VOICE OF GLOBAL UMMAH
Volume 151, October 3, 2010
St. Louis, Missouri, USA
Editors: Mohamed & Rashida Ziauddin
In the Name of Allah, the Most Beneficent and the Most Merciful
St. Louis, Missouri, USA
Editors: Mohamed & Rashida Ziauddin
In the Name of Allah, the Most Beneficent and the Most Merciful
Editorial:
Islam is a great religion and its teachings are like a strong foundation and structure of building. There is lot of emphasis both in Holy Quran and Hadith about seeking knowledge and the importance of applying such changing knowledge in our daily lives cannot be underestimated.
An area of improvement for the global ummah especially its leaders is not only being able to clearly distinguish between what is right and wrong but also to be able to modify current events and developments and give it an Islamic flavor. For example in the issue of Television, certain Muslims feel that it is a "one eyed Shaitan" and do not have it in their house. Certain other Muslims have it but have a special equipment to filter out the inappropriate content and/or view only selected programs. On the other extreme, there are many Muslims that have absolutely no problems whatsoever having the TV in their home and consider it normal to watch it on a frequent basis including while having their meals, when guests are at home and do not switch it off even when one of their own family members is performing salaat at home.
Is below article on ISLAM'S ANSWER TO MTV a step in the right direction for the Global Ummah or not ?
(Ahmed Abu Haiba, founder of 4Shbab, the Islamic youth TV network, at home with his wife, Carmen.)
By Negar Azimi
August 12, 2010
The Egyptian entrepreneur Ahmed Abu Haiba isn’t having a good day. A Saudi columnist has accused him of corrupting the country’s youth. A music video he has been working on for months is behind schedule. He hasn’t had time to prepare for his weekly talk show, an Islamo-Egyptian version of “Dr. Phil.” Worse, one of the program’s financiers has become upset because there was to be a woman on the show — unchaste behavior, to some. We’re driving along Sheik Zayed Road in the desert outside Cairo on a bright day as the radio plays Sami Yusuf, a saccharine-sweet Muslim pop star based in London. Abu Haiba theatrically throws his arms in the air to perform his frustration. At the age of 42 he is tubby and, as a sign of his deep faith, has a large zabiba — a dark smudge on his forehead born of rubbing his head repeatedly on a prayer mat. And yet he is not a conventional man and certainly not a conventional Muslim. Today he looks more like a hip-hop mogul, with a black knit golf cap on backward and a suit of all black. And a pink tie.
As the brains behind 4Shbab, the world’s first Islamic version of MTV, Abu Haiba is the consummate man in the middle — situated between the dictates of Islam and those of the pop-music business. Introduced in the spring of last year, 4Shbab, which means “for youth” in Arabic, broadcasts music videos, variety shows (including Abu Haiba’s own), news and even a reality program called “Your Voice Is Heard” — which might as well be called “Who Wants to be an Islamic Pop Star?”
Imagine MTV without the gratuitous gyration and skin, and with videos about family, public service, Palestine and, above all, salvation. In trying to make Islam relevant to youth, 4Shbab is part of a recent trend that, from Cairo to Kuala Lumpur, has inspired restaurants with Islamic themes, Islamic entertainment centers and even Islamic water parks and beaches. 4Shbab’s mission seems to be communicating that there is a middle ground between the rigid Islam of stern-faced elders and jihadists on one hand and the louche ways of the West on the other. On 4Shbab, you can be traditional and modern at once, Islamic and hip, pious and fun. The channel’s music videos speak to real life, from the difficulties of finding work to the pain of depression to the burn of spurned love. And in all of 4Shbab’s promotional spots a tremendous smokey voice booms: “Lissssssten . . . to the tune of Islam.”
4SHBAB’S HEADQUARTERS occupy a floor of one among many anonymous high-rises in Cairo’s Mohandiseen district. The core team also gathered there at prayer times.
“The media is changing everything,” Abu Haiba told me. “Television, the Internet, Facebook. We have to think faster, move faster. Time flies! 4Shbab is part of that change. It’s more than music. We have 25,000 members in the 4Shbab Forum. We get 3,000 S.M.S. a day from viewers. I have fans in Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, Iraq — you name it. We think of it as a new kind of preaching for the ‘rebound generation.’ ”
Abu Haiba maintains this audience includes some 60 percent of Arab youth.
(Photograph From 4shbab)
Nightclubs and tales of love are far from the images normally associated with Islamic television. Channels like Iqraa, Al-Resala or Majd TV — most of them financed by Saudi conservatives — tend to feature Koranic reading, wagging fingers, overlong beards and men speaking in contemptuous tones about sin, redemption and the dangers of the West.
“People say you can’t mix God and music,” Tamer said. “But we’re trying to show you can.”
ABU HAIBA’S PATH to becoming a pioneer of the pious-pleasure industry has been roundabout, at best. At 15, he says, he experienced a sudden urge for spiritual direction and threw out all his records. Mohamed Abdel Waheb, Abdel Halim Hafez, Oum Kalthoum, Fairuz — the Elvis Presleys and Diana Rosses of Arabic song — all of it had to go. Especially difficult was parting with the albums of Fairuz, the delicate flaxen-haired queen of Lebanese music. “I was in love with Fairuz,” he remembered. “She was my hero.”
Still, firm in his conviction that most music was haram, or forbidden in Islam, he began listening to nasheed, a cappella music with little or no instrumental accompaniment (instruments often being considered haram). Soon Abu Haiba was spending every afternoon in his neighborhood mosque in Cairo. He went on a retreat with Tablighi Jamaat, a grass-roots Islamic revivalist movement. He stopped communicating with girls outside his family. His evenings were spent memorizing the Sura el Baqara with his mother and grandfather, a longish chunk of the Koran that, in great part, involves urging the pagans and Jews of Medina to embrace Islam. He attended demonstrations for Palestine. He distanced himself from many of his school friends, believing they would have a negative effect on his character.
When, in the late 1980s, Abu Haiba entered Cairo University’s engineering school, the Egyptian government was at war with homegrown Islamists in Islamic Jihad and Jemaah Islamiyah and elements of the more moderate Muslim Brotherhood. He became involved with the student union, wrote and acted in Islamic-themed plays and associated with people who would later join the brotherhood. His new heroes were the leaders of the Afghan mujahideen — long-bearded men with names like Rabbani, Sayyad, al Afghani.
At the same time, Abu Haiba began working with foreign media companies in places as far away as Rwanda. He found himself explaining Islam to people who knew little about the faith. “I even met many Jews,” he told me. “I came back from these trips feeling like Islam needed to adapt itself to contemporary life if it was to be understood.” It was around that time that he renewed his acquaintance with a childhood friend, Amr Khaled. Khaled was giving talks in mosques and social clubs in Cairo and Alexandria and had built a following with his use of everyday Arabic and his willingness to talk about love and friendship.
In a modern world in which it is increasingly difficult to live by Islamic traditions, Khaled played the role of the “ordinary” Muslim. Abu Haiba seized upon Khaled’s everyman star power and suggested they film a pilot for a talk show called “Words From the Heart.” It would be written and produced by Abu Haiba and hosted by Khaled.
They produced four episodes. When nobody picked it up, they distributed them on the street as video cassettes. “It was like an earthquake,” Abu Haiba recalled. “All of a sudden, someone was not speaking about Islamic law. But speaking about love!” The program swiftly sold, and Amr Khaled went on to become a television icon.
When I met Amr Khaled last fall, in the lobby of a luxurious London hotel, I asked him to think about Abu Haiba’s contribution to Islamic entertainment.
Khaled is an epic self-promoter, and within the span of an hour he told me four times that his Web site, amrkhaled.net, was one of the 1,000 most-visited sites on the Web, expressed wonder at the number of fans he had on Facebook and informed me that he had persuaded three million girls in the Arab world to give up drug use. At last, he thought back to the first time he met Abu Haiba on a soccer field as a teenager, and how so much had happened since.
“Ahmed realized before anyone else that you must go to the people,” he said. “Television must be a place for people to speak about their everyday lives. Now he is doing this with music.”
I asked him what he thought about the Melody Tunes music channel, with its scantily clad Arab women. “They are very, very, very dangerous,” he said, his eyebrows rising up and down. “Today we have sexual harassment in the streets; there are hundreds of women harassed. This is not a coincidence.
“If 4Shbab can show that there is no clash between faith and being modern,” he went on, “it will be bigger than anything on television.”
THE CULTURAL STRUGGLE over television and religion grew heated in the 1990s, when the satellite dish arrived in the Middle East. Suddenly, coffee shops were filled with hookah-smoking men watching not only Al Jazeera but also MTV and reality shows. Soon enough, most every family — no matter how rich or poor — had a dish at home. Today the uninterrupted stream of dishes is one of the most distinctive markers of the Cairo skyline.
The state lost its absolute control of television. MTV came in — and so did rigidly conservative stations like Iqraa. Abu Haiba saw a market opportunity in splitting the differences. Though he is building an audience, he also seems to be everyone’s enemy. 4Shbab is broadcast not from Egypt but Bahrain, because the Egyptian authorities have consistently denied him a license. Abu Haiba insists it is because Egyptian state security has a file on him. “They think of me as one of the brothers,” he explains, referring to the Muslim Brotherhood, which is semi banned and represents the greatest opposition to the Egyptian state. He insists that he has no formal connection to the brothers.
Abu Haiba is also criticized by Egyptians (and foreigners) for having few women on his channel. All the videos I saw over the course of two weeks featured men and boys only. Showing women on TV, Abu Haiba told me, is a red line he must negotiate with his backers.
Yet he tries. I visited him one evening on the set of the weekly television show he hosts. We entered a closet-size makeup room where three young makeup men descended upon him, massaging his almost-bald head with mousse, taming his eyebrows with a brow brush, powdering his ample cheeks with rouge. That night he would be interviewing a young woman who started an organization called El Bidaya, or “the Beginning.” “We love women!” he boomed.
The program’s theme was “How to Change Yourself.” Abu Haiba’s young female guest came out sporting a fastidiously fastened veil and a long white dress. She spoke broadly about Islam’s power to unleash change.
The Impresario of Islam. A viewer, Dina, rang in to say: “I have three children, and by the age of 21, I felt suffocated. So I started reading the Koran.”
Abu Haiba: “Did you memorize it by heart?”
Dina: “God willing, almost.”
Abu Haiba: “Mashalla. How long did it take?”
Dina: “Two and a half years.”
Abu Haiba: “Mashalla, it seems you were persistent.”
Dina: “Persistence is a gift from Allah. Before memorizing the Koran it used to take me two or three hours to cook a meal. Now it takes me half an hour.”
THERE IS A remarkable diversity of opinions when it comes to whether singing, dancing and music are permissible in Islam. One common argument sees popular music as cultural imperialism — an essentially Western form that only erodes traditions. Academics like Lila Abu Lughod at Columbia University have argued that this is a cultural anxiety from the 1960s that has little to do with Islam. Another argument, that music simply leads to chaos and social breakdown, has roots in the Koran, where music is occasionally understood as lahwal hadith, or “idle talk.”
Under whatever guise, and in spite of long and storied musical traditions, there is a significant history of restrictions on music across the Islamic world. In the 1950s, according to the scholar Jonas Otterbeck, the Committee for the Advancement of Virtue and Elimination of Vice in Saudi Arabia banned music and singing, linking them to immorality and Sufism.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban famously banned music and went as far as to kill musicians. In Lebanon, Nirvana was banned in the late 1990s after being linked to Satan worship. Between 2000 and 2005, 80 percent of the issues raised by Muslim Brotherhood parliamentarians concerned the need to take an Islamic stand on culture and media.
And then, in November of this past year, the American pop singer Beyoncé was scheduled to play a concert at an elite resort on the Red Sea. The promotional ads for the concert — featuring Beyoncé in all manner of suggestive costumes, including a half-unitard covered in flames — inspired one Muslim Brotherhood parliamentarian named Hamdi Hassan to declare her concert an “insolent sex party” in a letter written to the Egyptian Parliament. The Beyoncé affair, in turn, prompted a great drama in the press, pitting Beyoncé’s defenders against outraged detractors. The concert went on anyway, but not before inspiring an “Against Beyoncé” Facebook campaign. The group attracted about 10,000 members.
A number of theologians have spoken out against such cultural restrictiveness, arguing that it is contrary to the spirit of the Islamic faith. A Lebanese scholar named Sheik Ibrahim Ramadan al-Mardini, for example, has made repeated calls for tolerance of musical traditions. Others, like the Qatar-based Egyptian sheik Youssef al-Qaradawi, offer that music per se is not haram; it is the content of the music that must be held to a test. Amr Khaled, for his part, calls for al fan al hadif, or “arts with a goal.” All of these religious experts stress niyya, or “the intention,” of the listener and musician.
So why work in entertainment, I wondered, and not law or scholarship or politics for that matter?
“You reach more people through entertainment,” he said. “I started 4Shbab because we need to redefine Islam. People think of Islam as a series of restrictions and limitations. Don’t speak to girls! Don’t listen to music!
“The voices speaking for Islam today are extremists,” he went on, with his own sort of evangelical zeal. “We see an angry man throwing a stone at an embassy more often than an Amr Khaled.”
Can 4Shbab combat extremism?
“4Shbab is changing the way young people look at Islam. I know we can change people at the far end, the Salafists or jihadists. Some of the people who listen to us now used to not listen to music at all!”
It makes sense that this could be 4Shbab’s moment. These days, every established pop star in the Islamic world, no matter how suspect his or her religious credentials might seem, tends to produce one song in praise of Allah each year — usually around the holy month of Ramadan.
Whether this is modernity adjusting to Islam, or the opposite, is impossible to judge. What’s clear is that the space for accommodation is growing. As we moved on to a fizzy pineapple drink and dessert, Abu Haiba spoke of drafting a rebuttal to an anti-4Shbab campaign on a conservative Islamic Web site. He would fight back, he said, work harder, maybe even extend his work into the world of television dramas with a next project: an HBO-style channel. “Imagine ‘Big Love’ or ‘The Wire’ with Islamic themes,” he said. You could see the optimism and excitement in his eyes. “I think in a short time we will be at the top of the charts. You see, Islam is like a big bus. You can be standing at the door, or you can be at the steering wheel. My plan is to be at the steering wheel.”
(ED NOTE:
Special thanks to Sister/Dr. Shahina Banu MD from Bangalore, India for forwarding below enlightening e-mail)
One of the most important reasons for the great equilibrium in the universe is the fact that celestial bodies follow specific paths. Stars , planets and satellites all rotate around their own axes and also rotate together with the system of which they are a part. The universe functions within a finely-tuned order , just like the wheels in a factory.
There are more than 100 billion galaxies in the visible universe and each small galaxy contains approximately a billion stars. Furthermore, each big galaxy contains more than a trillion. Many of these stars have planets and many of those planets have satellites. All these celestial bodies follow the most finely calculated paths and orbits. For millions of years , each one has been moving in its own path in flawless harmony with all the others. In addition to these, there are also a great many comets moving along in their own pre-determined paths.
In addition , the paths in the universe are not restricted to a few celestial bodies. The Solar System and even other galaxies also exhibit considerable motion around other centres. Every year, Earth, and the Solar System with it , move some 500 million km from where they were the previous year. It has been calculated that even the slightest deviation from celestial bodies' paths could have drastic consequences which might spell the end of the entire system. For example, the consequences of the earth's deviating from its course by a mere 3 mm have been described in one source as follows:
While rotating around the sun , the earth follows such an orbit that, every 18 miles, it only deviates 2.8 millimetres from a direct course. The orbit followed by the earth never changes, because even a deviation of 3 millimetres would cause catastrophic disasters: If the deviation were 2.5 mm instead of 2.8 mm , then the orbit would be very large , and all of us would freeze. If the deviation were 3.1 mm , we would be scorched to death.
Another characteristic of heavenly bodies is that they also rotate around their own axes. The verse which reads
86:11 وَالسَّمَاءِ ذَاتِ الرَّجْعِ
86:11 آسمان اور بارش والے کی قسم ہے
"[I swear] by Heaven with its cyclical systems , " (Qur'an , 86:11)
51:7 وَالسَّمَاءِ ذَاتِ الْحُبُكِ
آسمان جالی دار کی قسم ہے51:7
"its oscillating orbits , " (Qur'an , 51:7)
as described in the verse. The Qur'an however , revealed at that time, provided clear information concerning that fact. This is proof that this book is indeed Allah's Word.
(Like many other comets in the universe , Halley's comet , seen above , also moves in a planned orbit. It has a specific orbit and it moves in this orbit in a perfect harmony with other celestial bodies. All celestial bodies—including planets, satellites of these planets, stars and even galaxies—have their own orbits that have been determined with very delicate computations. The One Who established this perfect order and maintains it is Allah , Who created the entire universe.)
It is stressed in the Qur'an that the Sun and Moon follow specific trajectories:
21:33 وَهُوَ الَّذِي خَلَقَ اللَّيْلَ وَالنَّهَارَ وَالشَّمْسَ وَالْقَمَرَ ۖ كُلٌّ فِي فَلَكٍ يَسْبَحُونَ
اور وہی ہے جس نے رات اور دن اور سورج اور چاند بنائے سب اپنے اپنے چکر میں پھرتے ہیں21:33
It is He Who created night and day and the sun and moon , each one swimming in a sphere. (Qur'an , 21:33)
The word "swim" in the above verse is expressed in Arabic by the word "sabaha" and is used to describe the movement of the Sun in space. The word means that the Sun does not move randomly through space but that it rotates around its axis and follows a course as it does so. The fact that the Sun is not fixed in position but rather follows a specific trajectory is also stated in another verse:
36:38 وَالشَّمْسُ تَجْرِي لِمُسْتَقَرٍّ لَّهَا ۚ ذَٰلِكَ تَقْدِيرُ الْعَزِيزِ الْعَلِيمِ
اور سورج اپنے ٹھکانے کی طرف چلتا رہتا ہے یہ زبردست خبردار کا اندازہ کیا ہوا ہے36:38
And the sun runs to its resting place. That is the decree of the Almighty, the All-Knowing. (Qur'an , 36:38)
These facts set out in the Qur'an were only discovered by means of astronomical advances in our own time. According to astronomers' calculations , the Sun moves along a path known as the Solar Apex in the path of the star Vega at an incredible speed of 720,000 kmph. In rough terms , this shows that the Sun traverses some 17.28 million km a day. As well as the Sun itself, all the planets and satellites within its gravitational field also travel the same distance.
36:39 وَالْقَمَرَ قَدَّرْنَاهُ مَنَازِلَ حَتَّىٰ عَادَ كَالْعُرْجُونِ الْقَدِيمِ
36:40 لَا الشَّمْسُ يَنبَغِي لَهَا أَن تُدْرِكَ الْقَمَرَ وَلَا اللَّيْلُ سَابِقُ النَّهَارِ ۚ وَكُلٌّ فِي فَلَكٍ يَسْبَحُونَ
اور ہم نے چاند کی منزلیں مقرر کر دی ہیں یہاں تک کہ پرانی ٹہنی کی طرح ہوجاتا ہے
نہ سورج کی مجال ہے ہ چاند کو جا پکڑے اور نہ رات ہی دن سے پہلے آ سکتی ہے اور ہر ایک ایک آسمان میں تیرتا پھرتا ہے
And We have decreed set phases for the moon , until it ends up looking like an old date branch. It is not for the sun to overtake the moon nor for the night to outstrip the day; each one is swimming in a sphere. (Qur'an , 36:39-40)
The Moon does not follow a regular orbit like the satellites of other planets. As it orbits the Earth, it sometimes moves behind it and sometimes in front. As it also moves with the Earth around the Sun , it actually follows a constant pattern resembling the letter "S" in space. This route, traced by the Moon in space, is described in the Qur'an as resembling an old date branch and does indeed resemble the twisted form of the date tree branch. Indeed , the word "urjoon" employed in the Qur'an refers to a thin and twisted date branch and is used to describe that part left after the fruit has been picked. The way that this branch is described as "old" is also most appropriate since old date branches are thinner and more twisted.
(Since the Moon revolves around the Sun together with the Earth, it follows a path through space which resembles the letter “S.” The appearance of this orbit resembles the twisted shape of a dry date branch , as is revealed in the Qur’an).
There is no doubt that it was impossible for anyone to have any knowledge about the orbit of the Moon 1,400 years ago. The way that this pattern, identified by modern technology and accumulated knowledge , was revealed in the Holy Book is yet another scientific miracle of the Qur'an.
هُوَ الَّذِي جَعَلَ الشَّمْسَ ضِيَاءً وَالْقَمَرَ نُورًا وَقَدَّرَهُ مَنَازِلَ لِتَعْلَمُوا عَدَدَ السِّنِينَ وَالْحِسَابَ ۚ مَا خَلَقَ اللَّهُ ذَٰلِكَ إِلَّا بِالْحَقِّ ۚ يُفَصِّلُ الْآيَاتِ لِقَوْمٍ يَعْلَمُونَ
10:5
وہی ہے جس نے سورج کو روشن بنایا اور چاند کو منور فرمایا اور چاند کی منزلیں مقرر کیں تاکہ تم برسوں کا شمار اور حساب معلوم کر سکو یہ سب کچھ الله نے تدبیر سے پیدا کیا ہے وہ اپنی آیتیں سمجھداروں کے لیے کھول کھول کر بیان فرماتا ہے
It is He Who appointed the sun to give radiance, and the moon to give light, assigning it phases so you would know the number of years and the reckoning of time. Allah did not create these things except with truth. We make the Signs clear for people who know. (Qur'an , 10:5)
36:39 وَالْقَمَرَ قَدَّرْنَاهُ مَنَازِلَ حَتَّىٰ عَادَ كَالْعُرْجُونِ الْقَدِيمِ
اور ہم نے چاند کی منزلیں مقرر کر دی ہیں یہاں تک کہ پرانی ٹہنی کی طرح ہوجاتا ہے
And We have decreed set phases for the moon , until it ends up looking like an old date branch. (Qur'an , 36:39)
In the first of the above verses , Allah has clearly revealed that the Moon will be a means of measurement for people to calculate the year. Furthermore, our attention is also drawn to the fact that these calculations will be performed according to the positions of the Moon as it revolves in its orbit. Since the angles between the Earth and Moon and the Moon and Sun constantly change, we see the Moon in different forms at different times. Furthermore , our ability to see the Moon is made possible by the fact that it is illuminated by the Sun. The amount of the lighted half of the Moon we see from Earth changes. Bearing in mind these changes, a number of calculations can be made , making it possible for human beings to measure the year.
In former times a month was calculated as the time between two full moons , or the time it took the Moon to travel around the Earth. According to this, one month was equal to 29 days, 12 hours and 44 minutes. This is known as the "lunar month." Twelve lunar months represent one year, according to the Hijri calendar. However , there is a difference of eleven days between the Hijri calendar and the Gregorian calendar , in which a year is the time it takes the Earth to orbit the Sun. Indeed , attention is drawn to this difference in another verse:
18:25 وَلَبِثُوا فِي كَهْفِهِمْ ثَلَاثَ مِائَةٍ سِنِينَ وَازْدَادُوا تِسْعًا
اور وہ اپنے غار میں تین سو سے زائد نو برس رہے ہیں
They stayed in their Cave for three hundred years and added nine. (Qur'an , 18:25)
We can clarify the time referred to in the verse thus: 300 years x 11 days (the difference which forms every year) = 3,300 days. Bearing in mind that one solar year lasts 365 days , 5 hours , 48 minutes and 45.5 seconds , 3 , 300 days/365.24 days = 9 years. To put it another way, 300 years according to the Gregorian calendar is equal to 300+9 years according to the Hijri calendar. As we can see , the verse refers to this finely calculated difference of 9 years. (Allah knows best.) There is no doubt that the Qur'an , which contains such pieces of information , which transcended the everyday knowledge of the time, is a miraculous revelation.
THE FORCE OF GRAVITY AND ORBITAL MOVEMENTS
15 فَلَا أُقْسِمُ بِالْخُنَّسِ
پس میں قسم کھاتا ہوں پیچھے ہٹنے والے
16 الْجَوَارِ الْكُنَّسِ
سیدھے چلنے والے غیب ہو جانے والے ستارو ں کی
No! I swear by the planets-that recede, that ride their course [and] hide themselves. (Qur'an , 81: 15-16)
The word "khunnas" in Surat at-Takwir 15 bears such meanings as shrinking and cowering , retracting and turning back. The Arabic expression translated as "hide themselves" in the 16th verse is "kunnas." The word "kunnas" is the plural form of "kanis" and refers to a specific path: entering a nest, the home of a body in motion or things entering their homes and hiding there. Again in verse 16, the word "aljawari , "the plural form of the word "jariya" which means one that moves and flows, is translated as "that ride their course." Bearing in mind the meaning of these words , it is very possible that these verses refer to the gravitational forces of the planets and their movements around their orbits.
These words in the above verses fully describe orbital movements stemming from the force of gravity. Of these, the word "khunnas" refers to the planets' attraction towards their own centres and also their attraction towards the Sun , which is the centre of our Solar System. (Allah knows best.)
The force of gravity already existed in the universe-although it was only possible to reveal this attractive force with mathematical formulae with Sir Isaac Newton.
The word "aljawari" in the following verse emphasises the orbital movements that arise as a result of the centrifugal force that opposes this attractive one. There is no doubt that the use of the word "aljawari" together with "khunnas" (attraction towards the centre, shrinkage) and "kunnas" (path, entering the nest , the home of a body in motion) indicates an important scientific truth that nobody could have known about 1,400 years ago. (Allah knows best.) Moreover , these verses , one of the subjects sworn on in the Qur'an , are another indication of the importance of the subject.
خَلَقَ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضَ بِالْحَقِّ ۖ يُكَوِّرُ اللَّيْلَ عَلَى النَّهَارِ وَيُكَوِّرُ النَّهَارَ عَلَى اللَّيْلِ ۖ وَسَخَّرَ الشَّمْسَ وَالْقَمَرَ ۖ كُلٌّ يَجْرِي لِأَجَلٍ مُّسَمًّى ۗ أَلَا هُوَ الْعَزِيزُ الْغَفَّارُ 39:5
اس نے آسمانوں اور زمین کو حکمت سے پیدا کیا وہ رات کو دن پر لپیٹ دیتا ہے اور دن کو رات پر لپیٹ دیتا ہے اور اس نے سورج اور چاند کو تابع کر دیا ہے ہر ایک وقت مقرر تک چل رہا ہے خبرادار! وہی غالب بخشنے والا ہے
He has created the Heavens and the Earth for Truth. He wraps the night up in the day, and wraps the day up in the night. (Qur'an , 39:5)
In the Qur'an , the words used for describing the universe are quite remarkable. The Arabic word which is translated as "to wrap" in the above verse is "takwir." In English, it means "to make one thing lap over another , folded up as a garment that is laid away." For instance, in Arabic dictionaries this word is used for the action of wrapping one thing around another in the way that a turban is put on. The information given in the verse about the day and the night wrapping each other up includes accurate information about the shape of the world. This can be true only if the Earth is round. This means that in the Qur'an, which was revealed in the 7th century , the roundness of the world was hinted at.
However , it should be remembered that the understanding of astronomy of the time perceived the world differently. It was then thought that the world was a flat plane and all scientific calculations and explanations were based on this belief. However , the Glorious Qur'an has employed the most definitive words when it came to describing the universe. These facts , which we could only correctly fathom in our century , have been in the Qur'an for a vast length of time.
27:88 وَتَرَى الْجِبَالَ تَحْسَبُهَا جَامِدَةً وَهِيَ تَمُرُّ مَرَّ السَّحَابِ ۚ صُنْعَ اللَّهِ الَّذِي أَتْقَنَ كُلَّ شَيْءٍ ۚ إِنَّهُ خَبِيرٌ بِمَا تَفْعَلُونَ
اور تو جو پہاڑوں کو جمے ہوئے دیکھ رہا ہے یہ تو بادلوں کی طرح اڑتے پھریں گے اس الله کی کاریگری سے جس نے ہر چیز کو مضبوط بنا رکھا ہے اسے خبر ہے جو تم کرتے ہو
You will see the mountains and reckon them to be solid; but they go past like clouds-the handiwork of Allah Who gives to everything its solidity. He is aware of what you do. (Qur'an , 27:88)
The above verse emphasises that the Earth not only rotates but that it also has a direction of rotation. The direction of movement of the main cloud masses at 3 , 500-4 , 000 metres high is always from West to East. That is why it is generally the state of the weather in the West which is looked at in meteorological forecasts.
If only they had believed and had fear [and awareness of Allah]!
A reward from Allah is better , if they only knew.
(Qur’an , 2:103)
Do you not know that Allah is He to Whom the kingdom of the heavens and the earth belongs and that , besides Allah, you have no protector and no helper?
(Qur’an , 2:107)
The main reason why cloud masses are pulled from West to East is the direction in which the Earth rotates. As we now know our Earth spins from West to East. This scientific fact, only recently established by science , was revealed 1, 400 years ago in the Qur’an , at a time when the Earth was believed to be flat, and to be resting on the back of an ox.
79:30 وَالْأَرْضَ بَعْدَ ذَٰلِكَ دَحَاهَا
اور اس کے بعد زمین کو بچھا دیا
After that He smoothed out the earth. (Qur'an , 79:30)
In the above verse , the word "daha" is used in the original Arabic. It, translated as "smoothed out , "comes from the word "dahv ", meaning "to spread." Although the word "dahv" also means to cover or to set out , the meaning of the verb is more than just a prosaic setting out , since it describes setting out in a circle.
The concept of roundness is also present in other words derived from "dahv." For example , the word "dahv" also refers to children dropping a ball into a hole in the ground, games involving throwing stones into holes and games played with walnuts. Words derived from that root are also used for an ostrich making a nest, cleaning stones from where it is about to lie down, the place where it lays its eggs and the egg itself.
Indeed, the Earth is round, in a manner reminiscent of an egg. The slightly flattened spherical shape of the Earth is known as geoid. From that point of view , the use of the word "daha" contains important information about the shape that Allah has given to the Earth. For hundreds of years , people imagined the Earth to be completely flat and only learned the truth thanks to technology. Yet, this fact was revealed in the Qur'an fourteen centuries ago.
One fact about the universe revealed in the verses of the Qur'an is that the sky is made up of seven layers:
41:11 ثُمَّ اسْتَوَىٰ إِلَى السَّمَاءِ وَهِيَ دُخَانٌ فَقَالَ لَهَا وَلِلْأَرْضِ ائْتِيَا طَوْعًا أَوْ كَرْهًا قَالَتَا أَتَيْنَا طَائِعِينَ
41:12 فَقَضَاهُنَّ سَبْعَ سَمَاوَاتٍ فِي يَوْمَيْنِ وَأَوْحَىٰ فِي كُلِّ سَمَاءٍ أَمْرَهَا ۚ وَزَيَّنَّا السَّمَاءَ الدُّنْيَا بِمَصَابِيحَ وَحِفْظًا ۚ ذَٰلِكَ تَقْدِيرُ الْعَزِيزِ الْعَلِيمِ
پھر وہ آسمان کی طرف متوجہ ہوا اور وہ دھؤاں تھا پس اس کو اور زمین کو فرمایا کہ خوشی سے آؤ یا جبر سے دونوں نے کہا ہم خوشی سے آئے ہیں
پھر انہیں دو دن میں سات آسمان بنا دیا اور اس نے ہر ایک آسمان میں اس کا کام القا کیا اور ہم نے پہلے آسمان کو چراغوں سے زینت دی اور حفاظت کے لیے بھی یہ زبردست ہر چیز کے جاننے والے کا اندازہ ہے
It is He Who created everything on the earth for you and then directed His attention up to heaven and arranged it into seven regular heavens. He has knowledge of all things. (Qur'an , 2:29)
Then He turned to heaven when it was smoke. In two days He determined them as seven heavens and revealed, in every heaven, its own mandate. (Qur'an , 41:11-12)
The word "heavens , " which appears in many verses in the Qur'an , is used to refer to the sky above the Earth , as well as the entire universe. Given this meaning of the word, it is seen that the Earth's sky, or the atmosphere, is made up of seven layers.
Today , it is known that the world's atmosphere consists of different layers that lie on top of each other. Based on the criteria of chemical contents or air temperature , the definitions made have determined the atmosphere of the earth as seven layers. According to the "Limited Fine Mesh Model (LFMMII) , "a model of atmosphere used to estimate weather conditions for 48 hours , the atmosphere is also 7 layers. According to the modern geological definitions the seven layers of atmosphere are as follows:
1. Troposphere
2. Stratosphere
3. Mesosphere
4. Thermosphere
5. Exosphere
6. Ionosphere
7. Magnetosphere
The Qur'an says , "[He] revealed , in every heaven , its own mandate , " in Surah Fussilat 12. In other words , Allah is stating that He assigned each heaven its own duty. Truly, as will be seen in following chapters, each one of these layers has vital duties for the benefit of human kind and all other living things on the Earth. Each layer has a particular function, ranging from forming rain to preventing harmful rays, from reflecting radio waves to averting the harmful effects of meteors.
The verses below inform us about the appearance of the seven layers of the atmosphere:
71:15 أَلَمْ تَرَوْا كَيْفَ خَلَقَ اللَّهُ سَبْعَ سَمَاوَاتٍ طِبَاقًا
کیا تم نہیں دیکھتے کہ الله نے سات آسمان اوپر تلے (کیسے) بنائے ہیں
Do you not see how He created seven heavens in layers? (Qur'an , 71:15)
67:3 الَّذِي خَلَقَ سَبْعَ سَمَاوَاتٍ طِبَاقًا ۖ مَّا تَرَىٰ فِي خَلْقِ الرَّحْمَـٰنِ مِن تَفَاوُتٍ ۖ فَارْجِعِ الْبَصَرَ هَلْ تَرَىٰ مِن فُطُورٍ
جس نے سات آسمان اوپر تلے بنائے تو رحمان کی اس صنعت میں کوئی خلل نہ دیکھے گا تو پھر نگاہ دوڑا کیا تجھے کوئی شگاف دکھائی دیتا ہے
He Who created the seven heavens in layers… (Qur'an , 67:3)
The atmosphere only lets rays required for life reach the Earth. For example, ultraviolet rays make it to the world only partially. This is the most appropriate range to allow plants to make photosynthesis and eventually for all living things to survive.
The Arabic word "tibaqan" in these verses , translated into English as "layer" means "layer, the appropriate cover or covering for something, " and thus stresses how the top layer is well suited to the lower. The word is also used in the plural here: "layers." The sky , described in the verse as being in layers, is without doubt the most perfect expression of the atmosphere. It is a great miracle that these facts, which could not possibly be discovered without the technology of the 20th century, were explicitly stated by the Qur'an 1, 400 years ago.
One item of information about the Earth given in the Qur'an is its similarity to the seven-layered sky:
اللَّهُ الَّذِي خَلَقَ سَبْعَ سَمَاوَاتٍ وَمِنَ الْأَرْضِ مِثْلَهُنَّ يَتَنَزَّلُ الْأَمْرُ بَيْنَهُنَّ لِتَعْلَمُوا أَنَّ اللَّهَ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ قَدِيرٌ وَأَنَّ اللَّهَ قَدْ أَحَاطَ بِكُلِّ شَيْءٍ عِلْمًا 65:12
الله ہی ہے جس نے سات آسمان پیدا کیے اور زمینیں بھی اتنی ہی ان میں حکم نازل ہوا کرتا ہے تاکہ تم جان لو کہ الله ہر چیز پر قادر ہے اور الله نے ہر چیز کو علم سے احاطہ کر رکھا ہے
It is Allah Who created the seven heavens and of the earth the same number, the Command descending down through all of them, so that you might know that Allah has power over all things and that Allah encompasses all things in His knowledge. (Qur'an, 65:12)
The information in the above verse is confirmed in scientific sources, wherein it is explained that the Earth consists of seven strata. These, as scientists have identified, are:
1st layer: Lithosphere (water)
2nd layer: Lithosphere (land)
3rd layer: Asthenosphere
4th layer: Upper Mantle
5th layer: Inner Mantle
6th layer: Outer Core
7th layer: Inner Core
The word lithosphere is derived from the Greek word lithos, meaning stone, which is a hard stratum forming the Earth's top layer. It is quite thin in comparison to the other strata. The lithosphere under the oceans is still thinner, and is a region with volcanic activity. Its average thickness is 80 km. It is colder and harder than the other strata, and therefore, forms the earth's shell.
Below the lithosphere is the stratum known as the asthenosphere, from the Greek word for "weak," asthenes. This layer is thinner than the lithosphere and shifts. It was formed of hot, semi-solid substances capable of melting when exposed to high temperatures and pressure over geological time. It is thought that the hard lithosphere floats or moves over the slowly moving asthenosphere. Under these layers is a high-temperature layer some 2,900 km thick, made up of semi-solid rock known as the mantle. This contains more iron, magnesium and calcium than the crust, and is also hotter and denser, because temperature and density in the Earth increase with depth.
At the centre of the Earth is the core, approximately twice as dense as the mantle. The reason for that density is that it contains a higher proportion of metals (iron-nickel alloy) than rock. The Earth's core consists of two parts. One is the 2,200 km thick liquid outer core, the other a 1,250 km thick solid inner core. The liquid outer core provides the Earth's magnetic field as the planet rotates.
The truth of this similarity between the sky and the layers of the Earth, only identified by 20th century technology, is without doubt another of the Qur'an's scientific miracles.
The Qur'an draws attention to a very important geological function of mountains:
21:31 وَجَعَلْنَا فِي الْأَرْضِ رَوَاسِيَ أَن تَمِيدَ بِهِمْ وَجَعَلْنَا فِيهَا فِجَاجًا سُبُلًا لَّعَلَّهُمْ يَهْتَدُونَ
اورہم نے زمین میں بھاری پہاڑ رکھ دیئے تاکہ انہیں لے کر داھر اُدھر نہ جھکنے پائے اور ہم نے اس میں کشادہ راہیں بنا دی ہیں تاکہ وہ راہ پائیں
We placed firmly embedded mountains on the earth, so it would not move under them… (Qur'an, 21:31)
The verse states that mountains perform the function of preventing shocks in the Earth. This fact was not known by anyone at the time the Qur'an was revealed. It was, in fact, brought to light only recently, as a result of the findings of modern geological research.
(Mountains have roots deep under the surface of the ground. (Press and Siever, Earth, 413).
(Schematic section. Mountains, like pegs, have deep roots embedded in the ground. (Andre Cailleux and J. Moody Stuart, Anatomy of the Earth McGraw-Hill Companies: 1968), 220.)
(Another illustration shows how mountains are peg-like in shape, due to their deep roots. (Edward J. Tarbuck and Frederick K. Lutgens, Earth Science)
Formerly, it was thought that mountains were merely protrusions rising above the surface of the Earth. However, scientists realised that this was not actually the case, and that those parts known as the mountain root extended down as far as 10-15 times their own height. With these features, mountains play a similar role to a nail or peg firmly holding down a tent. For example, Mount Everest, the summit of which stands approximately 9 km above the surface of the Earth, has a root deeper than 125 km.
Mountains emerge as a result of the movements and collisions of massive plates forming the Earth's crust. When two plates collide, the stronger one slides under the other, the one on the top bends and forms heights and mountains. The layer beneath proceeds under the ground and makes a deep extension downward. Consequently, as stated earlier, mountains have a portion stretching downwards, as large as their visible parts on the Earth.
In a scientific text, the structure of mountains is described as follows:
Where continents are thicker, as in mountain ranges, the crust sinks deeper into the mantle.
Professor Siaveda, a world-renowned underwater geologist, made the following comment in reference to the way that mountains have root-like stalks attaching them to the surface:
The fundamental difference between continental mountains and the oceanic mountains lies in its material... But the common denominator on both mountains are that they have roots to support the mountains. In the case of continental mountains, light-low density material from the mountain is extended down into the earth as a root. In the case of oceanic mountains, there is also light material supporting the mountain as a root... Therefore, the function of the roots are to support the mountains according to the law of Archimedes.
Furthermore, a book titled Earth, by Dr. Frank Press, former president of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, which is still used as a text book in a great many universities, states that mountains are like stakes, and are buried deep under the surface of the Earth.
In other verses, this role of the mountains is pointed out by a comparison with "pegs":
78:6 أَلَمْ نَجْعَلِ الْأَرْضَ مِهَادًا
78:7 وَالْجِبَالَ أَوْتَادًا
کیا ہم نے زمین کو فرش نہیں بنایا
اور پہاڑوں کو میخیں
Have We not made the earth as a bed and the mountains its pegs? (Qur'an, 78:6-7)
In another verse it is revealed that Allah "made the mountains firm." (Qur'an, 79:32)
The word "arsaha" in this verse means "was made rooted, was fixed, was nailed to the earth." Similarly, mountains extend to the surface layer joining lines on and below the surface, and nail these together. By fixing the Earth's crust they prevent any sliding over the magma layer or amongst the layers themselves. In short, mountains can be compared to nails holding strips of wood together. The fixing effect of mountains is known as isostasy in scientific literature. Isostasy is the state of equilibrium between the upward force created by the mantle layer and the downward force created by the Earth's crust. As mountains lose mass due to erosion, soil loss or melting of glaciers, they can gain mass from the formation of glaciers, volcanic explosions or soil formation. Therefore, as mountains grow lighter they are pressed upwards by the raising force implemented by the liquids. Alternatively, as they grow heavier they are pressed into the mantle by the force of gravity. Equilibrium between these two forces is established by isostasy. This balancing property of mountains is described in these terms in a scientific source:
G.B Airy in 1855 suggested that the crust of the earth could be likened to rafts of timber floating on water. Thick pieces of timber float higher above the water surface than thin pieces and similarly thick sections of the earth's crust will float on a liquid or plastic substratum of greater density. Airy was suggesting that mountains have a deep root of lower density rock which the plains lack. Four years after Airy published his work, J.H Pratt offered an alternative hypothesis... By this hypothesis rock columns below mountains must have a lower density, because of their greater length, than shorter rock columns beneath plains. Both Airy and Pratt's hypothesis imply that surface irregularities are balanced by differences in density of rocks below the major features (mountains and plains) of the crust. This state of BALANCE is described as the concept of ISOSTASY.
Today, we know that the rocky external layer of the Earth's surface is riven by deep faults and split into plates swimming above the molten lava. Since the Earth revolves very quickly around its own axis, were it not for the fixing effect of the mountains, these plaques would shift. In such an event, soil would not collect on the Earth's surface, water would not accumulate in the soil, no plants could grow, and no roads or houses could be built. In short, life on Earth would be impossible. Through the mercy of Allah, however, mountains act like nails, and to a large extent, prevent movement in the Earth's surface.
We subjected the mountains to glorify [Allah] with him in the evening and at sunrise.
(Qur’an, 38:18)
He cast firmly embedded mountains on the earth so it would not move under you, and rivers and pathways so that hopefully you would be guided.
(Qur’an, 16:15)
This vital role of mountains, which has been discovered by modern geological and seismic research, was revealed in the Qur'an centuries ago as an example of the supreme wisdom in Allah's creation.
خَلَقَ السَّمَاوَاتِ بِغَيْرِ عَمَدٍ تَرَوْنَهَا ۖ وَأَلْقَىٰ فِي الْأَرْضِ رَوَاسِيَ أَن تَمِيدَ بِكُمْ وَبَثَّ فِيهَا مِن كُلِّ دَابَّةٍ ۚ وَأَنزَلْنَا مِنَ السَّمَاءِ مَاءً فَأَنبَتْنَا فِيهَا مِن كُلِّ زَوْجٍ كَرِيمٍ31:10
آسمانوں کو بے ستون بنایا تم انہیں دیکھ رہے ہو اور زمین میں مضبوط پہاڑ رکھ دیے تاکہ تمہیں لے کر ادھر ادھر نہ جھکے اور اس میں ہر قسم کے جانور پھیلا دیے اور ہم نے آسمان سے مینہ برسایا پھر ہم نے زمین میں ہر قسم کی عمدہ چیزیں اگائیں
… [He] cast firmly embedded mountains on the earth so that it would not move under you… (Qur'an, 31:10)
America.gov. Sept 2006
Washington – When Iranian-born American Anousheh Ansari blasted into space from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on September 18 aboard a Soyuz spacecraft, she accomplished more than fulfilling a childhood dream: She made the history books. Ansari, who is on an eight-day visit to the International Space Station (ISS), became the first Muslim woman and first Iranian in space as well as the first private female space tourist. The launch was six days after her 40th birthday.
According to Wikipedia:
Anousheh Ansari (Persian: انوشه انصاری, born September 12, 1966 in Mashhad, Iran) is an engineer and the Iranian-American co-founder and chairman of Prodea Systems, Inc and a spaceflight participant with the Russian space program. Her previous business accomplishments include serving as co-founder and CEO of Telecom Technologies, Inc. (TTI). The Ansari family is also the title sponsor of the Ansari X Prize. On September 18, 2006, a few days after her 40th birthday, she became the first Iranian in space. Ansari is the fourth overall self-funded space tourist, and the first self-funded woman to fly to the International Space Station. Her memoir, My Dream of Stars, co-written with Homer Hickam, was published by Palgrave-McMillan in 2010.
THE END
An area of improvement for the global ummah especially its leaders is not only being able to clearly distinguish between what is right and wrong but also to be able to modify current events and developments and give it an Islamic flavor. For example in the issue of Television, certain Muslims feel that it is a "one eyed Shaitan" and do not have it in their house. Certain other Muslims have it but have a special equipment to filter out the inappropriate content and/or view only selected programs. On the other extreme, there are many Muslims that have absolutely no problems whatsoever having the TV in their home and consider it normal to watch it on a frequent basis including while having their meals, when guests are at home and do not switch it off even when one of their own family members is performing salaat at home.
Is below article on ISLAM'S ANSWER TO MTV a step in the right direction for the Global Ummah or not ?
In Part II, we have also discussed how science has confirmed so many facts that are mentioned in the Holy Quran in terms of Geology, Astronomy et.c. The Muslim extremists have partially hijacked Islam and by their sensational anti-islamic acts of terrorism, they are inadvertently on a reckless rampage to damage the peaceful reality of what Islam really stands for. Thanks to Sister/Dr. Shahina Banu MD from Bangalore, India for forwarding an e-mail regarding the scientific miracles of the Holy Quran. We urge all readers to closely read the article and understand that ISLAM AND SCIENCE ARE COMPLIMENTARY TO EACH OTHER in below mentioned aspects.
PART I
ISLAM'S ANSWER TO MTV
(New York Times Aug 12, 2010)
Condensed version
Condensed version
(Ahmed Abu Haiba, founder of 4Shbab, the Islamic youth TV network, at home with his wife, Carmen.) By Negar Azimi
August 12, 2010
The Egyptian entrepreneur Ahmed Abu Haiba isn’t having a good day. A Saudi columnist has accused him of corrupting the country’s youth. A music video he has been working on for months is behind schedule. He hasn’t had time to prepare for his weekly talk show, an Islamo-Egyptian version of “Dr. Phil.” Worse, one of the program’s financiers has become upset because there was to be a woman on the show — unchaste behavior, to some. We’re driving along Sheik Zayed Road in the desert outside Cairo on a bright day as the radio plays Sami Yusuf, a saccharine-sweet Muslim pop star based in London. Abu Haiba theatrically throws his arms in the air to perform his frustration. At the age of 42 he is tubby and, as a sign of his deep faith, has a large zabiba — a dark smudge on his forehead born of rubbing his head repeatedly on a prayer mat. And yet he is not a conventional man and certainly not a conventional Muslim. Today he looks more like a hip-hop mogul, with a black knit golf cap on backward and a suit of all black. And a pink tie.
As the brains behind 4Shbab, the world’s first Islamic version of MTV, Abu Haiba is the consummate man in the middle — situated between the dictates of Islam and those of the pop-music business. Introduced in the spring of last year, 4Shbab, which means “for youth” in Arabic, broadcasts music videos, variety shows (including Abu Haiba’s own), news and even a reality program called “Your Voice Is Heard” — which might as well be called “Who Wants to be an Islamic Pop Star?”
Imagine MTV without the gratuitous gyration and skin, and with videos about family, public service, Palestine and, above all, salvation. In trying to make Islam relevant to youth, 4Shbab is part of a recent trend that, from Cairo to Kuala Lumpur, has inspired restaurants with Islamic themes, Islamic entertainment centers and even Islamic water parks and beaches. 4Shbab’s mission seems to be communicating that there is a middle ground between the rigid Islam of stern-faced elders and jihadists on one hand and the louche ways of the West on the other. On 4Shbab, you can be traditional and modern at once, Islamic and hip, pious and fun. The channel’s music videos speak to real life, from the difficulties of finding work to the pain of depression to the burn of spurned love. And in all of 4Shbab’s promotional spots a tremendous smokey voice booms: “Lissssssten . . . to the tune of Islam.”
4SHBAB’S HEADQUARTERS occupy a floor of one among many anonymous high-rises in Cairo’s Mohandiseen district. The core team also gathered there at prayer times.
“The media is changing everything,” Abu Haiba told me. “Television, the Internet, Facebook. We have to think faster, move faster. Time flies! 4Shbab is part of that change. It’s more than music. We have 25,000 members in the 4Shbab Forum. We get 3,000 S.M.S. a day from viewers. I have fans in Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, Iraq — you name it. We think of it as a new kind of preaching for the ‘rebound generation.’ ”
Abu Haiba maintains this audience includes some 60 percent of Arab youth.
(Photograph From 4shbab)
(ISLAM’S GOT TALENT:A scene from last season’s finale of “Your Voice Is Heard,” an Egyptian take on “American Idol,” complete with anxious contestants, earnest crooning and inscrutable judges.)
Nightclubs and tales of love are far from the images normally associated with Islamic television. Channels like Iqraa, Al-Resala or Majd TV — most of them financed by Saudi conservatives — tend to feature Koranic reading, wagging fingers, overlong beards and men speaking in contemptuous tones about sin, redemption and the dangers of the West.
“People say you can’t mix God and music,” Tamer said. “But we’re trying to show you can.”
ABU HAIBA’S PATH to becoming a pioneer of the pious-pleasure industry has been roundabout, at best. At 15, he says, he experienced a sudden urge for spiritual direction and threw out all his records. Mohamed Abdel Waheb, Abdel Halim Hafez, Oum Kalthoum, Fairuz — the Elvis Presleys and Diana Rosses of Arabic song — all of it had to go. Especially difficult was parting with the albums of Fairuz, the delicate flaxen-haired queen of Lebanese music. “I was in love with Fairuz,” he remembered. “She was my hero.”
Still, firm in his conviction that most music was haram, or forbidden in Islam, he began listening to nasheed, a cappella music with little or no instrumental accompaniment (instruments often being considered haram). Soon Abu Haiba was spending every afternoon in his neighborhood mosque in Cairo. He went on a retreat with Tablighi Jamaat, a grass-roots Islamic revivalist movement. He stopped communicating with girls outside his family. His evenings were spent memorizing the Sura el Baqara with his mother and grandfather, a longish chunk of the Koran that, in great part, involves urging the pagans and Jews of Medina to embrace Islam. He attended demonstrations for Palestine. He distanced himself from many of his school friends, believing they would have a negative effect on his character.
When, in the late 1980s, Abu Haiba entered Cairo University’s engineering school, the Egyptian government was at war with homegrown Islamists in Islamic Jihad and Jemaah Islamiyah and elements of the more moderate Muslim Brotherhood. He became involved with the student union, wrote and acted in Islamic-themed plays and associated with people who would later join the brotherhood. His new heroes were the leaders of the Afghan mujahideen — long-bearded men with names like Rabbani, Sayyad, al Afghani.
("FOR YOUTH" Ahmed Elwan performing on "Your Voice Is Heard." photo from 4shbab)
(Photographs from 4Shbab: Abu Haiba with the eventual winner, Kamal Razzok
At the same time, Abu Haiba began working with foreign media companies in places as far away as Rwanda. He found himself explaining Islam to people who knew little about the faith. “I even met many Jews,” he told me. “I came back from these trips feeling like Islam needed to adapt itself to contemporary life if it was to be understood.” It was around that time that he renewed his acquaintance with a childhood friend, Amr Khaled. Khaled was giving talks in mosques and social clubs in Cairo and Alexandria and had built a following with his use of everyday Arabic and his willingness to talk about love and friendship.
In a modern world in which it is increasingly difficult to live by Islamic traditions, Khaled played the role of the “ordinary” Muslim. Abu Haiba seized upon Khaled’s everyman star power and suggested they film a pilot for a talk show called “Words From the Heart.” It would be written and produced by Abu Haiba and hosted by Khaled.
They produced four episodes. When nobody picked it up, they distributed them on the street as video cassettes. “It was like an earthquake,” Abu Haiba recalled. “All of a sudden, someone was not speaking about Islamic law. But speaking about love!” The program swiftly sold, and Amr Khaled went on to become a television icon.
When I met Amr Khaled last fall, in the lobby of a luxurious London hotel, I asked him to think about Abu Haiba’s contribution to Islamic entertainment.
Khaled is an epic self-promoter, and within the span of an hour he told me four times that his Web site, amrkhaled.net, was one of the 1,000 most-visited sites on the Web, expressed wonder at the number of fans he had on Facebook and informed me that he had persuaded three million girls in the Arab world to give up drug use. At last, he thought back to the first time he met Abu Haiba on a soccer field as a teenager, and how so much had happened since.
“Ahmed realized before anyone else that you must go to the people,” he said. “Television must be a place for people to speak about their everyday lives. Now he is doing this with music.”
I asked him what he thought about the Melody Tunes music channel, with its scantily clad Arab women. “They are very, very, very dangerous,” he said, his eyebrows rising up and down. “Today we have sexual harassment in the streets; there are hundreds of women harassed. This is not a coincidence.
“If 4Shbab can show that there is no clash between faith and being modern,” he went on, “it will be bigger than anything on television.”
THE CULTURAL STRUGGLE over television and religion grew heated in the 1990s, when the satellite dish arrived in the Middle East. Suddenly, coffee shops were filled with hookah-smoking men watching not only Al Jazeera but also MTV and reality shows. Soon enough, most every family — no matter how rich or poor — had a dish at home. Today the uninterrupted stream of dishes is one of the most distinctive markers of the Cairo skyline.
The state lost its absolute control of television. MTV came in — and so did rigidly conservative stations like Iqraa. Abu Haiba saw a market opportunity in splitting the differences. Though he is building an audience, he also seems to be everyone’s enemy. 4Shbab is broadcast not from Egypt but Bahrain, because the Egyptian authorities have consistently denied him a license. Abu Haiba insists it is because Egyptian state security has a file on him. “They think of me as one of the brothers,” he explains, referring to the Muslim Brotherhood, which is semi banned and represents the greatest opposition to the Egyptian state. He insists that he has no formal connection to the brothers.
Abu Haiba is also criticized by Egyptians (and foreigners) for having few women on his channel. All the videos I saw over the course of two weeks featured men and boys only. Showing women on TV, Abu Haiba told me, is a red line he must negotiate with his backers.
Yet he tries. I visited him one evening on the set of the weekly television show he hosts. We entered a closet-size makeup room where three young makeup men descended upon him, massaging his almost-bald head with mousse, taming his eyebrows with a brow brush, powdering his ample cheeks with rouge. That night he would be interviewing a young woman who started an organization called El Bidaya, or “the Beginning.” “We love women!” he boomed.
The program’s theme was “How to Change Yourself.” Abu Haiba’s young female guest came out sporting a fastidiously fastened veil and a long white dress. She spoke broadly about Islam’s power to unleash change.
The Impresario of Islam. A viewer, Dina, rang in to say: “I have three children, and by the age of 21, I felt suffocated. So I started reading the Koran.”
Abu Haiba: “Did you memorize it by heart?”
Dina: “God willing, almost.”
Abu Haiba: “Mashalla. How long did it take?”
Dina: “Two and a half years.”
Abu Haiba: “Mashalla, it seems you were persistent.”
Dina: “Persistence is a gift from Allah. Before memorizing the Koran it used to take me two or three hours to cook a meal. Now it takes me half an hour.”
THERE IS A remarkable diversity of opinions when it comes to whether singing, dancing and music are permissible in Islam. One common argument sees popular music as cultural imperialism — an essentially Western form that only erodes traditions. Academics like Lila Abu Lughod at Columbia University have argued that this is a cultural anxiety from the 1960s that has little to do with Islam. Another argument, that music simply leads to chaos and social breakdown, has roots in the Koran, where music is occasionally understood as lahwal hadith, or “idle talk.”
Under whatever guise, and in spite of long and storied musical traditions, there is a significant history of restrictions on music across the Islamic world. In the 1950s, according to the scholar Jonas Otterbeck, the Committee for the Advancement of Virtue and Elimination of Vice in Saudi Arabia banned music and singing, linking them to immorality and Sufism.
In Afghanistan, the Taliban famously banned music and went as far as to kill musicians. In Lebanon, Nirvana was banned in the late 1990s after being linked to Satan worship. Between 2000 and 2005, 80 percent of the issues raised by Muslim Brotherhood parliamentarians concerned the need to take an Islamic stand on culture and media.
And then, in November of this past year, the American pop singer Beyoncé was scheduled to play a concert at an elite resort on the Red Sea. The promotional ads for the concert — featuring Beyoncé in all manner of suggestive costumes, including a half-unitard covered in flames — inspired one Muslim Brotherhood parliamentarian named Hamdi Hassan to declare her concert an “insolent sex party” in a letter written to the Egyptian Parliament. The Beyoncé affair, in turn, prompted a great drama in the press, pitting Beyoncé’s defenders against outraged detractors. The concert went on anyway, but not before inspiring an “Against Beyoncé” Facebook campaign. The group attracted about 10,000 members.
A number of theologians have spoken out against such cultural restrictiveness, arguing that it is contrary to the spirit of the Islamic faith. A Lebanese scholar named Sheik Ibrahim Ramadan al-Mardini, for example, has made repeated calls for tolerance of musical traditions. Others, like the Qatar-based Egyptian sheik Youssef al-Qaradawi, offer that music per se is not haram; it is the content of the music that must be held to a test. Amr Khaled, for his part, calls for al fan al hadif, or “arts with a goal.” All of these religious experts stress niyya, or “the intention,” of the listener and musician.
So why work in entertainment, I wondered, and not law or scholarship or politics for that matter?
“You reach more people through entertainment,” he said. “I started 4Shbab because we need to redefine Islam. People think of Islam as a series of restrictions and limitations. Don’t speak to girls! Don’t listen to music!
“The voices speaking for Islam today are extremists,” he went on, with his own sort of evangelical zeal. “We see an angry man throwing a stone at an embassy more often than an Amr Khaled.”
Can 4Shbab combat extremism?
“4Shbab is changing the way young people look at Islam. I know we can change people at the far end, the Salafists or jihadists. Some of the people who listen to us now used to not listen to music at all!”
It makes sense that this could be 4Shbab’s moment. These days, every established pop star in the Islamic world, no matter how suspect his or her religious credentials might seem, tends to produce one song in praise of Allah each year — usually around the holy month of Ramadan.
Whether this is modernity adjusting to Islam, or the opposite, is impossible to judge. What’s clear is that the space for accommodation is growing. As we moved on to a fizzy pineapple drink and dessert, Abu Haiba spoke of drafting a rebuttal to an anti-4Shbab campaign on a conservative Islamic Web site. He would fight back, he said, work harder, maybe even extend his work into the world of television dramas with a next project: an HBO-style channel. “Imagine ‘Big Love’ or ‘The Wire’ with Islamic themes,” he said. You could see the optimism and excitement in his eyes. “I think in a short time we will be at the top of the charts. You see, Islam is like a big bus. You can be standing at the door, or you can be at the steering wheel. My plan is to be at the steering wheel.”
PART II
(ED NOTE:
Special thanks to Sister/Dr. Shahina Banu MD from Bangalore, India for forwarding below enlightening e-mail)
THE SCIENTIFIC MIRACLES OF THE QURAN, SOLAR SYSTEM ORBITS AND THE ROTATING UNIVERSE
One of the most important reasons for the great equilibrium in the universe is the fact that celestial bodies follow specific paths. Stars , planets and satellites all rotate around their own axes and also rotate together with the system of which they are a part. The universe functions within a finely-tuned order , just like the wheels in a factory.
There are more than 100 billion galaxies in the visible universe and each small galaxy contains approximately a billion stars. Furthermore, each big galaxy contains more than a trillion. Many of these stars have planets and many of those planets have satellites. All these celestial bodies follow the most finely calculated paths and orbits. For millions of years , each one has been moving in its own path in flawless harmony with all the others. In addition to these, there are also a great many comets moving along in their own pre-determined paths.
In addition , the paths in the universe are not restricted to a few celestial bodies. The Solar System and even other galaxies also exhibit considerable motion around other centres. Every year, Earth, and the Solar System with it , move some 500 million km from where they were the previous year. It has been calculated that even the slightest deviation from celestial bodies' paths could have drastic consequences which might spell the end of the entire system. For example, the consequences of the earth's deviating from its course by a mere 3 mm have been described in one source as follows:
While rotating around the sun , the earth follows such an orbit that, every 18 miles, it only deviates 2.8 millimetres from a direct course. The orbit followed by the earth never changes, because even a deviation of 3 millimetres would cause catastrophic disasters: If the deviation were 2.5 mm instead of 2.8 mm , then the orbit would be very large , and all of us would freeze. If the deviation were 3.1 mm , we would be scorched to death.
Another characteristic of heavenly bodies is that they also rotate around their own axes. The verse which reads
86:11 وَالسَّمَاءِ ذَاتِ الرَّجْعِ
86:11 آسمان اور بارش والے کی قسم ہے
"[I swear] by Heaven with its cyclical systems , " (Qur'an , 86:11)
51:7 وَالسَّمَاءِ ذَاتِ الْحُبُكِ
آسمان جالی دار کی قسم ہے51:7
"its oscillating orbits , " (Qur'an , 51:7)
as described in the verse. The Qur'an however , revealed at that time, provided clear information concerning that fact. This is proof that this book is indeed Allah's Word.
(Like many other comets in the universe , Halley's comet , seen above , also moves in a planned orbit. It has a specific orbit and it moves in this orbit in a perfect harmony with other celestial bodies. All celestial bodies—including planets, satellites of these planets, stars and even galaxies—have their own orbits that have been determined with very delicate computations. The One Who established this perfect order and maintains it is Allah , Who created the entire universe.)
THE SUN'S TRAJECTORY
It is stressed in the Qur'an that the Sun and Moon follow specific trajectories:
21:33 وَهُوَ الَّذِي خَلَقَ اللَّيْلَ وَالنَّهَارَ وَالشَّمْسَ وَالْقَمَرَ ۖ كُلٌّ فِي فَلَكٍ يَسْبَحُونَ
اور وہی ہے جس نے رات اور دن اور سورج اور چاند بنائے سب اپنے اپنے چکر میں پھرتے ہیں21:33
It is He Who created night and day and the sun and moon , each one swimming in a sphere. (Qur'an , 21:33)
The word "swim" in the above verse is expressed in Arabic by the word "sabaha" and is used to describe the movement of the Sun in space. The word means that the Sun does not move randomly through space but that it rotates around its axis and follows a course as it does so. The fact that the Sun is not fixed in position but rather follows a specific trajectory is also stated in another verse:
36:38 وَالشَّمْسُ تَجْرِي لِمُسْتَقَرٍّ لَّهَا ۚ ذَٰلِكَ تَقْدِيرُ الْعَزِيزِ الْعَلِيمِ
اور سورج اپنے ٹھکانے کی طرف چلتا رہتا ہے یہ زبردست خبردار کا اندازہ کیا ہوا ہے36:38
And the sun runs to its resting place. That is the decree of the Almighty, the All-Knowing. (Qur'an , 36:38)
These facts set out in the Qur'an were only discovered by means of astronomical advances in our own time. According to astronomers' calculations , the Sun moves along a path known as the Solar Apex in the path of the star Vega at an incredible speed of 720,000 kmph. In rough terms , this shows that the Sun traverses some 17.28 million km a day. As well as the Sun itself, all the planets and satellites within its gravitational field also travel the same distance.
THE MOON'S ORBIT
36:39 وَالْقَمَرَ قَدَّرْنَاهُ مَنَازِلَ حَتَّىٰ عَادَ كَالْعُرْجُونِ الْقَدِيمِ
36:40 لَا الشَّمْسُ يَنبَغِي لَهَا أَن تُدْرِكَ الْقَمَرَ وَلَا اللَّيْلُ سَابِقُ النَّهَارِ ۚ وَكُلٌّ فِي فَلَكٍ يَسْبَحُونَ
اور ہم نے چاند کی منزلیں مقرر کر دی ہیں یہاں تک کہ پرانی ٹہنی کی طرح ہوجاتا ہے
نہ سورج کی مجال ہے ہ چاند کو جا پکڑے اور نہ رات ہی دن سے پہلے آ سکتی ہے اور ہر ایک ایک آسمان میں تیرتا پھرتا ہے
And We have decreed set phases for the moon , until it ends up looking like an old date branch. It is not for the sun to overtake the moon nor for the night to outstrip the day; each one is swimming in a sphere. (Qur'an , 36:39-40)
The Moon does not follow a regular orbit like the satellites of other planets. As it orbits the Earth, it sometimes moves behind it and sometimes in front. As it also moves with the Earth around the Sun , it actually follows a constant pattern resembling the letter "S" in space. This route, traced by the Moon in space, is described in the Qur'an as resembling an old date branch and does indeed resemble the twisted form of the date tree branch. Indeed , the word "urjoon" employed in the Qur'an refers to a thin and twisted date branch and is used to describe that part left after the fruit has been picked. The way that this branch is described as "old" is also most appropriate since old date branches are thinner and more twisted.
(Since the Moon revolves around the Sun together with the Earth, it follows a path through space which resembles the letter “S.” The appearance of this orbit resembles the twisted shape of a dry date branch , as is revealed in the Qur’an).
There is no doubt that it was impossible for anyone to have any knowledge about the orbit of the Moon 1,400 years ago. The way that this pattern, identified by modern technology and accumulated knowledge , was revealed in the Holy Book is yet another scientific miracle of the Qur'an.
CALCULATING THE LUNAR YEAR
هُوَ الَّذِي جَعَلَ الشَّمْسَ ضِيَاءً وَالْقَمَرَ نُورًا وَقَدَّرَهُ مَنَازِلَ لِتَعْلَمُوا عَدَدَ السِّنِينَ وَالْحِسَابَ ۚ مَا خَلَقَ اللَّهُ ذَٰلِكَ إِلَّا بِالْحَقِّ ۚ يُفَصِّلُ الْآيَاتِ لِقَوْمٍ يَعْلَمُونَ
10:5
وہی ہے جس نے سورج کو روشن بنایا اور چاند کو منور فرمایا اور چاند کی منزلیں مقرر کیں تاکہ تم برسوں کا شمار اور حساب معلوم کر سکو یہ سب کچھ الله نے تدبیر سے پیدا کیا ہے وہ اپنی آیتیں سمجھداروں کے لیے کھول کھول کر بیان فرماتا ہے
It is He Who appointed the sun to give radiance, and the moon to give light, assigning it phases so you would know the number of years and the reckoning of time. Allah did not create these things except with truth. We make the Signs clear for people who know. (Qur'an , 10:5)
36:39 وَالْقَمَرَ قَدَّرْنَاهُ مَنَازِلَ حَتَّىٰ عَادَ كَالْعُرْجُونِ الْقَدِيمِ
اور ہم نے چاند کی منزلیں مقرر کر دی ہیں یہاں تک کہ پرانی ٹہنی کی طرح ہوجاتا ہے
And We have decreed set phases for the moon , until it ends up looking like an old date branch. (Qur'an , 36:39)
In the first of the above verses , Allah has clearly revealed that the Moon will be a means of measurement for people to calculate the year. Furthermore, our attention is also drawn to the fact that these calculations will be performed according to the positions of the Moon as it revolves in its orbit. Since the angles between the Earth and Moon and the Moon and Sun constantly change, we see the Moon in different forms at different times. Furthermore , our ability to see the Moon is made possible by the fact that it is illuminated by the Sun. The amount of the lighted half of the Moon we see from Earth changes. Bearing in mind these changes, a number of calculations can be made , making it possible for human beings to measure the year.
In former times a month was calculated as the time between two full moons , or the time it took the Moon to travel around the Earth. According to this, one month was equal to 29 days, 12 hours and 44 minutes. This is known as the "lunar month." Twelve lunar months represent one year, according to the Hijri calendar. However , there is a difference of eleven days between the Hijri calendar and the Gregorian calendar , in which a year is the time it takes the Earth to orbit the Sun. Indeed , attention is drawn to this difference in another verse:
18:25 وَلَبِثُوا فِي كَهْفِهِمْ ثَلَاثَ مِائَةٍ سِنِينَ وَازْدَادُوا تِسْعًا
اور وہ اپنے غار میں تین سو سے زائد نو برس رہے ہیں
They stayed in their Cave for three hundred years and added nine. (Qur'an , 18:25)
We can clarify the time referred to in the verse thus: 300 years x 11 days (the difference which forms every year) = 3,300 days. Bearing in mind that one solar year lasts 365 days , 5 hours , 48 minutes and 45.5 seconds , 3 , 300 days/365.24 days = 9 years. To put it another way, 300 years according to the Gregorian calendar is equal to 300+9 years according to the Hijri calendar. As we can see , the verse refers to this finely calculated difference of 9 years. (Allah knows best.) There is no doubt that the Qur'an , which contains such pieces of information , which transcended the everyday knowledge of the time, is a miraculous revelation.
THE FORCE OF GRAVITY AND ORBITAL MOVEMENTS
15 فَلَا أُقْسِمُ بِالْخُنَّسِ
پس میں قسم کھاتا ہوں پیچھے ہٹنے والے
16 الْجَوَارِ الْكُنَّسِ
سیدھے چلنے والے غیب ہو جانے والے ستارو ں کی
No! I swear by the planets-that recede, that ride their course [and] hide themselves. (Qur'an , 81: 15-16)
The word "khunnas" in Surat at-Takwir 15 bears such meanings as shrinking and cowering , retracting and turning back. The Arabic expression translated as "hide themselves" in the 16th verse is "kunnas." The word "kunnas" is the plural form of "kanis" and refers to a specific path: entering a nest, the home of a body in motion or things entering their homes and hiding there. Again in verse 16, the word "aljawari , "the plural form of the word "jariya" which means one that moves and flows, is translated as "that ride their course." Bearing in mind the meaning of these words , it is very possible that these verses refer to the gravitational forces of the planets and their movements around their orbits.
These words in the above verses fully describe orbital movements stemming from the force of gravity. Of these, the word "khunnas" refers to the planets' attraction towards their own centres and also their attraction towards the Sun , which is the centre of our Solar System. (Allah knows best.)
The force of gravity already existed in the universe-although it was only possible to reveal this attractive force with mathematical formulae with Sir Isaac Newton.
The word "aljawari" in the following verse emphasises the orbital movements that arise as a result of the centrifugal force that opposes this attractive one. There is no doubt that the use of the word "aljawari" together with "khunnas" (attraction towards the centre, shrinkage) and "kunnas" (path, entering the nest , the home of a body in motion) indicates an important scientific truth that nobody could have known about 1,400 years ago. (Allah knows best.) Moreover , these verses , one of the subjects sworn on in the Qur'an , are another indication of the importance of the subject.
THE ROUNDNESS OF THE EARTH
خَلَقَ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضَ بِالْحَقِّ ۖ يُكَوِّرُ اللَّيْلَ عَلَى النَّهَارِ وَيُكَوِّرُ النَّهَارَ عَلَى اللَّيْلِ ۖ وَسَخَّرَ الشَّمْسَ وَالْقَمَرَ ۖ كُلٌّ يَجْرِي لِأَجَلٍ مُّسَمًّى ۗ أَلَا هُوَ الْعَزِيزُ الْغَفَّارُ 39:5
اس نے آسمانوں اور زمین کو حکمت سے پیدا کیا وہ رات کو دن پر لپیٹ دیتا ہے اور دن کو رات پر لپیٹ دیتا ہے اور اس نے سورج اور چاند کو تابع کر دیا ہے ہر ایک وقت مقرر تک چل رہا ہے خبرادار! وہی غالب بخشنے والا ہے
He has created the Heavens and the Earth for Truth. He wraps the night up in the day, and wraps the day up in the night. (Qur'an , 39:5)
In the Qur'an , the words used for describing the universe are quite remarkable. The Arabic word which is translated as "to wrap" in the above verse is "takwir." In English, it means "to make one thing lap over another , folded up as a garment that is laid away." For instance, in Arabic dictionaries this word is used for the action of wrapping one thing around another in the way that a turban is put on. The information given in the verse about the day and the night wrapping each other up includes accurate information about the shape of the world. This can be true only if the Earth is round. This means that in the Qur'an, which was revealed in the 7th century , the roundness of the world was hinted at.
However , it should be remembered that the understanding of astronomy of the time perceived the world differently. It was then thought that the world was a flat plane and all scientific calculations and explanations were based on this belief. However , the Glorious Qur'an has employed the most definitive words when it came to describing the universe. These facts , which we could only correctly fathom in our century , have been in the Qur'an for a vast length of time.
THE EARTH'S DIRECTION OF ROTATION
27:88 وَتَرَى الْجِبَالَ تَحْسَبُهَا جَامِدَةً وَهِيَ تَمُرُّ مَرَّ السَّحَابِ ۚ صُنْعَ اللَّهِ الَّذِي أَتْقَنَ كُلَّ شَيْءٍ ۚ إِنَّهُ خَبِيرٌ بِمَا تَفْعَلُونَ
اور تو جو پہاڑوں کو جمے ہوئے دیکھ رہا ہے یہ تو بادلوں کی طرح اڑتے پھریں گے اس الله کی کاریگری سے جس نے ہر چیز کو مضبوط بنا رکھا ہے اسے خبر ہے جو تم کرتے ہو
You will see the mountains and reckon them to be solid; but they go past like clouds-the handiwork of Allah Who gives to everything its solidity. He is aware of what you do. (Qur'an , 27:88)
The above verse emphasises that the Earth not only rotates but that it also has a direction of rotation. The direction of movement of the main cloud masses at 3 , 500-4 , 000 metres high is always from West to East. That is why it is generally the state of the weather in the West which is looked at in meteorological forecasts.
If only they had believed and had fear [and awareness of Allah]!
A reward from Allah is better , if they only knew.
(Qur’an , 2:103)
Do you not know that Allah is He to Whom the kingdom of the heavens and the earth belongs and that , besides Allah, you have no protector and no helper?
(Qur’an , 2:107)
The main reason why cloud masses are pulled from West to East is the direction in which the Earth rotates. As we now know our Earth spins from West to East. This scientific fact, only recently established by science , was revealed 1, 400 years ago in the Qur’an , at a time when the Earth was believed to be flat, and to be resting on the back of an ox.
THE EARTH'S GEOID SHAPE
79:30 وَالْأَرْضَ بَعْدَ ذَٰلِكَ دَحَاهَا
اور اس کے بعد زمین کو بچھا دیا
After that He smoothed out the earth. (Qur'an , 79:30)
In the above verse , the word "daha" is used in the original Arabic. It, translated as "smoothed out , "comes from the word "dahv ", meaning "to spread." Although the word "dahv" also means to cover or to set out , the meaning of the verb is more than just a prosaic setting out , since it describes setting out in a circle.
The concept of roundness is also present in other words derived from "dahv." For example , the word "dahv" also refers to children dropping a ball into a hole in the ground, games involving throwing stones into holes and games played with walnuts. Words derived from that root are also used for an ostrich making a nest, cleaning stones from where it is about to lie down, the place where it lays its eggs and the egg itself.
Indeed, the Earth is round, in a manner reminiscent of an egg. The slightly flattened spherical shape of the Earth is known as geoid. From that point of view , the use of the word "daha" contains important information about the shape that Allah has given to the Earth. For hundreds of years , people imagined the Earth to be completely flat and only learned the truth thanks to technology. Yet, this fact was revealed in the Qur'an fourteen centuries ago.
THE LAYERS OF THE ATMOSPHERE
One fact about the universe revealed in the verses of the Qur'an is that the sky is made up of seven layers:
41:11 ثُمَّ اسْتَوَىٰ إِلَى السَّمَاءِ وَهِيَ دُخَانٌ فَقَالَ لَهَا وَلِلْأَرْضِ ائْتِيَا طَوْعًا أَوْ كَرْهًا قَالَتَا أَتَيْنَا طَائِعِينَ
41:12 فَقَضَاهُنَّ سَبْعَ سَمَاوَاتٍ فِي يَوْمَيْنِ وَأَوْحَىٰ فِي كُلِّ سَمَاءٍ أَمْرَهَا ۚ وَزَيَّنَّا السَّمَاءَ الدُّنْيَا بِمَصَابِيحَ وَحِفْظًا ۚ ذَٰلِكَ تَقْدِيرُ الْعَزِيزِ الْعَلِيمِ
پھر وہ آسمان کی طرف متوجہ ہوا اور وہ دھؤاں تھا پس اس کو اور زمین کو فرمایا کہ خوشی سے آؤ یا جبر سے دونوں نے کہا ہم خوشی سے آئے ہیں
پھر انہیں دو دن میں سات آسمان بنا دیا اور اس نے ہر ایک آسمان میں اس کا کام القا کیا اور ہم نے پہلے آسمان کو چراغوں سے زینت دی اور حفاظت کے لیے بھی یہ زبردست ہر چیز کے جاننے والے کا اندازہ ہے
It is He Who created everything on the earth for you and then directed His attention up to heaven and arranged it into seven regular heavens. He has knowledge of all things. (Qur'an , 2:29)
Then He turned to heaven when it was smoke. In two days He determined them as seven heavens and revealed, in every heaven, its own mandate. (Qur'an , 41:11-12)
The word "heavens , " which appears in many verses in the Qur'an , is used to refer to the sky above the Earth , as well as the entire universe. Given this meaning of the word, it is seen that the Earth's sky, or the atmosphere, is made up of seven layers.
Today , it is known that the world's atmosphere consists of different layers that lie on top of each other. Based on the criteria of chemical contents or air temperature , the definitions made have determined the atmosphere of the earth as seven layers. According to the "Limited Fine Mesh Model (LFMMII) , "a model of atmosphere used to estimate weather conditions for 48 hours , the atmosphere is also 7 layers. According to the modern geological definitions the seven layers of atmosphere are as follows:
1. Troposphere
2. Stratosphere
3. Mesosphere
4. Thermosphere
5. Exosphere
6. Ionosphere
7. Magnetosphere
The Qur'an says , "[He] revealed , in every heaven , its own mandate , " in Surah Fussilat 12. In other words , Allah is stating that He assigned each heaven its own duty. Truly, as will be seen in following chapters, each one of these layers has vital duties for the benefit of human kind and all other living things on the Earth. Each layer has a particular function, ranging from forming rain to preventing harmful rays, from reflecting radio waves to averting the harmful effects of meteors.
The verses below inform us about the appearance of the seven layers of the atmosphere:
71:15 أَلَمْ تَرَوْا كَيْفَ خَلَقَ اللَّهُ سَبْعَ سَمَاوَاتٍ طِبَاقًا
کیا تم نہیں دیکھتے کہ الله نے سات آسمان اوپر تلے (کیسے) بنائے ہیں
Do you not see how He created seven heavens in layers? (Qur'an , 71:15)
67:3 الَّذِي خَلَقَ سَبْعَ سَمَاوَاتٍ طِبَاقًا ۖ مَّا تَرَىٰ فِي خَلْقِ الرَّحْمَـٰنِ مِن تَفَاوُتٍ ۖ فَارْجِعِ الْبَصَرَ هَلْ تَرَىٰ مِن فُطُورٍ
جس نے سات آسمان اوپر تلے بنائے تو رحمان کی اس صنعت میں کوئی خلل نہ دیکھے گا تو پھر نگاہ دوڑا کیا تجھے کوئی شگاف دکھائی دیتا ہے
He Who created the seven heavens in layers… (Qur'an , 67:3)
The atmosphere only lets rays required for life reach the Earth. For example, ultraviolet rays make it to the world only partially. This is the most appropriate range to allow plants to make photosynthesis and eventually for all living things to survive.
The Arabic word "tibaqan" in these verses , translated into English as "layer" means "layer, the appropriate cover or covering for something, " and thus stresses how the top layer is well suited to the lower. The word is also used in the plural here: "layers." The sky , described in the verse as being in layers, is without doubt the most perfect expression of the atmosphere. It is a great miracle that these facts, which could not possibly be discovered without the technology of the 20th century, were explicitly stated by the Qur'an 1, 400 years ago.
THE LAYERS OF THE EARTH
One item of information about the Earth given in the Qur'an is its similarity to the seven-layered sky:
اللَّهُ الَّذِي خَلَقَ سَبْعَ سَمَاوَاتٍ وَمِنَ الْأَرْضِ مِثْلَهُنَّ يَتَنَزَّلُ الْأَمْرُ بَيْنَهُنَّ لِتَعْلَمُوا أَنَّ اللَّهَ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ قَدِيرٌ وَأَنَّ اللَّهَ قَدْ أَحَاطَ بِكُلِّ شَيْءٍ عِلْمًا 65:12
الله ہی ہے جس نے سات آسمان پیدا کیے اور زمینیں بھی اتنی ہی ان میں حکم نازل ہوا کرتا ہے تاکہ تم جان لو کہ الله ہر چیز پر قادر ہے اور الله نے ہر چیز کو علم سے احاطہ کر رکھا ہے
It is Allah Who created the seven heavens and of the earth the same number, the Command descending down through all of them, so that you might know that Allah has power over all things and that Allah encompasses all things in His knowledge. (Qur'an, 65:12)
The information in the above verse is confirmed in scientific sources, wherein it is explained that the Earth consists of seven strata. These, as scientists have identified, are:
1st layer: Lithosphere (water)
2nd layer: Lithosphere (land)
3rd layer: Asthenosphere
4th layer: Upper Mantle
5th layer: Inner Mantle
6th layer: Outer Core
7th layer: Inner Core
The word lithosphere is derived from the Greek word lithos, meaning stone, which is a hard stratum forming the Earth's top layer. It is quite thin in comparison to the other strata. The lithosphere under the oceans is still thinner, and is a region with volcanic activity. Its average thickness is 80 km. It is colder and harder than the other strata, and therefore, forms the earth's shell.
Below the lithosphere is the stratum known as the asthenosphere, from the Greek word for "weak," asthenes. This layer is thinner than the lithosphere and shifts. It was formed of hot, semi-solid substances capable of melting when exposed to high temperatures and pressure over geological time. It is thought that the hard lithosphere floats or moves over the slowly moving asthenosphere. Under these layers is a high-temperature layer some 2,900 km thick, made up of semi-solid rock known as the mantle. This contains more iron, magnesium and calcium than the crust, and is also hotter and denser, because temperature and density in the Earth increase with depth.
At the centre of the Earth is the core, approximately twice as dense as the mantle. The reason for that density is that it contains a higher proportion of metals (iron-nickel alloy) than rock. The Earth's core consists of two parts. One is the 2,200 km thick liquid outer core, the other a 1,250 km thick solid inner core. The liquid outer core provides the Earth's magnetic field as the planet rotates.
The truth of this similarity between the sky and the layers of the Earth, only identified by 20th century technology, is without doubt another of the Qur'an's scientific miracles.
THE FUNCTION OF MOUNTAINS:
The Qur'an draws attention to a very important geological function of mountains:
21:31 وَجَعَلْنَا فِي الْأَرْضِ رَوَاسِيَ أَن تَمِيدَ بِهِمْ وَجَعَلْنَا فِيهَا فِجَاجًا سُبُلًا لَّعَلَّهُمْ يَهْتَدُونَ
اورہم نے زمین میں بھاری پہاڑ رکھ دیئے تاکہ انہیں لے کر داھر اُدھر نہ جھکنے پائے اور ہم نے اس میں کشادہ راہیں بنا دی ہیں تاکہ وہ راہ پائیں
We placed firmly embedded mountains on the earth, so it would not move under them… (Qur'an, 21:31)
The verse states that mountains perform the function of preventing shocks in the Earth. This fact was not known by anyone at the time the Qur'an was revealed. It was, in fact, brought to light only recently, as a result of the findings of modern geological research.
(Mountains have roots deep under the surface of the ground. (Press and Siever, Earth, 413).
(Schematic section. Mountains, like pegs, have deep roots embedded in the ground. (Andre Cailleux and J. Moody Stuart, Anatomy of the Earth McGraw-Hill Companies: 1968), 220.)
(Another illustration shows how mountains are peg-like in shape, due to their deep roots. (Edward J. Tarbuck and Frederick K. Lutgens, Earth Science)
Formerly, it was thought that mountains were merely protrusions rising above the surface of the Earth. However, scientists realised that this was not actually the case, and that those parts known as the mountain root extended down as far as 10-15 times their own height. With these features, mountains play a similar role to a nail or peg firmly holding down a tent. For example, Mount Everest, the summit of which stands approximately 9 km above the surface of the Earth, has a root deeper than 125 km.
Mountains emerge as a result of the movements and collisions of massive plates forming the Earth's crust. When two plates collide, the stronger one slides under the other, the one on the top bends and forms heights and mountains. The layer beneath proceeds under the ground and makes a deep extension downward. Consequently, as stated earlier, mountains have a portion stretching downwards, as large as their visible parts on the Earth.
In a scientific text, the structure of mountains is described as follows:
Where continents are thicker, as in mountain ranges, the crust sinks deeper into the mantle.
Professor Siaveda, a world-renowned underwater geologist, made the following comment in reference to the way that mountains have root-like stalks attaching them to the surface:
The fundamental difference between continental mountains and the oceanic mountains lies in its material... But the common denominator on both mountains are that they have roots to support the mountains. In the case of continental mountains, light-low density material from the mountain is extended down into the earth as a root. In the case of oceanic mountains, there is also light material supporting the mountain as a root... Therefore, the function of the roots are to support the mountains according to the law of Archimedes.
Furthermore, a book titled Earth, by Dr. Frank Press, former president of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, which is still used as a text book in a great many universities, states that mountains are like stakes, and are buried deep under the surface of the Earth.
In other verses, this role of the mountains is pointed out by a comparison with "pegs":
78:6 أَلَمْ نَجْعَلِ الْأَرْضَ مِهَادًا
78:7 وَالْجِبَالَ أَوْتَادًا
کیا ہم نے زمین کو فرش نہیں بنایا
اور پہاڑوں کو میخیں
Have We not made the earth as a bed and the mountains its pegs? (Qur'an, 78:6-7)
In another verse it is revealed that Allah "made the mountains firm." (Qur'an, 79:32)
The word "arsaha" in this verse means "was made rooted, was fixed, was nailed to the earth." Similarly, mountains extend to the surface layer joining lines on and below the surface, and nail these together. By fixing the Earth's crust they prevent any sliding over the magma layer or amongst the layers themselves. In short, mountains can be compared to nails holding strips of wood together. The fixing effect of mountains is known as isostasy in scientific literature. Isostasy is the state of equilibrium between the upward force created by the mantle layer and the downward force created by the Earth's crust. As mountains lose mass due to erosion, soil loss or melting of glaciers, they can gain mass from the formation of glaciers, volcanic explosions or soil formation. Therefore, as mountains grow lighter they are pressed upwards by the raising force implemented by the liquids. Alternatively, as they grow heavier they are pressed into the mantle by the force of gravity. Equilibrium between these two forces is established by isostasy. This balancing property of mountains is described in these terms in a scientific source:
G.B Airy in 1855 suggested that the crust of the earth could be likened to rafts of timber floating on water. Thick pieces of timber float higher above the water surface than thin pieces and similarly thick sections of the earth's crust will float on a liquid or plastic substratum of greater density. Airy was suggesting that mountains have a deep root of lower density rock which the plains lack. Four years after Airy published his work, J.H Pratt offered an alternative hypothesis... By this hypothesis rock columns below mountains must have a lower density, because of their greater length, than shorter rock columns beneath plains. Both Airy and Pratt's hypothesis imply that surface irregularities are balanced by differences in density of rocks below the major features (mountains and plains) of the crust. This state of BALANCE is described as the concept of ISOSTASY.
Today, we know that the rocky external layer of the Earth's surface is riven by deep faults and split into plates swimming above the molten lava. Since the Earth revolves very quickly around its own axis, were it not for the fixing effect of the mountains, these plaques would shift. In such an event, soil would not collect on the Earth's surface, water would not accumulate in the soil, no plants could grow, and no roads or houses could be built. In short, life on Earth would be impossible. Through the mercy of Allah, however, mountains act like nails, and to a large extent, prevent movement in the Earth's surface.
We subjected the mountains to glorify [Allah] with him in the evening and at sunrise.
(Qur’an, 38:18)
He cast firmly embedded mountains on the earth so it would not move under you, and rivers and pathways so that hopefully you would be guided.
(Qur’an, 16:15)
This vital role of mountains, which has been discovered by modern geological and seismic research, was revealed in the Qur'an centuries ago as an example of the supreme wisdom in Allah's creation.
خَلَقَ السَّمَاوَاتِ بِغَيْرِ عَمَدٍ تَرَوْنَهَا ۖ وَأَلْقَىٰ فِي الْأَرْضِ رَوَاسِيَ أَن تَمِيدَ بِكُمْ وَبَثَّ فِيهَا مِن كُلِّ دَابَّةٍ ۚ وَأَنزَلْنَا مِنَ السَّمَاءِ مَاءً فَأَنبَتْنَا فِيهَا مِن كُلِّ زَوْجٍ كَرِيمٍ31:10
آسمانوں کو بے ستون بنایا تم انہیں دیکھ رہے ہو اور زمین میں مضبوط پہاڑ رکھ دیے تاکہ تمہیں لے کر ادھر ادھر نہ جھکے اور اس میں ہر قسم کے جانور پھیلا دیے اور ہم نے آسمان سے مینہ برسایا پھر ہم نے زمین میں ہر قسم کی عمدہ چیزیں اگائیں
… [He] cast firmly embedded mountains on the earth so that it would not move under you… (Qur'an, 31:10)
PART III
ANOUSHEH ANSARI: FIRST MUSLIM WOMAN IN SPACE:
America.gov. Sept 2006
Washington – When Iranian-born American Anousheh Ansari blasted into space from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on September 18 aboard a Soyuz spacecraft, she accomplished more than fulfilling a childhood dream: She made the history books. Ansari, who is on an eight-day visit to the International Space Station (ISS), became the first Muslim woman and first Iranian in space as well as the first private female space tourist. The launch was six days after her 40th birthday.
According to Wikipedia:
Anousheh Ansari (Persian: انوشه انصاری, born September 12, 1966 in Mashhad, Iran) is an engineer and the Iranian-American co-founder and chairman of Prodea Systems, Inc and a spaceflight participant with the Russian space program. Her previous business accomplishments include serving as co-founder and CEO of Telecom Technologies, Inc. (TTI). The Ansari family is also the title sponsor of the Ansari X Prize. On September 18, 2006, a few days after her 40th birthday, she became the first Iranian in space. Ansari is the fourth overall self-funded space tourist, and the first self-funded woman to fly to the International Space Station. Her memoir, My Dream of Stars, co-written with Homer Hickam, was published by Palgrave-McMillan in 2010.
THE END
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