THE SUN ROTATES

THE SUN ROTATES

For a long time European philosophers and scientists

believed that the earth stood still in the centre of the

universe and every other body including the sun

moved around it. In the West, this geocentric concept

of the universe was prevalent right from the time of

Ptolemy in the second century B.C. In 1512, Nicholas

Copernicus put forward his Heliocentric Theory of

Planetary Motion, which asserted that the sun is

motionless at the centre of the solar system with the

planets revolving around it.

In 1609, the German scientist Yohannus Keppler

published the ‘Astronomia Nova’. In this he

concluded that not only do the planets move in

elliptical orbits around the sun, they also rotate

upon their axes at irregular speeds. With this

knowledge it became possible for European scientists

to explain correctly many of the mechanisms of the

solar system, including the sequence of night and

day.

After these discoveries, it was thought that the Sun

was stationary and did not rotate about its axis like

the Earth. I remember having studied this fallacy

from Geography books during my school days.

Consider the following Qur’anic verse:

“It is He Who created

the Night and the Day,

and the sun and the moon:

All (the celestial bodies)

swim along, each in its

rounded course.”

[Al-Qur’an 21:33]

The Arabic word used in the above verse is

yasbahoon . This word is derived from the word

sabaha. It carries with it the idea of motion that

comes from any moving body. If you use this word

for a person on the ground, it would not mean that

he is rolling but would imply that he is walking or

running. If you use this word for a person in water,

it would not mean that he is floating but would

imply that he is swimming.

Similarly, if you use the word yasbah for a celestial

body such as the sun, it would not only mean that it

is flying through space but would also mean that it

is rotating as it goes through space. Most school

textbooks have now incorporated the fact that the

sun rotates about its axis. The rotation of the sun

about its own axis can be proved with the help of an

equipment that projects the image of the sun on the

top of a table, so that one can examine the image of

the sun without being blinded. It is noticed that the

sun has spots which complete a circular motion once

every 25 days i.e. the sun takes approximately 25

days to rotate round its axis.

The sun travels through space at roughly 240 km

per second, and takes about 200 million years to

complete one revolution around the centre of our

Milky Way Galaxy.

“It is not permitted

to the Sun to catch up the Moon,

nor can the Night outstrip the Day:

Each (just) swims along

in (its own) orbit

(according to Law).”

[Al-Qur’an 36:40]

This verse mentions an essential fact discovered

only recently by modern astronomy, i.e. the

existence of the individual orbits of the Sun and the

Moon, and their journey through space with their

own motion.

The ‘fixed place’ towards which the sun travels,

carrying with it the solar system, has been located

preirsely by modern astronomy. It has been given a

name, the Solar Apex. The solar system is indeed

moving in space towards a point situated in the

constellation of Hercules (alpha Lyrae) whose exact

location is now firmly established.

The moon rotates around its axis in the same

duration that it takes to revolve around the earth.

It takes approximately 29½ days to complete one

rotation.

One cannot help but be amazed at the scientific

accuracy of the Qur’anic verses. Should we not

ponder over the question: “What is the source of

knowledge contained in the Qur’an?”