The Expansion of the Universe

December 3, 2019Science & Faith

In the Qur’an, which was revealed 14 centuries ago at a time when the science of astronomy was still primitive, the expansion of the universe was described like this

“And it is We who have constructed the heaven with might, and verily, it is We who are steadily expanding it.” (Quran, 51:47)

The word heaven, as stated in this verse, is used in various places in the Qur’an with the meaning of space and universe. Here again, the word is used with this meaning. In other words, in the Qur’an it is revealed that the universe expands. And this is the very conclusion that science has reached today.

Until the dawn of the 20th century, the only view prevailing in the world of science was that the universe has a constant nature and it has existed since infinite time. The research, observations, and calculations carried out by means of modern technology, however, have revealed that the universe in fact had a beginning, and that it constantly expands.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the Russian physicist Alexander Friedmann and the Belgian cosmologist Georges Lemaitre theoretically calculated that the universe is in constant motion and that it is expanding.

This fact was proved also by observational data in 1929. While observing the sky with a telescope, Edwin Hubble, the American astronomer, discovered that the stars and galaxies were constantly moving away from each other. A universe where everything constantly moves away from everything else implied a constantly expanding universe. The observations carried out in the following years verified that the universe is constantly expanding. This fact was explained in the Qur’an when that was still unknown to anyone. This is because the Qur’an is the word of God, the Creator, and the Ruler of the entire universe.