Re: Question from Muslims who believe
that
a. Quran is the word of Allah
b. There are no contradictions in it.
In Quran, there are many places where it is mentioned that Allah created universe (earth, sky, etc) in six days. Then there are places which refers to 'Kun fa yakoon' meaning when God wants to create something, He just utter 'Kun - be' and it comes into existence (fa yakoon).
What is the reason behind mentioning two different things. I appreciate a response in beautiful words, which enhance understanding and love for Allah.
It is good that you asked because there are lot of confusion amongst people regarding some phrases in Quran that could become clear from answering your question. Anyhow, it is unfortunate that sometime such question can open Pandora box and even though there are answers to most (if not all) questions, time and commitment restrains comes in way, and certainly not all could get satisfied with answers ( as answers may satisfy people of one understanding and may not satisfy people of another understanding).
Anyhow, let me give you answer according to my understanding ... at least this answer satisfy my understanding of Islam.:).
One should remember that Quran is communication of Allah for people. In communication, one uses words, phrases and concept what other can understand, and that is what Allah did in his communication with people (Quran), in the language of humans.
In human communications, most words, phrases and concepts has own meaning (metaphorical meaning) as well as literal meaning … and unfortunately, where Allah used metaphorical phrase in Quran Shaitan made some people to take it as literal and where Allah has used in Quran something literal Shaitan made some people take it as phrase (or metaphorical) … and in both cases these confused (or misguided) people do not use intelligence that Allah gave them to differentiate. All this has not only changed Islam but has created lot of mayhem (that I would not like to go into here).
Coming to your question: Kun-fa-yea-koon and mention of 6 days … in one sentence.
‘Kun-fa-yea-koon’ is literal … and … 6 days is metaphorical.
Obviously, days and nights only exists due to movement of heavenly bodies (planets and stars) and those who know that such is true, would know that days and night could not have existed when planets were yet to get created.
Secondly: for Allah, there is no such thing as days or nights … or even divisions in time, that days or night … or days consisting of x number of hours would exist.
Third … days and nights is material concept for material world that Allah created and it has nothing to do with spiritual world.
Allah has already mentioned (and that is obvious too to those with some understanding) that Allah only needs to say (or think … or desire) for anything to happen and that happens. That mean whatever Allah desired … including creation of this universe, it happened instantly … no time required.
Anyhow, 6 days even in metaphorical form means time … a length of time. So, when Allah used phrase ‘6 days’ in Quran, what Allah meant?
Here, Allah is addressing people and for people, time is most important thing. Whatever we see around us is related with time. Anyhow, concept of time is two.
One: Time is constant and human is moving in time.
Two: Time is advancing and human are advancing with time.
Belief in some scientific circle: World time is in spiral form (concept one above), and that is, even though all what is happening is already there (time is constant), for human, humans are moving forward in that constant time (not moving with advancing time). And it is this concept that has created concept of time machine and star-trek (space ship voyager) travelling in space as well as time … and so on.
Allah created universe instantly … with all its time variations, events, and everything … from start to finish (spiral time belief) … so ‘kun-fa-yea-koon’ is literal.
On the other hand, we human see time as advancing and humans are advancing with time and that everything that is happening takes time. So, in metaphorical form Allah mentioned 6 days.
You might ask why 6 days?
Again it is for human understanding and related to time scale Allah has created for humans (7 days a week) and in this phrase (6 days) a concept Allah gave to human regarding how human should spend time ... or '6 days' Allah mentions determines work and rest time ratio for human. With 6 days, a message is given to human that for human, in one week (that is also time phrase created by Allah for humans, that we follow), work time is 6 days and rest time is one day.
