Muslims and Space Travel | Islamic Contributions to Astronomy | Shaykh Dr. Yasir Qadhi | EPIC Masjid

Introduction

Bismillah, alhamdulillahi rabbil alameen, wa salatu wassalamu ala rasoolillahi wa ala alihi wa sahbihi, wa man walahum ba'd.

So today, inshallah, I thought we'd take a break from our usual miscellaneous topics—sometimes history, sometimes tafsir, sometimes seerah—and bring in a little bit of science. Why? Because something happened yesterday that is one of the most important historic events of humanity's existence. And that is that we now have Artemis II, a first manned exploration that has crossed the other side of the moon. And it is a historic event because, well, firstly, there has been no manned expedition towards the moon in my entire lifetime. Since 1972, I think, was the last mission, right? So more than 55 years almost have gone by since NASA has sent a spaceship. And then secondly, they've gone beyond the moon. Never in human history have we gone beyond the moon. So this is the furthest distance that mankind has traveled. And of course, the goal is to explore possibly going to Mars or setting up a site to live on the moon itself. These are all possibilities.

So today I wanted to go over a little bit of contributions that Muslims have made in this field and how, inshallah, we can benefit from our history in this regard. The problem comes—this topic is actually so detailed, so lengthy. You can write books and many books have been written. This is an area of expertise in history, the history of science within it, the history of Muslim contribution, astronomical contribution. Multiple volumes have been written and obviously much of it is technical. So I decided I would just skirt around some miscellaneous topics for benefit. So this is a bit of a bird's eye view. It's a very broad overview of some of the aspects that Islamic civilization has contributed.

The Quranic Encouragement for Scientific Exploration

And let's begin with the fact that the Quran is actually very, very explicit in wanting Muslims to look at the creation. The Quran is very explicit to examine the world around you. Allah says in the Quran, don't you see in your own creation and in the world beyond you? Don't you look at the samawat and the ard?

Allah says in the Quran:

He has created the night and the day and the sun and the moon. Every one of these is in فَلَكٍ يَسْبَحُونَ (falakin yasbahun). It is in its own orbit.

And Allah says in the Quran, Surah Yasin:

This phrase occurs twice in the Quran: وَكُلٌّ فِي فَلَكٍ يَسْبَحُونَ (wa kullun fee falakin yasbahun). Neither can the night outstrip the day, nor can the day come before the night. Every one of the sun and the moon is in its own orbit. They're not going to crash into each other.

And Allah says in the Quran, in Surah Ali Imran:

In the creation of the heavens and earth, in the world around you, examining this world, there are signs for people to understand and think.

And it is reported in Sahih Muslim that the Prophet ﷺ, when he would wake up, he would rub his eyes from sleep, he would look at the stars, he would look at the world, and he would recite this verse.

The point is that the Quran is encouraging us to examine the creation, to look around. And of course, Surah Tabarak, in the beginning, what is Allah saying in the beginning of Surah Tabarak is that:

Do you see any division, any problem in the creation? Continue, look over and over again. Your eyes will become tired, but you will never tire of the beauty, the splendor. You're not going to find any fault in the creation of Allah.

So, the Quran encourages what we would call scientific exploration. And I argue that this basic premise is what made our civilization different from the other major civilization, Christianity. Christianity does not have this level of, go ahead and examine, go ahead and think. And so the trajectories have been very different.

The Geocentric Model and Early Astronomy

Now, quick crash course. I'm going to teach you some science as well today. Before the revelation of the Quran, the whole world all used to believe that the earth is stationary and the stars and the sun and the moon go around the earth. And in fact, this is the normal logical thing to believe. I mean, you are stationary. The world is clearly not moving from your perception. And you look up and you see the sun, the stars, the moon go everywhere. This is called the geocentric model. Geo means earth, centric, the earth is the center. This is called the geocentric model. The whole world believed in the geocentric model.

And one of the earliest astronomers of humanity, his name is Ptolemy, the Greek person Ptolemy, around 100 AD, 500 years before Islam. He proposed the most detailed theory of the celestial spheres. He has tables and charts—he literally would monitor, he would look at, he would write the times of the year. So he has an almanac, he has a year-long book where he has all of the planets, the sun, the moon, and he has his geocentric model. This is called the Ptolemaic model. Ptolemy is the one who basically not just proposed it, but basically almost proved it.

The Islamic Translation Movement and Al-Majisti

And he wrote a book which is known as Al-Majisti, Al-Majisti. Sounds Arabic, but it's not Arabic, but it is Arabic. What do I mean? And this is the beginning of our quick talk here. How much can we do in 30 minutes? There's so much to do.

So Ptolemy's Al-Majisti, Al-Majisti. Where did this name come from? Ptolemy wrote a book in ancient Greek. The language was Greek. And when Christianity came along, Christianity considered all books written by the pagans to be heretical, don't study them. So they banned them.

When Muslims came along, they didn't mind knowledge wherever it was found. They didn't have a problem with science, technology, medicine, wherever it was found. So the Muslims under the late Umayyads and then the early Abbasids, they began to acquire manuscripts of science books across the globe. And they were brought to Baghdad. And Harun al-Rashid, as you're all aware, this is a well-known story, he opened up an institute, a university, a research center, a think tank called Bayt al-Hikmah.

And he commissioned people to translate these books into Arabic. They were banned in Christian lands. But there were pockets here and there that still had these books in Alexandria, in faraway places, in Spain, faraway places. And there were monks that kept them secretly. He got these and he got them translated.

When it was translated in the Abbasid timeframe, the translator translated the word that we now say in English, majestic. He translated it to Arabic as al-majisti. And so the book became, when it was translated to Arabic, it was called Ptolemy's al-majisti.

300 years after this, these Arabic books began to be translated into Latin. That was the beginning of the Reformation. So when it was translated into Latin, they translated his book as al-majest. So that's why Ptolemy's al-majest is basically an Arabicized from the Greek, the same English word majestic. From English, it's coming from that.

Al-Khawarizmi and the Development of Islamic Astronomy

So Ptolemy proposed this theory. And the Arab astronomers, the Muslim astronomers began reading Ptolemy and examining his tables, examining his charts, and began to develop more detailed charts in this regard.

Of the first of them to do so was al-Khawarizmi. Al-Khawarizmi died 850 CE. And al-Khawarizmi, he took Ptolemy's knowledge, and he also took the knowledge of the astronomers from India. Because India also had a thriving civilization. And he wrote a book called Zij Sindhind. Zij Sindhind. Zij is a Persian word. And Zij means the cords on the string. As if the celestial objects are following a cord, Zij. And he called this book Zij Sindhind. Sindhind, the land of India, Sindhind. And he took the knowledge of the astronomers of India, along with Ptolemy, along with his observations. And he produced the most advanced book of astronomy, Zij Sindhind.

And in this book, by the way, al-Khawarizmi was a polymath. And that's why there is a crater on the moon named after him. NASA, when it assigned names to all of the craters on the moon, they assigned over 22 names of Arab and Muslim astronomers and physicists. And al-Khawarizmi is one of the top on the list. So there's a crater on the moon named after Khawarizmi.

Khawarizmi, the guy who discovered algebra. He wrote a book, Kitab al-Jabr wa al-Muqabala. Al-Jabr, algebra. Al-Jabr. Al-Khawarizmi, algorithm. The same guy, al-Khawarizmi, algorithm. Al-Khawarizmi, arithmetic. He was the one who—all of you guys hate x squared plus 2 squared. You can blame Khawarizmi for this, right? Khawarizmi began this.

Khawarizmi had the شيء (shay) from which you get x. So the term x unknown, you all know the x, right? That x goes back to the Arabic word شيء (shay). Shay. And shay, when it was translated into Latin, they didn't have the "sha," so they translated it as x. That was the sha. X was the sha sound. And that from his shay, x to our algebra. So all you high school students who hate algebra have some love for Khawarizmi at least. He did a lot of great work in this regard. Algorithm, arithmetic, trigonometry. Al-Khawarizmi. Sine, cosine. Al-Khawarizmi. Unbelievable work al-Khawarizmi did.

But one of his most influential books, Zij Sindhind. In which he has—and this book, and again I wish I could show you some pictures, but honestly even I cannot explain it to you because it's not my expertise. And it is ancient astronomy, not even modern. It's just a bunch of diagrams and tables and numbers. The detail of which you think this is a computer. Like the rise, the setting of the sun, the position of Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn. All of the celestial objects. It's all recorded. When is it gonna happen? On what day of the year? That's the Zij Sindhind. This is what al-Khawarizmi did.

Scholarly Tensions Regarding Astronomical Studies

But we have to be fair here. And I'm gonna introduce you to the good and the bad. We have to understand that this is the reality. Not all scholars are open to all types of knowledge. And other scholars did not like this knowledge. They thought that this is not beneficial. And this is the reality. We have to be fair here. And I'd rather you hear it from me rather than other people twist it in a way.

There was tension, but I wanna underscore: Our tensions in the Muslim world never got involved with the political side. No scientist was persecuted by the state. No scientist was burnt at the stake. No scientist was locked in jail because of some scientific view. Yes, between scientists, between ulama and others. Yes, people didn't like. That's talk. No problem. You can agree to disagree. That's happened.

So we always had groups of people who felt that this is problematic. Many scholars of the past felt this type of charts is astrology. They didn't differentiate between astronomy and astrology. And I hope you all know the difference between astronomy and astrology, right? Astronomy is a physical science. Astronomy, when does the sun set? When is the moon? This is tabulation. Astrology is this artificial, pseudo, metaphysical, shirki, kufri science where the sun is, what year were you born, what month were you born. The zodiac signs. This is a complete trickery and necromancy and demonology, whatever.

Some of our scholars, may Allah bless them, they were sincere. They thought these two are the same. And we shouldn't be looking at those types of things up there. And so we have statements of the past that they just wanted to shut this door in totality. And others were kind of in the middle. They didn't like it, but they didn't say shirk and kufr about astronomy.

So Imam Ahmed—all the scholars I'm going to mention, obviously we love and respect them, but we should just be, I want us to be educated. This tension has only been verbal. No sultan was called. And Imam Ahmed was shown these tables and charts, and he said, I don't like any of this. And when he says, "I don't like it" in his terminology, he's basically saying, nobody should get involved in this. Again, with respect, he wants to protect the purity of Islam. And in his mind, this is polluting. He doesn't want anything to do with this. But that's one trend. And that trend has remained up until our time. We're going to mention some modern scholars as well. But the other trend is basically exploring scientific inquiry.

Al-Biruni: The Great Calculator of Earth's Radius

Al-Biruni is another scholar we should all be familiar with. Al-Biruni comes along, 1048 he passes away. Al-Biruni was one of the greatest intellectuals of his time. He was one of the first scholars who traveled almost all of India. When India was, vast majority was Buddhist and Hindu. Very few Muslims were in India. We're talking about, this is way before, forget the Mughals, this is way before the dynasties before them, the sultans, they were way before this, this is 1048. And Al-Biruni actually learned Sanskrit. Can you believe as an Arab philosopher and intellectual, he learned Sanskrit, he studied with Hindu pundits. Can you believe he spent years in India.

And in India, unbelievable, I have a longer lecture about Al-Biruni online, listen to it. In India, he calculates the radius of the earth, the most accurate calculation in all of human history, up until his time. In fact, his number is to our times, 1% off. Can you imagine, 1000 years ago, without computers technology, using hand instruments, unbelievable, using hand instruments. Al-Biruni calculates the radius of the earth, down to a number, that number, if you compare it to the actual radius, it is 1% off.

And you know how he did it, I have my lecture, you can listen to it online, it's called Al-Biruni, you can listen to it online. Literally, he used sine, cosine, tangent, hypotenuse, he literally stood on top of a mountain, and examined the shadows and what not, then he went to the bottom, and examined the same thing. So when you stand on top, versus on bottom, you're gonna have a difference in the angle, between the horizon. That difference in angle, that's it. That's the only thing. The difference in angle, he calculated it so accurately, if you know even basic algebra. You know, you have two different right angle triangles, you can calculate the radius, if you have both of the hypotenuse, and you know the one side, the other side you can calculate. You have the triangle here, you have two sides, and one side is not known, and you have the angles. That's what he did. Literally, simple trigonometry. And he did this, by standing on a high mountain in India, we know which one, and standing at sea level, and calculating the distance of the horizon, and that's it. Then you can calculate the radius of the earth. So he calculated the radius of the earth, up to one degree accuracy.

Two Scientific Models: Geocentricism and the Shape of Earth

Now, here I need to mention, another scientific reality. There are two separate models, that ancient mankind had. The first was, geocentricism. I explained what that is, correct? Everybody understand geocentricism? Okay. The whole world believed in geocentricism, up until Copernicus. Nobody had a different model. We'll come to this point, Muslims began to crack holes in Ptolemy, but they didn't actually present the alternative. Muslims began to find problems in Ptolemy, but nobody got to Copernicus' level, till Copernicus. So geocentricism, all people believed, no two opinions about it.

There's another issue, and that is, is the earth flat or spherical? Don't confuse it with geocentricism. Everybody believed in geocentricism. Now, some people, ancient Greeks including, and some Muslims, and the Indians, and Chinese, some people, believed, the earth was like a bowl, a plate. Flat, and plate. And if you just kept on going, you would fall off the corner of the earth. Okay? This was a belief. And others believed the earth is round. Al-Biruni was which type guys? Everyone should know the answer now, I just explained to you. When he calculated the radius, what is he showing? It's round, okay? Al-Biruni, and the majority of our scholars, believe the earth is round. But not all. Some of them, believed like the rest of mankind, that the earth is flat. And we find this belief in classical times. So please don't get confused. Geocentricism, everybody, earth being a sphere, or being like a bowl, this is you have the two opinions. So, this is Al-Biruni. Al-Biruni clearly is of the fact, that the earth is a sphere.

Ibn Al-Haytham: The First to Question Ptolemy

The next person that comes along, that I want you to be aware of, I gave a lecture about him here in epic. Ibn Al-Haytham in Andalus. Same time frame, 1040. Ibn Al-Haytham, here is a very key point. One of the first people, to begin to find problems with Ptolemy. This is the beginnings, of what Copernicus is going to now come forth with. Ibn Al-Haytham writes a book, you can find it still, the manuscript of it. It is called, الشكوك على بطلميوس. Who is Batlamyus? Ptolemy. الشكوك على, means, some doubts. There are some problems with Ptolemy. Look at the title. Nobody had challenged Ptolemy. Ibn Al-Haytham comes and says, the numbers aren't adding up. Something is not right here. It doesn't make sense, that the earth is stationary, and everything is going around it. But he doesn't have an alternative.

And guys, think about, how radical that alternative must be. I know right now, because we've grown up like this. Can you imagine believing, the earth is going around, in its own orbit. And the earth is the one, spinning around the sun. I mean, just the thought of it, if you don't understand, how are you gonna figure this out? So, Ibn Al-Haytham did not figure it out. Ibn Al-Haytham simply said, that Ptolemy's calculations, he literally says, seem to be physically impossible. Something is not adding up. He literally went over those numbers. There is no computer. This is all hand stuff. And he's observing with his own eyes. He says, something is wrong. I don't know what it is, but I'm hearing, شكوك على بطلمي. He has a whole series of issues. All of them are solved by Copernicus' model. But Ibn Al-Haytham is still not. Again, it's just radical, to imagine something so crazy. And again, how are you gonna observe? How are you gonna go beyond, and see where is the earth, the sun, the moon? You are here, the whole objects are going around you. It's logical completely, to understand the geocentric model.

Nasir al-Din al-Tusi: The Controversial Polymath

Another important figure, probably the most important figure, in the history of Muslim astronomy, is Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, who died in 1406, al-Tusi. And al-Tusi actually was an amazing person, and also a very controversial person. I'm not praising him in his political side. He was a politician, he was a minister, he was a prime minister, he was a polymath, he was a philosopher, and he was a scientist. And there is a very controversial side of him, because he worked for the Nizari Ismaili Imams. He seems to be somebody who wants good employment, so whoever is gonna pay me is gonna go. That's my analysis of him. So the Ismaili Imams in Alamut, the fortresses that are there, he used to work for them. Then when Hulagu Khan came through the region, he became the scientist of Hulagu Khan. Can you imagine? Like, seems like he doesn't care who his employers are, if he gets the money, he's gonna do it.

So he became employed by Hulagu Khan. Who is Hulagu Khan? The guy who destroys Baghdad, that's Hulagu Khan. The guy who wipes out half of the Ummah. But his right-hand man in terms of science, his main scientist is this guy, al-Tusi. And you know, I mean, look at what Hulagu Khan did for him. Al-Tusi was so beloved to Hulagu Khan, that he convinced Hulagu Khan to build the largest astronomical observatory on earth. Nasiruddin al-Tusi gets state funding from the guy who destroys the Ummah. That's the ironies of irony.

The Maragheh Observatory

Hulagu Khan, he gets I don't know how many millions of whatever, gold or whatever, to build the largest complex to observe the stars. And by the way, their observation was not like NASA. It's a very different understanding. Their telescopes were very primitive. And it's also about they're actually looking at the stars via and the sun and the moon via the stationary objects on earth and the shadows that the sun, you know, casts and the moon might cast on the midnight. So it's a plane of earth that is very vast. And they're comparing shadows, they're comparing angles from their objects that they have. It's not like big telescopes, the way we understand that. This is going to come much later on. So very primitive technology, but the most advanced of his time.

And Nasir al-Din al-Tusi. And by the way, we still have the remnants of the observatory in Iran. He built it in Iran. And it's in the city called Maragheh in Iran. It is still there to this day. And he writes Zij al-Khani. Zij, we already explained what it is. Al-Khani is the family name of Hulagu Khan. Al-Khan, Al-Khani. Zij al-Khani. So he writes another Zij, which was considered the most advanced, and it remained the most advanced for the next four centuries till Ptolemy came along. And in it, once again, he mentions Ptolemy and says, Ptolemy's view that the earth is stationary, he says, does not seem definitive. One of the first to begin doubt that he says, I don't know the alternative. He cannot imagine the alternative. But he literally mentions in this book that Ptolemy's views don't seem definitive. Again, something is not adding up, and we're going to have to figure that out. But he doesn't, again, it's too early to actually figure out.

And another great astronomer, Ulugh Beg comes along, and he built an astronomy, an astronomical observatory in Uzbekistan. I actually visited that observatory, it's still around to this day. And he also updated Nasir al-Din al-Tusi's book here.

Copernicus and the Heliocentric Model

In 1543, Copernicus, in the European side of things, comes along, and for the very first time, he proposes what is called the heliocentric model, the heliocentric model. And he now has a book that he claims that the earth is actually going around the sun, and the moon is going around the earth. So he's the first person to make this claim.

A number of modern academics, Edward Kennedy, George Saliba, others, have claimed that Copernicus took many of his diagrams and calculations from Ulugh Beg and al-Tusi and al-Khawarizmi. So this is an academic interpretation, and this is beyond the scope of our class, but you can read their books on Amazon. George Saliba is one of the most important figures of Islamic science. He has written multiple books on Islamic science. He has an entire treatise on the fact that Copernicus took much of his ideas from people before him from the Muslim world, but not actual heliocentric. To be fair, no Muslim thought of heliocentricism. That's to be fair. But what he shows, some of the diagrams in Copernicus seem to be exactly the same as a diagram of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi. Some of the mathematical formulas seem to be coming straight from al-Khawarizmi.

So there is a well-known, well-attested, it's not a fringe opinion, it's a mainstream opinion, that Copernicus took much of his information from Muslim sources, but he doesn't cite them by name. And so others say, no, no, he didn't take just because there's overlap. This is because it's in conformance with reality, not that he took. In the end of the day, Allah knows best. But without a doubt, Copernicus's findings are based upon science and mathematical formulas that were circulating amongst the Muslims, and were translated into Latin before Copernicus's time. This is without a doubt. And of course, from there, Copernicus's model basically took on, and from there, obviously, Western science continued to develop.

The Reality of Different Views on Earth's Shape

Now, going back to the point of flat Earth versus round Earth. Just so that you are aware, and I say this for our education's sake, because I think it is problematic, personally, when we try to pretend as if everybody was on the same wavelength, we present a rosy picture of the past, I think this is problematic. And when some of our youth might hear other versions, they might get confused. I think it's better you hear the reality, and we explain it away.

Some scholars did believe that the Earth is flat, and other scholars believed the Earth is round but stationary. And they believed this is the Quranic theology. So they said the Quran teaches this. And they firmly argued this. There are many famous scholars in the past. Abdul Qahir al-Baghdadi, great scholar of the past. He died 429 Hijrah. He went so far as to claim, all the scholars of Islam unanimously agree that the Earth is stationary. It's not moving. And the sun goes around the Earth. He brought in Islam and said this is what Islam teaches. We respect him, but he was wrong when he said this. He said this is the Quranic understanding. And that understanding, and again, I'm not trying to be controversial. I want to teach you facts. Certain scholars throughout all of history, they also made this claim.

Historical Scholarly Perspectives on Astronomy

From many strands, not just any one strand. Some Deobandi scholars, some Barelvi scholars, some Salafi scholars. All of them, some of them said this. When I say all, I mean all strands. The founder of Barelvi school, Ahmed Reza Khan Barelvi, he actually wrote a book. You can see it in Urdu. And it is a very harsh book trying to prove that the Quran argues the Earth is stationary. The Quran argues the Earth is stationary. And the sun goes around because Allah says the sun rises, the sun sets. Allah says the moon, Allah says Ibrahim seeing the sun.

Allah says:

In the Quran, Ibrahim is speaking. And he says the Quran is very clear. The sun is moving around the Earth, not the Earth moving around the sun. And one of the founders of Deoband, I don't want to make a mistake. One of the founders, he also held this view. And from the Salafi scholars as well, Shaykh Ibn Baz, Shaykh Ibn Uthaymeen. Allah have mercy on them. We all respect them. Allah knows, this has nothing to do with their piety, with their knowledge of the Quran and Tafsir. But they believed that the Quran teaches this. And we have to be clear and say, that was a good intention but it was a mistake. The Quran doesn't teach this.

Understanding Quranic Language

Actually the Quran is using language. We say even in English, the sun rises, the sun sets. That's using language that we understand. When we describe it, we're not gonna be talking about the metaphysical or the astronomically accurate. We're speaking in a language that we can understand. And this is a reality that has lasted even till our times. I mean, even I remember when I was doing my master's at my university. We had a discussion in our class and yes, some of the people in the master's level, they were arguing the Quran teaches that the earth is stationary. And anybody who says that the earth goes around the sun is rejecting the Quran. This is in my lifetime. I heard this with my own ears. And you know, this is the reality. And this person eventually became a very high level dean in that university, which goes to show you titles and positions mean very little when it comes to this.

With respect, wallahi with respect, not talking about their piety, their knowledge of the Quran and theology. But sometimes people go beyond their area of expertise. And we have to recognize this. It happens to this day. Nothing has changed. Sometimes people feel the Quran says something when it doesn't say it.

European Church's Response to Scientific Discovery

But what we like to say, this is just among human beings. Go to the European side of things. Copernicus, the church began to say, you seem to be a heretic. He died very quickly, so they couldn't do anything. The next guy comes along and that's Giordano Bruno. And Bruno began preaching Copernicus's theories. They burnt him at the stake. Then Galileo comes along. Galileo sees what happened to Bruno before. He goes, okay, sorry, I'm sorry, the earth is stationary. Doesn't matter. And he had to withdraw. You know famously, Galileo was threatened to be killed because of this view. The church wanted to kill him. And he basically had to publicly withdraw. Kepler, in the next century, he had to go from country to country running for his life because he was worried about what the church would do.

We can say factually that there is no equivalent in our history. This is a fact. Yes, let scholars talk amongst themselves. But the ummah as a whole was wise enough to allow science to be separate. Go ahead, have your theories, whatever.

The Proper Relationship Between Quran and Science

Bottom line, and with this we conclude. Alhamdulillah, the ummah by and large allowed for a diversity of voices when it comes to trying to understand science. And yes, some scholars might have had stricter views than others. But the position that I follow is the position of scholars like Ibn Taymiyyah, Rashid Rida and others, which is the Quran is a revelation from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala that is not meant to be a book of science. We should not think that the Quran is teaching us astronomy. So when it has phrases like the sun rises, the sun sets, it's not using the language of astronomers. It's problematic to read astronomy into the book that is meant to be guidance.

So we believe that when we have a definitive knowledge from science, the language of the Quran is not meant to be a textbook of biology, textbook of astronomy, textbook of engineering. We believe that the Quran and science can never clash. Both are from Allah. The Quran is from Allah and science is Allah's creation. So where we find a fact that is scientific, the earth is round, the earth is going around the sun. If we find language in the Quran that is other than this, this is just metaphorical in that sense. And Allah is not teaching us astronomy in the book that he revealed. He's using language that people would understand. There is nothing in the Quran that is explicitly contradicting what we know to be science. This is Ibn Taymiyyah's position, Rashid Rida's position and others. But to read science into the Quran, you're going to create problems. And that's when you get this notion of, oh, the earth must be stationary and the sun. No, we should not go that far.

Islamic Contributions to Space Exploration

In reality, the book of Allah azza wa jal is our ultimate guide and science is our interpretation of events. And to conclude what we are seeing today of humans going farther beyond than they have ever gone. Actually, without a doubt, much credit goes to NASA and the people that have done this. And obviously this is a blessing from Allah because Allah says, I gave you this power and ability. Allah says, سخر لكم. He created for us the ingenuity to make ships to do this and that. And yes, without a doubt, all of the modern technology and scientists have done much.

But they would not have been where they are without 1000 years of Muslim contributions. Yes, NASA did not use al-Biruni's books. It is true. NASA did not use Nasir al-Din al-Tusi's calculations. But the scientists at NASA would not be at that stage of knowledge if not for the building blocks. I'm being accurate. I'm not saying the one right before, but somewhere along the line, contributions from us shaped knowledge of astronomy and science. And those contributions eventually made their way to what we see now. And to that, we thank Allah that we played a vital role, not a trivial role and a role that we should really be proud of.

May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow us to rediscover that vitality and to rise up and strengthen our izzah. Jazakumullah khair. Assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.