Part 21

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“Lo! your Lord is Allah Who created the heavens and the earth in six Days, then mounted He the Throne. He covers the night with the day, which is in haste to follow it, and has made the sun and the moon and the stars subservient by His command. His verily is all creation and commandment. Blessed be Allah, the Lord of the Worlds!”

As to the inquiry about the secret in some stars following invariable routes while others changing their orbits, the answer is this: If they all followed invariable routes, they would cease to reveal the evidence and wisdom that emerge from their changing of routes and the tracks they follow in their orbits. On the other hand, if they all changed their routes, they would cease to have fixed routes that enable us to recognize them, nor would they have systems that humans can use as a frame of reference. The fact is that the movement of the routechanging stars is determined by reference to the ones with fixed routes, in the same way as the movement of walking people are judged by reference to the immobile objects they pass by. If they all followed an identical plan there would be confusion in recognizing them, and the wisdom and benefits that are realized by their variety would cease to be evident; the non-believer would have some justification to cling to in his disbelief — he would say: If the designer of those bodies had volition, they would not have been following the same movement, the same system, and the same timing. As it is, the system and method they follow is a most evident proof of the existence of the Creator, His power, will, knowledge, wisdom and oneness.

Consider also the wisdom of the Almighty Lord in His creation of the stars, in their abundance and their amazing

quality, that they are the adornment of the sky, the guiding lights for people on land and sea; we can see their light and luminosity despite the great distance. Without them, we would not have anything to direct us and guide us, and we would not be able to do calculations. Consider, then, their compliance with the commandments of their Lord, the Almighty, as they follow the same system, which He judged that they should not deviate from. He set the constellations, the orbits; the immobile and the mobile stars; the large, the small, the medium, the whitish pink, the whitish red; some hiding from the observation of the spectator. Those with orbits are divided into two groups, high and low, and all are decreed to follow the same system. The sun, teh moon and the mobile stars are placed in their right places in the whole group; one, the moon, completing its cycle in one month; some completing theirs in one year, and some in several years; all for deep judgment. He ordained that all those events should be attached to events on the earth, so that people can predict the events from observing the stars. By observing the rising of the Pleiades, for instance, they know what events will take place concurrently with that rising, and the same with its setting. So it is with other stars and groups and positions. Reflect, too, how the Lord deemed that the Ursa Minor and Ursa Major and their adjacent stars are a peculiar phenomenon, _ so that they do not set because of their proximity to the centre; a phenomenon that bear reflection to delve into the divine wisdom it implies — those constellations are like landmarks that people use to find their way in. untrodden ways on land and sea; they look at that group, at the Capricon and the two bright stars of Ursa Minor at all times, whenever they like, and refer to them for guidance.

The light of stars

Consider also the light of the moon and stars in the dark of night, and the wisdom they imply. The Almighty willed, in His judgment, to create dark for the resting of animals and for the cooling of the air that touches animals and plants, to counterbalance the heat of the sun, thus enabling plants and animals to survive. As it is so, the Lord willed to moderate the darkness of night with a little light, so that night is not stark darkness, an absolute black night without any kind of illumination; for in that case animals would not be able to do any movement or activity. An animal often needs to do some activity, like moving or walking, by night rather than by day, because of the latter’s shortness, or excessive heat, or, in the case of many animals, because of fear. Therefore, He destined that there should be during the night such light from the moon and stars that allows for a lot of things to be performed, like travelling and tilling, and other occupations of land tillers and planters. Moonlight by night has been supplied to assist the animal to carry out those actions. On the other hand, the light of night is uncontinuous and not as bright as the day’s is, lest the night should be like the day, which would eliminate the wisdom of the difference between them destined by the Mighty, the Knowing.

Consider, then, the deep judgment and amazing calculation that ordained what assisted the animal to deal with the hardship of darkness with help from the domain of light. The dark domain, the night, has not been left to reign absolutely, but it has been softened with some light of mercy and bounty form the Lord. So glory be to Him who took good care of everything He made and perfected everything He created.

The sun The sun is sometimes called the ‘atomic furnace’ 1, It is a dazzling lamp

2. It provides man with heat, light and radioactive energy.

3. It is one million and three hundred thousand times the size of the earth.

4. It is about 150 million kilometres away from us.

5. Its light reaches us in approximately 8 minutes and forty seconds.

6. Its gravity is 28 times the gravity of the earth.

7. The sun revolves around its axis in 25 days.

8. It is one star of 100,000 million stars in our galaxy.

Its size is nothing compared with that of some of the stars called ‘supergiants’.

9. It is 3200 light years far from the centre of our galaxy.

10. The temperature at the surface of the sun is 5500 degrees centigrade, and the temperature increases toward the nucleus until it reaches 10 million degrees centigrade.

11. Hydrogen is the main element of which the sun consists.

12. Due to excessive temperature, the sun loses about 4 tons of its mass per second, as a result of the chemothermal reactions. In fact, this is the source of the energy we draw upon and benefit from.

13. The sun is not less than 5000 million years old, and the galaxy is much older than that.

So glory be to Him who swore by the sun when He

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“By the sun and his brightness.” (91: 1)

The smallest of the orbiting planets, Mercury is the closest to the sun. The temperature on its side facing the sun rises to 400 degrees centigrade, while the temperature on the dark side is 150 degrees below zero. In view of the excessive heat on its surface, and the lack of oxygen in its atmosphere, scientists exclude the possibility of life of any kind on it. The diameter of Mercury is 4088 kilometres; it revolves around the sun once in 88 days. Because of the sun's gravity, its day is 176 of the days of earth.

An observer of the earth from space would sec it as blue and white. The blue is the colour of water on earth, which covers an area of 70 percent of the earth’s surface. The white colour reflects the water vapour collected in the form of clouds. The earth’s diameter is 12760 kilometres. It rotates around its axis (counterclockwise) once in 23 hours and 56 minutes, which is the cause of the day and night.

88 % the size of earth, it orbits the sun at a speed of 35 km/sec; it is 108 million kilometres away from the sun. Clouds of carbon dioxide engulf its atmosphere; ils temperature is approximately 480 degrees centigrade. It rotates on its axis in 243 days.

* It has four moons; it is 778 million km away from the sun.

* Its diameter at the equator is 142,800 km.

* It revolves around the sun in 11.86 years.

* It rotates on its axis in 9 hours, 50 minutes and 30 seconds.

* It is composed of hydrogen and helium. “Its size is 13 times that of the earth, * Its cquatorial speed is 13 km/sec.

Second of the planets in terms of volume, its most remarkable feature is the rings around it, like a solid girdle, which endow it with special charm. Space voyages have asserted that those rings are in the hundreds, and that they consist of millions of bits of water ice. Its diameter is around 119, 600 km. It rotates on its axis in 10 hours and 14 minutes, and orbits the sun in 29 years and a half.

It consists of gas; therefore it is very light; it is so light that it would float on water,

There is a thick layer of clouds that engulf Uranus; its atmosphere consists of rings of hydrogen and methane. Its diameter is approximately 51800 kilometres; it rotates on its axis in 10 hours and 48 minutes; it orbits the sun in 84 years. Since its axis is very tilted, cach of its poles does not face the sun for 42— years, the in the solar

Arrows. Show the Location

Neptune and Uranus are similar

planets: both are greenish

coloured, have ice mountains on them, and have similar sizes. Neptune, however, rotates around itself once in 16 hours, and around the sun once in 165

The farthest planet from the sun, Pluto is also the smallest, with a diameter of only 3000

km. In view of its great distance, scientists do not have exact information as to its

mass, density and volume,

The above picture shows the Andromeda Galaxy, the object farthest from the earth but still visible with the naked eye. It resembles a faint-glowing smoke cloud. It was supposed to be a nebula, a cloud of gases and dust ,until the astronomer Edwin Hubble measureed its distance in 1923. It is estimated to be a million light years from the earth. It resembles our own galaxy, the Milky Way, and has long spiral arms cantaining billions of stars.