History of Science and Islam

Do you know what the universe is? It is endless space and everything that it holds, earth, the sun, the moon, the planets and the stars. Even if you walk millions and millions of miles you will not be able to reach the end of space, and in fact, you have hardly reached its beginning. The reason for that is that space is too large to describe.

Earth exists within this limitless space. Along with earth, the sun, moon, and millions of stars exist in it as well.

So how did all of these things form? How did the sun come into being, for example? Or how did our earth appear?

There are two types of responses to this question. One of these responses is right and the other is wrong. Those who respond wrongly are also believers in the theory of evolution. On the next page, we will first show you the wrong response and then the right one.

Those who respond incorrectly say: The universe was always there and it came about by itself. That is, a lot of substances came together on their own by chance to form the sun, stars, earth, seas, trees, rivers and mountains.

Don’t you think this thought is illogical? If a friend of yours came to you and said something like: “I had put some soil, stones, and a little bit of water inside a big box. I waited for a couple of years and then a computer emerged from this box.” Would you believe him? You would probably think that your friend was joking, lying or mad.

Evolutionists openly tell a tall story just like that. A computer cannot form all by itself as a result of some coincidences. First, someone plans what the computer is supposed to be like, and decides what components are to be used. Then, in large factories, engineers, technicians and hundreds of workers come together. They use huge machinery to put the computer together. That is to say, when you see a computer you would know that it did not just happen all by itself. Isn’t it obvious that intelligent people make computers? 

The sun, earth and other plants are much larger than a computer. So, if there are those who make computers, there must be a power that creates the sun, earth, moon and stars.

Scientists have made a very important discovery in recent years. This important discovery was that before the universe was formed, there was nothing else. There was no land, no air, no water, and there were no stars; there was even no space. Inside this nothingness, there was this tiny spot. This spot was so tiny that it was difficult even for an eye to see. A lot of matter had been squeezed together inside this spot. Then, in an instant this spot exploded. When it exploded, all the matter that was squeezed inside it flew about. After that, the pieces of matter joined together to first form atoms, then from those atoms, stars, our sun, earth and the other planets. The scientists named this explosion the “Big Bang”. Everything in the universe was formed as a result of this Big Bang.

Here you have to think about something very important. Let’s imagine that you put the pieces of a puzzle randomly inside a balloon. After that, you fill your balloon with air and then suddenly pop it. That is to say the balloon “big banged”. What happens to the puzzle’s pieces that you had stuffed inside the balloon? Could these pieces form a beautiful villa or an airport—something even you could hardly manage—in the middle of your room? Or would they scatter all over the room? Of course, they would scatter all over your room. You would have to put together the puzzle’s pieces for them to form an airport or a house.

Allah is the Maker of the “Big Bang”, the Organiser of the matter that scattered in space after the “Big Bang”. By bringing together all this matter, He is also the Creator of the sun, earth, planets and stars. When Allah wishes something to be, He gives the order “Be” and it comes into being. Allah is Superior and He is the Strongest. His strength is enough for everything. When He wants something, He can create it immediately.

Allah has sent us His book “The Qur’an” through which He introduces Himself and His creation to us. We can find all the right answers to every question from the Qur’an and the Sunnah (The Prophet Muhammad’s way of life). For example, when we ask, “How has Allah created everything?” Allah responds in the Qur’an by saying:

Allah is the One Who created earth, the sun, stars and moon. So how did all the living things on earth come into being? Imagine a huge planet with its surface completely empty. There are no humans or animals, no plants or insects. 

Earth has been decorated in a lot of detail for living things to survive. Allah is the One Who has given earth all these details. Otherwise none of us would have been able to live, neither you, nor your parents, or indeed any of your friends would have been here.

Let’s consider how Allah created the earth so that living things can survive:

 1. Think about… how orderly everything in the universe is. The sun has been put in the exact position from which it could warm us and give us light at the same time. If there were no sun, there would not have been one living thing on earth. Neither us, nor the animals nor any other creatures would have been able to live.

 2. Allah has also distanced the sun from earth to just the right extent. If earth was a little bit closer to the sun, the heat would have scorched it and we would not have been able to live. If earth was a little more distant from the sun, then glaciers would have covered it and again, few living things would have been able to survive. This is one of the reasons why there is no life on other planets, because they are either too close to the sun or too distant from it.

 3. As you know, living things need to breathe in order to live. We need oxygen in the air so that we can breathe. Exactly the right amount of oxygen exists in the air so that human beings can breathe. If there were a little bit more or a little bit less, neither we, nor the animals, nor the plants would have survived, because, as we have already said, we need to breathe in order to live. For this we need oxygen.

 4. One of the most important things that make it possible for us to survive is water. No organism can live without water. For this reason, Allah has created some parts of earth as water. Three quarters of earth’s surface is covered with water. However, there is no water on any of the other planets nor is there any water on the moon that you see at night. The essentials for living things are only available on earth.

Many events on earth make it possible for us to live. If even only one of these events doesn’t take place, no living thing would be left on earth. So, is it possible that these thousands of events have come together spontaneously and formed such a place as earth? Of course not. Not even one of these events could happen by chance. Allah has created earth for human beings. And, because of this, earth is the most suitable place for us.

You can give the following example to those that claim earth and the whole universe were formed by chance. Let’s say that you are playing on the beach and you see some big waves approaching, so you go home. When you return to the beach after a few hours, you see an amazing sight. On the shore there is a wonderful city made of sand. There are houses, hospitals, an airport, and buses. There are even human figures. You ask a friend who is passing if he knows how these things occurred. If he replied, “ I think the big waves that reached the shore must have formed them,” what would you think? Wouldn’t you be suspicious that your friend imagined it, or wouldn’t you laugh thinking that he must be joking or had perhaps become insane?

It is impossible for waves to have formed such a perfect city from sand by coincidence. It is obvious that someone who is an expert in building such cities had arrived, built it and left. 

However, certain people – even though they are professors or scientists – accept such a ridiculous idea. They won’t say, “Waves formed the city made of sand”, but they would say “Tiny pieces of matter, namely the atoms, came together by chance and they formed the sun, stars and earth all by themselves.” This is because these people wouldn’t want to say that Allah created everything. They defend the wrong without believing in the right. We will explain who these people are in more detail towards the end of the book.

Do you know that every day many meteors fall on earth? 

When meteors fall on other planets, they create giant craters, but when they fall on earth, they don’t cause much harm.

So how do meteors cause great damage to the surfaces of other planets but not to the surface of earth?

The reason for this is the atmosphere that surrounds earth. The atmosphere encircles our planet as a protective shield. A meteor entering the atmosphere shrinks through combustion. When it comes closer to the surface of earth, it becomes even smaller. Therefore, the meteor becomes very small or even diminishes and disappears completely by the time it reaches the surface of the earth, and causes us no harm. 

The atmosphere doesn’t only prevent the harm of meteors but it also absorbs harmful rays that come from the Sun. Yet again, if these harmful rays were able to reach earth’s surface, it would have been impossible for living things to survive.

The two characteristics we have mentioned here are more than enough to show us that the atmosphere is not some haphazard thing. Allah—Who has endless mercy upon all living things on earth and Who at the same time has eternal power—has created the atmosphere, and with this atmosphere, He protects us from danger.

As we explained earlier, after the Big Bang, particles emerged and came together as ATOMS. Well, do you know what an atom is?

Let us first explain to you what an atom is like. We can compare the atoms to marbles. But these marbles would be too tiny, unlike anything you have seen before.

Now, look around you! Everything that you see in reality is made of these marbles, namely the atoms. The chair on which you are sitting, the book in your hand, your mother, your teacher at school, the television that you watch, apples, melons, and the chocolates in the kitchen, your pet, water, the flowers in your garden, your toys, and even your body, all are made up of these atoms. As we explained earlier, the stars and suns that make up the universe and the world in which we live are also formed of atoms just like you. In all the places in which you go about and all the corners that you turn, there are atoms.

You cannot see these little things that we call atoms, because they are a lot smaller than you can imagine. They are so small that even with the largest microscopes, it isn’t possible to see even one of them. To be able to comprehend the tiny size of the atom, look at this example:

Imagine that you have a key in your hand. Without a doubt, it is impossible for you to see the atoms that make up this key. If you say, “I must see these atoms”, then you must visualise the key to be as large as earth. If you were able to visualise the key to be as large as earth then every atom inside it would be as large as cherries and so you could see them.

Well, how did all the atoms come together after the Big Bang? The atoms are lifeless. They don’t have any minds or any intelligence. They cannot make any decisions. They cannot say, for example, “Come on, let’s get together and form a star” or “Let’s come closer and form earth”. We can also use the following example: We already mentioned a jigsaw puzzle. The pieces of this puzzle are lifeless and, like atoms, they cannot make decisions. If you spread them about, they cannot have thoughts such as “Well, let’s get together and form a castle or a human!”

Then let’s ask again: “How did all these stars, planets, humans and animals that are made up of atoms come into being? If the atoms did not make a decision, then who put them together?”

Of course, nothing around us can occur by coincidence. Allah is the One Who brings atoms together. Allah has created all the vastness of space, the planets, stars, earth, animals, plants and humans from atoms.

We have said that atoms come together to form human beings, but, of course, you must be wondering how this can happen. First, atoms come together to form CELLS. Again, we are learning something new: So, what is a cell?

The bodies of all living organisms are made up of cells. Even if cells are not as small as atoms, they are still very small and cannot be seen with the naked eye. We can try to explain their tiny size with the following example: If we brought together about 10,000 cells, we could make up something just about the size of the head of a pin. This is why you cannot see them. But cells are the building blocks of humans, ants, cats, roses, trees, and all other living organisms around you. You, for instance, are made up of trillions of cells.

So, where did all these trillions of cells come from?

Look at your brother. He wasn’t there two years ago, then all of a sudden he appeared and slowly he started to grow. How did this amazing event happen?

Your brother started out as a single cell in your mother’s abdomen. But this single cell was storing a lot of important information inside. All the information that has made your brother into who he is used to be stored in this cell: his eye colour, hair colour, height, etc.

Then this cell grew a little and started to divide. First, it divided in two. However, here something happened that you would find very interesting: The information in the cell did not divide into two. That means the same information was duplicated in the two cells. After this, the cells continued to divide and the same information duplication happened in all of them, resulting in many cells with the same information. Then these were divided into others, and others divided into others. This event continued until millions of cells formed.

While all this was happening, something you would never guess took place!

These cells, although they contain the same information, started doing tasks that are different from each other. Some of them formed your brother’s skin. Some others formed his muscles, yet others his skeleton, and others his brain neurons.

While the cells continued to multiply, the group of cells that was almost like a ball started to take shape. As you can see in the pictures at the top of the page, first your brother’s head appeared, followed by his thin arms and then his legs. The cells continued to grow and divide and after nine months, they turned into a complete baby. You met him for the first time when he was “born”.

All the things that we have said until now may surprise you. You probably have thought about why cells took on different tasks or how they were able to combine in such a neat shape. Allah is the One Who does all of this. Cells are tiny beings that are invisible to the naked eye. Like atoms, it is impossible for cells all on their own to make decisions or to come together to form a human being. It is nonsense to even think that your brother or other human beings are made up of cells that came together by coincidence.

Allah, the Creator of all, has created all human beings perfectly and He has told the people to think about this in the Book that He has sent us:

You, like your brother and all other human beings, started to grow from a single cell, continued to grow and turned into a full person. Right now, you are living a nice life in this world. You owe all of this to Allah. Allah shows great mercy to you and gives you many blessings. So, don’t ever forget to thank your Creator, Allah.