NATURE OF HEAVENLY BODIES – THE PLANETS

It is difficult to say whether these are referred to in the Qur’an with the same exact meaning that is given to the heavenly bodies in the present day. The planets do not have their own light. They revolve around the Sun, Earth being one of them. While one may presume that others exist elsewhere, the only ones known are those in the solar system. Five planets other than Earth were known to the ancients: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Three have been discovered in recent times: Uranus, Neptune and Pluto.

The Qur’an would seem to designate these by the word kaukab (plural kawakib) without stating their number. Joseph’s dream (sum 12) refers to eleven of them, but the description is, by definition, an imaginary one.
A good definition of the meaning of the word kaukab in the Qur’an Seems to have been given in a very famous verse. The eminently spiritual nature of its deeper meaning stands forth, and is moreover the subject of much debate among experts in exegesis. It is nevertheless of great interest to offer an account of the comparison it contains on the subject of the word that would seem to designate a ‘planet’.

Here is the text in question: (sura 24, verse 35)
“God is the light of the heavens and the earth. The similitude of His light is as if there were a niche and within it a luminary. The luminary is in a glass. The glass is as if it were a planet glittering like a pearl.”

Here the subject is the projection of light onto a body that reflects it (glass) and gives it the glitter of a pearl, like a planet that is lit by the sun. This is the only explanatory detail referring to this word to be found in the Qur’an.

The word is quoted in other verses. In some of them it is difficult to distinguish which heavenly bodies are meant (sura 6, verse 76; sura 82, verses 1-2). In one verse however, when seen in the light of modern science, it would seem very much that these can only be the heavenly bodies that we know to be planets.

In sura 37, verse 6, we see the following:
“We have indeed adorned the lowest heaven with an ornament, the planets.”

Is it possible that the expression in the Qur’an ‘lowest heaven’ means the ‘solar system’? It is known that among the celestial elements nearest to us, there are no other permanent elements apart from the planets: the Sun is the only star in the system that bears its name. It is difficult to see what other heavenly bodies could be meant if not the planets. The translation given would therefore seem to be correct and the Qur’an to refer to the existence of the planets as defined in modern times.

THE LOWEST HEAVEN

The Qur’an mentions the lowest heaven several times along with the heavenly bodies of which it is composed. The first among these would seem to be the planets, as we have just seen. When however the Qur’an associates material notions intelligible to us,
enlightened as we are today by modern science, with statements of a purely spiritual nature, their meaning becomes obscure.
Thus the verse quoted could easily be understood, except that the following verse of the same sura 37 speaks of a ‘guard against every rebellious evil spirit’, ‘guard’ again being referred to in sura 21, verse 32 and sura 41, verse 12, so that we are confronted by statements of quite a different kind.

What meaning can one attach moreover to the ‘projectiles for the stoning of demons’ that according to verse 5, sura 67 are situated in the lowest heaven? Do the ‘luminaries’ referred to in the same verse have something to do with the shooting stars mentioned above?

All these observations seem to lie outside the subject of this study. They have been mentioned here for the sake of completeness. At the present stage however, it would seem that scientific data are unable to cast any light on a subject that goes beyond human understanding.