning of 'phase' in the poems of Arab and also in the books of Lughat of Arab. For some examples please see this article by Mr. Moiz Amjad: http://www.understanding-islam.com/related/text.aspx?type=article&aid=4&sscatid=89
Second, the verse 22:47 should not be interpreted literally. God is not restricted by any dimension, including the dimension of time. We need to understand the verse within the context:
"And they ask you to hasten on the punishment, and Allah will by no means fail in His promise And surely a day with our Lord is as a thousand years of what you number" (22:47)
What the verse actually means is that unlike human beings, God has no rush as He is not subjected to time the way we are. A little deliberation shows that the use of the number "thousand" is not to imply that God's days are exactly 1000 human days. Rather, the word simply emphasizes the fact that God is not restricted to the scope and dimensions that we are restricted in.
You might be interested to know that in another place in the Qur'an, a Yaum is defined to be to the length of 50000 days of human beings (70:4). While in another place (32:5) again the length of day is described to be 1000 years. Further to the point that was explained above, from these two verses we can easily understand that the length of a 'heavenly day' varies depending on the task.
Abdullah Rahim
22nd of February 2010
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