By: Dr. / Zaghloul El-Naggar

A- The Expanding nature of the Universe as indicated in the Glorious Qur’an: The Qur’an reads “With power did We construct the heaven. Verily, We are Able to extend the vastness of space thereof. ”
(Surat Adh-Dhariyat (The Winds that Scatter):49).

B-
The Big Bang, or the initial singularity of our cosmos as indicated in the Glorious Qur’an: In the Glorious Qur’an we read: “Have not those who disbelieve known that the heavens and the earth were joined together as one united piece, then We parted them? And We have made from water every living thing. Will they not then believe?" (Surat Al-Anbiya' (The Prophets):30).

Early commentators saw in this verse a reflection on the unity of creation as a dominating factor in the orderly, wonderful universe, throughout its evolutionary history from one stage to another, which is true. However, long before discovering the established phenomenon of the red shift, and its logical consequence of describing our universe as an expanding one, scientists used Einstein’s theory of general relativity to extrapolate back in time and came to the striking conclusion that the universe had actually emerged from a single, unbelievably small, dense, hot region ( the hot Big Bang model of the universe). The model was formally proposed by George Gamow in 1948, after a lengthy discussion on other models of the universe by a number of workers ( e.g. Albert Einstein, 1917; William de Sitter, 1917; Alexander Friedmann, 1922; George Lemaire, 1927, etc.). Lemaitre is credited for introducing the idea of the “Primeval atom”, where galaxies originated as fragments, ejected by the explosion of this atom. In 1948, George Gamow modified Lemaitre hypothesis into the “Big Bang Theory” of the origin of the universe. In this theory, Gamow proposed that the universe was created in a gigantic explosion whereby the various elements observed today were produced within the first few minutes after the Big Bang, as the extremely high temperature and density of the universe would fuse subatomic particles into the chemical elements. More recent calculations indicate that hydrogen and helium were the primary products of the Big Bang, with heavier elements being produced later within stars. The extremely high density within the “primeval atom~ would cause the universe to expand rapidly. As it expanded, the smoky cloud of hydrogen and helium thus formed would cool and condense into stars, galaxies, clusters, super clusters, black holes, etc. This explains the original singularity of the universe, its explosion, then expansion, as well as the physical basis of Hubble’s law. As the universe expanded, the residual radiation (radiant heat) from the Big Bang continued to spread outwardly and to cool down gradually until about the 3K ( = - 2700 C) of today. This relic radiation was detected by radio astronomy in 1964, thus providing a direct material evidence for model. Further evidence in support for this model is provided by the chemical composition of the observed universe. This amounts to about 74% hydrogen and 24 * helium (by mass), with only traces of other elements that in total amount to about 2%. All the recorded hydrogen in the observed universe and almost all the recorded helium are primordial, although some helium is currently produced by the process of nuclear fusion within all the stars since the beginning of creation amounts to only a small percent. It is calculated that when the universe was 3 minutes old, its temperature must have been 109 0C. At such high temperature hydrogen was subject to nuclear fusion, leading to the formation of helium. Theoretical calculations show that the fusion reactions led to an abundance of about 75% hydrogen and 25% helium, which is a remarkable agreement with the observed abundance. This further confirms the hot, Big Bang model for the creation of the universe. The hot Big Bang model has steadily and successfully battled other explanations for the origin of the universe, and the model has been gradually refined with time. The “hot Big Bang model for the origin of the universe envisages a beginning from an extremely small, hot, dense initial state some 10 -15 billion years ago. This initial, minute body exploded, and started to expand, forming the still expanding, vast, cold universe of today. The model predicts the formation of nuclei, the relative abundances of certain elements, and the existence and exact temperature of the cosmic microwave, background radiation (or the glow of radiation left over from the initial explosion, which is currently permeating the universe). The prediction of the cosmic background radiation, made by Ralph A. Alpher of Union College and Robert Herman of the University of Texas at Austin, was confirmed by Arno Penzias and Robert W. Wilson of Bell Laboratories in 1964.. Despite its success, the hot Big Bang model leaves many features of the universe unexplained. For example, the universe today includes a vast number of regions that could never have been in causal contact at any stage in their entire history. These regions are moving away from one another at such a rate that any information, even traveling at the speed of light, could not cover the distance between them. This “horizon problem” makes it difficult to account for the striking uniformity of the cosmic background radiation. Other unexplained features in the hot Big Bang model include the “flatness problem”, the origin of large scale structures such as galaxies, galactic clusters and super clusters, etc. In 1980, Alan H. Guth of M.I.T. suggested a further refinement of the Big Bang model which he called “the inflationary universe scenario. In this scenario, the universe is believed to have started with a very brief, but exceedingly rapid period of expansion (for about 10-30 second), matter consisted of scalar-field particles (while in the hot, Big Bang model, the matter content of the universe is presumed to have been a uniformly distributed plasma or dust). As mentioned by J.J. Halliwell (1991), the origin of the universe in the inflationary scenario can be explained as follows: by following the expansion of the universe backward in time, the size of this vast, complex universe tends to zero. Here the strength of the gravitational field and the energy density of matter tend to infinity. This means that the universe appears to have emerged from a singularity; a region of infinite curvature and energy density at which the known laws of physics break down. These conditions are a consequence of the famous U singularity theorems”, proved in 1960 by Stephen W. Hawking and Roger Penrose of the University of Oxford . These theorems showed that under reasonable assumptions any model of the expanding universe extrapolated backward in time will encounter an initial singularity. The singularity theorems do not imply, however, that a singularity will physically occur. Rather, the theory predicting them - classical general relativity - breaks down at very high curvatures and must be superseded by the quantum theory. Near a singularity, space - time becomes highly curved; its volume shrinks to very small dimensions, and here only the quantum theory can be applied. Quantum cosmologists began a few decades ago (since the 1960s) to address the problems of the origin and evolution of the universe in a more subtle way than classical astronomy. Quantum cosmology attempts to describe a system -fundamentally - in terms of its wave function. Yet, many conceptual and technical difficulties arise. At the singularity, space becomes infinitely small, and the energy density infinitely great. To look beyond such a moment, requires a complete, quantum theory of gravity, which is currently lacking. Whether to accept the hot Big Bang model of the universe, or its modified inflationary scenario explanations on the basis of conventional or quantum astronomy, the established fact is that our universe emerged from a single, infinitesimally small, dense, hot source. To agree or differ on the events that unfolded since that moment, including the formation of matter, followed by its coalescence into galaxies, stars, planets and chemical systems, does not change the fact of the one singularity from which our universe was created. The Qur’anic precedence with this fact at time when nobody had the slightest knowledge of it or even for several centuries after the revelation was received is indeed most striking. The objective notion to this Qur’anic verse in the right context of a science course can indeed be spirit lifting and enlightening for the younger Muslim generations of students and faculty.
C- The Big Crunch, or the destruction and annihilation of our cosmos in the Glorious Qur’an: Commenting on the process of destruction, annihilation and recreation of the universe, the Illustrious Qur’an reads: “And (remember) the Day when We shall roll up the heavens like a scroll rolled up for books, as We began the first creation, We shall repeat it, (it is) a promise binding upon Us. Truly, We shall do it.” (Surat Al-Anbiya (The Prophets):104).

"Then He rose over (Istawa) towards the heaven when it was smoke, and said to it and to the earth: "Come both of you willingly or unwillingly." They both said: "We come willingly." (Surat Fussilat (They are explained in detail):11);
"With power did We construct the heaven. Verily, We are Able to extend the vastness of space thereof." (Surat Adh-Dhariyat (The Winds that Scatter):47) ;
"And (remember) the Day when We shall roll up the heavens like a scroll rolled up for books, as We began the first creation, We shall repeat it, (it is) a promise binding upon Us. Truly, We shall do it." (Surat Al-Anbiya (The Prophets):104) and "On the Day when the earth will be changed to another earth and so will be the heavens, and they (all creatures) will appear before Allah, the One, the Irresistible." (Surat Ibrahim (Abraham):48). In any Islamic science curriculum such Qur’anic verses cannot be overlooked. These represent the word of The Creator, in an area (of origin, annihilation and recreation of the universe) which does not fall within the direct observation of man. As man’s knowledge in that area cannot exceed the limit of theorization, these 5 Qur’anic verses come to us as a guiding light for choosing between heaps of human ideas, that can do no more than confusing the human intellect.
0 التعليقات:
إرسال تعليق