Cosmology And The Koran. Geocentric?

USResident · October 22, 2009, 1:16am

Al-Nahar should mean daylight because the context in verse 37 talks about darkness when al-nahar is removed. It is the analogy of removing guidance from the disbelievers so they are made spiritually blind … one needs light to see … not the sun.

Manazil - plural of manzil = ranks, stages or phases - as you say most likely phases of the lunar cycle.

Tudrik = overtake
Saabiq = outstrip

The fact there is always a set number of days in each lunar cycle means that this is a sign … there is always 29 or 30 days and this will never change. The days in a solar year do change that is why adjustments are required every 4 years then every 400 years. However, not so with the lunar phases.

We can conclude at least that the night/day combo is Saabiq and the Sun/Moon combo is Tudrik which means the words should not really be translated as equivalent.

Totally agree with the contention with the term “orbit”

Wa Qullun Fi FALAK inyasbahoon

And All are in a floating cycle

Falak = cycle “orbit”
yasbahoon = floating

Compare with Surah An-Naziat:

Was Sabihati sabha, Fassabiqaati sabqan …

And those who swim swiftly along and those who press forward

Interesting how outstrip is also used for accelerating or pressing forward and how sabha seems to take the meaning - suspended/floating/swimming.

Compare with the next verses in Surah Yasin and we have a boat on the water … is that like the Earth in solar gravitation field?

The questions are amazing … so imagine how amazing the answers will be !!!

I feel star dazed …

Actually FA LAAM KAAF, in its root meaning is also used for the waves of the ocean precisely how it is used in the following verse 36:41.

Saabiq = SEEN BAA QAAF
Outstrip or precede or before or hasten or win … all meanings relative to the case where one attempts to precede another for winning or any other cause.

So its more like the night cannot beat the day to its ordained time. Either one has its ORBIT (we haven’t yet concluded to what meaning this carries), so there really is no competition between the two where one outstrips the other. They progress along their orbits according to their ordained times.

Will get to TUDRIK after some research. Though one thing of interest is that there is a hadith in Bukhari about verse 36:38 in the Book of Tafsir. Why don’t you read it and see what you understand from it. It has me equally confused.