The point of departure of our odyssey

God says in the Holy Quran:
"Do
not these disbelievers see that the heavens and the earth were an
integrated mass, which We then split, and from water We made all living
things? Will they not believe even then?"
The Prophets 21:30

We
deduce from the contents of this verse that it admonishes the
unbelievers for ignoring the apparent miracles. The atheists’ basic
contention is that matter has no beginning and that it is the matter
that has generated everything, both living and inanimate things, by
fortuitous act. The Big Bang theory refutes the basic assertion of
atheism in positing that the universe and time had a beginning. “Do not
these disbelievers see that...?” is significant. And as it is implied by
this verse, the fact that the heavens and the earth were in a state of
unity before they were rent asunder was something indeed conceivable by
the human mind. The 1900s were the years during which scientific
discoveries succeeded each other. Those were the years in which some
people tried to point out the contradiction between science and
religion. It was presumptuous of them as their whims had been indulged
by the prosperity generated by the industrial revolution to idolize
matter, daring to substitute it for God. The fact that matter was
created - that it had had beginning - as proven by the Big Bang theory,
was a blow for unbelievers. The concluding sentence of the verse “Will
they not believe even then?” is significant in that history confirmed
the truth of this and the unbelievers remained adamant despite evidence
produced.

Nevertheless, the
arguments of this verse refute the unbelievers’ thesis of eternal matter
and compel them to believe. This truth that was to be taken for a fact
1300 years after the revelation of the Quran was another warning for
unbelievers. In history, there has been no one, other than the God
through Quran, who claimed that the universe had been expanding and that
the heavens and the earth had been split asunder. Ancient Greece, the
Middle Ages, the Modern Age, Plato, Thales - all those who had attempted
to explain natural phenomena in natural terms - Ptolemy, Copernicus,
Kepler and Kant, none of humanity’s great minds, had had an inkling of
an expanding universe and of the fact that before creation the heavens
and the earth had been an indivisible whole. Without the sophisticated
equipment of the twentieth century at their disposal, and devoid of all
accumulated scientific data, all of these celebrated philosophers and
physicists had failed to take cognizance of this fact. The Creator of
the universe communicated such important facts about His creation in His
book and shed light on the celestial bodies, also proving thereby that
the Quran had been His revelation. God unfolded to man the evidences of
His creation, the creation that had originated from a single point in
which man stood as another point. It is significant to note that while
pointing at the comprehensibility of this revelation in the verse, “Do
not these disbelievers see...?” He prefigures the stubbornness of
unbelievers: “Will they not believe even then?” Einstein himself said
that what astounded him was the comprehensibility of his discoveries
about the universe, rather than the discoveries themselves. This shows
how significant it was to stress the fact that these phenomena were in
fact within the reach of man’s mental capacity.

COSMIC BACKGROUND RADIATION
The
original unity of the universe is expressed by the Arabic word “ratq,”
meaning the integrated state and the word “fatq,” signifying
disintegration by separation. I have already mentioned that when
Lemaître had posited this separation as described in the Quranic verse,
his theory was first refuted. One of the contenders of this argument was
Fred Hoyle. In the 1940s Fred Hoyle contended that if the Big Bang had
effectively taken place there should have been a residue of the
explosion, and asked that this fossil be shown. This satirical criticism
led to the discovery of much evidence in support of the Big Bang
theory. The expression “fossil” which was mockingly uttered by Hoyle
became the scientific word for real evidence discovered later. While he
was trying to debunk the theory of the Big Bang in a humorous way, he
had unwittingly contributed to the confirmation of the Big Bang theory.

In
1948, George Gamow and his student Ralph Adler concluded that if the
Big Bang theory were true, it must have had a fossil left behind as
Hoyle had claimed. According to their logic, the low-level background
radiation must have existed in every direction since the universe had
begun expanding in every direction following the Big Bang. Radiation
other than that caused by the Big Bang must have had particular points
in space from which it departed. But the radiation generated by such an
explosion could not be traced back to a point. With the universe’s
dynamic expansion radiation must have scattered in every direction. In
the 1960s, the form of radiation imagined by Gamow and Adler was made
the subject of research by a group of scientists with precision
instruments at their disposal at Princeton University. However, what
they had been looking for was to be discovered by others in a very
interesting way. Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson were researchers at the
Bell Telephone Company. One day, quite unexpectedly, they detected a
uniform microwave radiation that suggested a residual thermal energy
throughout the universe of about 3 Kelvin, which is a temperature of 3
degree Celsius above absolute 0. At first Penzias and Wilson could not
unravel the mystery and had to call their colleagues Robert Dicke and
his team. When he hung up, Dicke understood that he had lost the cause
as he took cognizance of the fact that the discovery that was to bring
the Nobel Prize award had been the lot of others. Surveys of the cosmic
3-Kelvin radiation indicated that it was perfectly uniform in all
directions. The residue that Hoyle believed nonexistent had been found.
So the Nobel Prize went to Penzias and Wilson.

SATELLITE IN SUPPORT OF BIG BANG
After
Penzias and Wilson shared the Nobel Prize in 1965, the Cosmic
Background Explorer (COBE), was rocketed into the sky in 1989. The data
received from COBE confirmed the discovery of Penzias and Wilson. A
great number of scientists evaluated the data produced by COBE as
conclusive proof. Thus the process initiated by Lemaître in the 1920s
was substantiated once again with new discoveries in the 1990s. 1400
years had elapsed since the revelation of the Quran and the satellite’s
findings validated its statements. Supposing that we landed on a desert
island and stumbled upon ashes: no one would doubt the fact that there
had once been a fire on this island. The residue radiation that Penzias
and Wilson ran across, and the COBE’s data, indicated the existence of
the Big Bang. The contention by dissenters that the radiation scattered
all over space had to be perfectly uniform in all directions is another
indicator of the soundness of this evidence.

One
of the proofs substantiating the Big Bang theory is related to the
hydrogen-helium ratio in the universe. In the 1930s, astronomers, basing
their studies on the fact that every celestial object emits a
particular light, had recourse to a spectroscope to analyze the
composition of the stars and galaxies. Calculations made by means of the
spectroscope and mathematical formulas demonstrated that the universe,
at its initial stage, comprised an average of 73% hydrogen and 25%
helium and 2% other gases like carbon and oxygen. Stars did not generate
hydrogen and that much helium. Calculations made by scientists made it
clear that 20%-30% of the helium must have been produced before the
evolution of stars. Only the primordial fireball at the outset of the
Big Bang could have generated such a light synthesis; the expectations
in the wake of the Big Bang and the quantity of hydrogen and helium in
space are just a few of the proofs validating the theory.

Although
the available scientific evidence is in itself sufficient to prove the
Big Bang theory, we are witnessing a steady increase of this evidence. A
Big Bang medium was created in Switzerland at CERN (Conseil Européen
pour la Recherche Nucléaire), the famous center that has the most
powerful and versatile facilities of their kind in the world. The
findings of the research carried out here lends further support to the
theory.

The law of
thermodynamics supports the theory according to which the universe must
have had a beginning; the second law of thermodynamics states that some
processes in nature are irreversible and unidirectional, the direction
being dictated by an overall increase in entropy. Thus, the energy grows
less and less utilizable until it becomes of no profit. If the universe
and matter had existed from eternity, the movement would have come to a
standstill in eternal time. On the other hand, eternity does not pass;
if it does, then it is no longer an eternity. In brief, the very fact
that we happen to be at this point connotes the existence of a
beginning. If we think that time was not created, the contradiction is
inevitable and ends up with a dilemma. The only solution to the dilemma
would be positing that time was created and that the universe must have
had a beginning; these, as proved by the Big Bang Theory, are mutually
validating evidences.

COULD MUHAMMAD HAVE SENT A SATELLITE
We
have witnessed the verification of data received from the satellites
sent into space. How did it happen that the Prophet had an insight into
the fact that the earth and the heavens were an integrated mass before
they were split? We asked whether the Prophet could have had a telescope
concealed under the sand dunes, a telescope as sophisticated as the
Hubble telescope? Are the unbelievers going to claim now that Muhammad
discovered the primeval unity of the heavens and the earth by having
recourse to calculations of the cosmic background radiation, and that he
had sent his satellite long before the launch of COBE, 1400 years ago?
Penzias and Wilson shared the Nobel Prize for the discovery. Would the
unbelievers nominate Muhammad for the Nobel Prize for physics for having
announced 1400 years ago that the universe had once been a whole before
space began expanding?

It is
evident that anyone who contended that the Quran had not been sent by
God, but was the work of the Prophet, would necessarily become an object
of ridicule. However, those resolved to remain unbelievers would insist
on their convictions regardless of all evidence being brought forth. So
had it been with Abraham and Moses and Christ and so was it with
Muhammad. The psychology of unbelievers has never changed throughout
history.

Those who opposed Moses declared that they would adhere to their own conviction, no matter what signs Moses would produce.

“No matter what kind of sign you show us, to bewitch us, we will not believe in you.”
The Purgatory 7:132

BIG BANG : SIGN OF GOD’S UNITY
Polytheistic
beliefs have exhibited structures that differ according to the
communities and times in which they have evolved. The polytheistic
beliefs in ancient Egypt differ greatly from the polytheism of India.
However, these systems have something in common. Every god has his
apportioned domain where he exerts his sovereignty. The sun is a god, so
is the moon, and the divinity whose sanctuary is the hills is another
such being. Some of these control the rains, others the winds; some have
control over the mountains, some over the rivers...In opposition to
belief-systems that parcel out the universe, the monotheistic religions,
namely Judaism, Christianity and Islam, saw the universe as a whole.
These religions professed that severance and sundering could not be
imagined in a universe created by one God. According to these religions
what seems to be divided is but in appearance only, while the essence of
the universe is one whole; the universe ruled over by God is one
entity, with every one of its points being interrelated with all the
other points.

Famous
philosophers of the past, from Kindî, Farabi, Averroes and Avicenna to
Christian scholars, had announced that “One comes out of one,” positing
thus the unity of God. These thinkers had tried to find a correlation
between the occurrences in the universe whose logical conclusion would
be the unity of God. In the aftermath of the Big Bang, this unity was
once again proven. The origin of the universe was irrefutably one single
composition. Considering that everything evolved out of this single
entity, all elements should be in correlation with each other. No one
could henceforth declare that the sun, the moon, man, the serpent or a
plant had its respective creators. Unity lay beneath everything, and the
Creator of this unity was also the Creator of the sun, the moon, the
beasts and the plants that emerged from this unity. Even before the Big
Bang theory, the irrationality of the idea that attributed different
creators to different objects was evident. However, the Big-Bang proved
with new evidence that God is One.

1- Say: He, God, is One.
2- God is He on Whom all depend.
3- He begets not, nor is He begotten;
4- And none equals Him.
Absoluteness 112:1-4



References:

- The Holy Quran - Revelation of Allah - Jehovah God
- www.qurancomplex.com King Fahd Complex for the Printing of the Glorious Quran
- Quranwonders.com - Quranic research group
- The Quran: Unchallengeable Miracle by Caner Taslaman
- Wikipedia - The free encyclopedia