History of Science and Islam

We have so far explained Allah's creation of living things. Now, it is time to examine the universe at large. Allah also created the universe in which you, the earth, the sun, the solar system, planets, stars, galaxies and everything else exists.

However, as well as those who oppose the fact of the creation of living things, there are also some people who deny the fact that the universe was created. These people assert that the universe came into existence spontaneously. Moreover, they suggest that it has always existed. Yet, they never offer an explanation for this irrational claim. Their claim is similar to the following example: Imagine that you set sail one day and reached the shores of an island. What would you think if you came across a highly developed city with skyscrapers, surrounded by beautiful parks and greenery? Furthermore, this city was full of theatres, restaurants and railroad lines.


The universe in which we live is incomparably bigger than the city we saw on the previous page. It also has more glorious structures than this city.
In this case, could we say that a flawless universe was not created and that it came into existence spontaneously? Such a claim would doubtless sound very odd. It is our Lord Who created the flawless order in the design of the universe.
You would certainly think that this city had been planned and constructed by intelligent people, would you not? What would you think about someone who says, "Nobody built this city. It has always existed, and at some time in the past we came and inhabited it. Here, we have all our necessities, and they all come into existence spontaneously"?

You would doubtless think him insane, or else you would think that he has no idea what he is talking about. But never forget that the universe in which we live is incomparably larger than that city. The universe contains an almost uncountable number of planets, stars, comets and satellites of various sorts. That being the case, the claims of a person who says that this flawless universe was not created but has always existed must not remain unanswered. Do you not agree?

After reading the section below, you yourself will be able to provide the best answer. Now, let's expand on the subject of the universe and save the answer to the end.

Everything Started to Form In a Big Explosion


Just as the small spots drawn on a balloon move away from one another as the balloon expands, so celestial bodies move away from one another with the effect of the Big Bang.

If you think of the expansion of the universe as a film, if you rewound the images back to the beginning you would see that initially there was a single point.
During the times when people did not have telescopes to make observations of the heavens, they had very little, and very unreliable, information about the remote universe, and they had very different ideas about it. With advances in technology, they attained accurate information about outer space. In the mid-twentieth century, they discovered something very important. The universe has a date of birth, which means that the universe has not always existed. The universe-in other words, the stars, planets and galaxies-started to form at a specific date. Scientists calculated the age of the universe to be 15 billion years.

They named the moment the universe was born the "Big Bang," because 15 billion years ago, when nothing existed, everything suddenly emerged with an explosion from a single point. In brief, matter and the universe, which people assumed to have always existed, had a beginning. At this point, the question arises, "How did they come to understand that it had a beginning?" That was quite easy; The matter that scattered and sped away from other particles of matter with the big explosion is still moving away. Think for a moment! The universe is continuing to expand even at this moment. Imagine the universe as a balloon. If we draw two small spots on this balloon, what happens when you blow it up? The spots on the balloon move away from one another as the balloon expands and its volume increases. As in the case of the balloon, the volume of the universe is also increasing, and everything within it is racing away from everything else. In other words, the distance between the stars, galaxies, stars and meteors is continually increasing.

Imagine that you are watching the expansion of the universe in a cartoon film. How would the universe look if we rewound the film back to the beginning? It would reduce down to a single point, would it not? That is exactly what scientists did. They returned to the beginning of the Big Bang and realised that the ever-expanding universe had initially been a single point.

This explosion, called the Big Bang, became the initial point of the existence Allah had predetermined for the "universe." With this explosion, Allah created the particles that made up the universe, and thus matter emerged. It scattered around at tremendous speed. During the initial moments of the explosion, this environment was almost like a soup of matter made up of different particles. But in time this great chaos started to transform into an ordered structure. Allah created atoms from the particles, and eventually stars from the atoms. Allah created the entire universe and everything in it.

Let's give an example to clarify all this:


The paints in a bowl scatter around as the result of an explosion. Could the paint droplets randomly scattered around spontaneously come together and form the picture we see in outer space? The spontaneous formation of this picture is definitely impossible. Advocating the theory that the universe came into existence by accident is more irrational than suggesting the spontaneous formation of the picture.
Think of a huge space. It is utterly unlimited. There is only a bowl full of paint in it. Nothing else exists. In the bowl, all sorts of paints are mixed up, forming unusual colours. Imagine that a bomb explodes in this bowl, under the effect of which the paints scatter everywhere in the form of tiny specks. Imagine that millions of paint specks move in all directions in this space. Meanwhile, during this voyage of the small specks, unusual things start to happen. Instead of forming a chaotic mess and ultimately disappearing, they start interacting as if they were intelligent beings. The droplets that initially formed a coloured mixture start to sort themselves into their individual colours. Blues, yellows, reds, and all droplets of the same colour groups collect together and continue to move away. Yet even more unusual things continue to happen: Five hundred blue droplets join together and, in the form of a bigger drop, continue their journey. Meanwhile, three hundred red droplets in one corner and two hundred yellow droplets in another merge and keep scattering around together. These separate groups of colours move away from one another and form beautiful images, as if acting upon someone's orders.

Some droplets come together and form images of stars, others become the picture of a sun, and some others form the planets around this sun. Another group of drops form the image of the Earth, while another forms the moon. If you ever saw such a picture, would you think that an explosion in a bowl of paint had accidentally formed this picture? Nobody would think that possible.


The perfect order in our bodies is a product of Allah's flawless creation.
As the story of the paint drops shows, matter came together and formed the perfect picture we see when we look up in the sky, in other words, stars, the sun and planets. But could all these things have happened by themselves?

How could the stars in the sky, the planets, the sun, moon, and earth ever have come into existence as a result of atoms falling together by chance after an explosion? How about your mother, father, friends or birds, cats, bananas or strawberries…? Of course, this is most unlikely to have happened. Such an idea is as nonsensical as claiming that a house was not built by workers, but came into being by the free will of tiles and bricks, and by pure chance. We all know that bricks scattered around by a bomb explosion do not form little huts. They are reduced into stone and soil and, in time, mix back into the earth.

But one point deserves particular attention. As you know, paint drops are unconscious and inanimate matter. It is impossible that drops of paint could spontaneously come together and form pictures. Here, however, we are talking about the formation of conscious and living things. It is certainly highly improbable that living things such as human beings, plants and animals could have come into existence from inanimate matter purely through random chance.

To understand this better, we should consider our own bodies: They are composed of tiny molecules invisible to the eye, such as proteins, fats and water…These make up the cells, and the cells make up our bodies. The perfect order in our bodies is a product of a special design. Allah created our eyes that see, our hands that hold this book and our legs that enable us to walk. Allah predetermined how we would develop in our mothers' wombs, how tall we would be and the colours of our eyes.

It Is Allah Who Created Everything

If you recall, at the beginning of the book we sought the correct answer to give to a disbelieving person. Now you have the answer. Explosions do not form an orderly picture, but only disrupt an existing one. The order that emerged after the explosion of the universe is even more perfect than the examples we mentioned-a big city or the bowl of paint. All these cannot be the product of coincidence.

This perfect system could have only been brought into being by the will of Almighty Allah. Allah is able to create anything. He just says to it, "Be!" and it is.


Everything a person experiences from his birth to his death is determined by destiny. You can think of this like a film strip. If we take a film strip and look at it from a distance, we can see the beginning, middle and end of events at the same time.
Allah created a beautiful world in a flawless universe for us, and He created animals and plants in it. He created the sun to emit energy and to make us warm. So finely adjusted is the distance of the sun from the earth that were it a little closer our world would be very hot, but if it were any farther away, then we would all freeze.

As scientists uncover more of these facts, we come to know the might of Allah better. That is because matter can neither make decisions nor carry them out. This means there is a Creator Who designs and creates this universe. Matter, the underlying substance of the stars, human beings, animals, plants and of everything, whether animate or inanimate, is all under Allah's control. That is why everything on earth is orderly. Because everything is created by Allah, the Maker and the Giver of Form.

Allah Created Everyone With A Destiny

At the beginning of the book, we referred to how Allah created Adam, peace be upon him. All human beings are descended from him. Allah has granted people life in this world to test them, and sent them messengers to communicate their responsibilities.

Everyone is put to the test in this world by the events he experiences. In other words, we are put to the test in our reactions to the incidents we encounter, the way we speak and our steadfastness in the face of difficulties: In brief, whether we conduct ourselves correctly.

This test will serve to determine our lot in the afterlife.

But the test in this world has a very important secret. As a great mercy and comfort granted to mankind, Allah created destiny. Destiny, that is, all the incidents one experiences throughout life, is predetermined by Allah even before one's birth. For each person, Allah creates his or her unique destiny.

To better understand this, we can liken it to a movie recorded on a videotape cassette. Both the beginning and the end of this movie are already known, but we can only know them after watching the film. This also holds true for destiny. Everything a person will do throughout his life, all the incidents he encounters, the schools he will attend, the houses in which he will live, and the moment of his death are all predetermined.

All incidents that happen to a person, whether good or evil, are predetermined in Allah's knowledge. Each person is put to the test in compliance with this scenario specifically written for him. To sum up, in accordance with this scenario, man goes through a series of incidents, and his faith, and then his actions as well as his reactions to these incidents, determine his lot in the afterlife.

Knowledge of destiny is a great source of comfort for man. It is a blessing from Allah. For this reason, there is no need for man to feel sorry for incidents whose outcomes are already preordained or to worry over events that do not go well. To those who show patience in the face of ordeals, aware that nothing happens without Allah's will, Allah gives the glad tidings of the Garden (Paradise). The messengers of Allah set the best examples in this respect. Allah gives such people the glad tidings of the Garden due to their exemplary faith and correct behaviour.