The holy verse:
God be he exalted says: (Have you not seen how your Lord spread the shadow. If He willed, He could have made it still – But We have made the sun its guide, then We withdraw it to Us a gradual concealed withdrawal.) [Surat Al-Furqan, verses: 45, 46].
The explanation of the verses:
Almighty God talks about the movement of the shadow on the ground, and that God be He exalted has made the sun a guide for this shadow and (spread) means that it moves and sweeps away all what encounters it. This means that God be He exalted is telling us that the shadow moves and lengthens and this is definitely because of the earth’s movement according to the sun.
But God be He exalted told us that the sun is a guide to the shadow’s movement. And we know from astronomy that the indication on the movement of an object is the stable thing that is measured according to it the moving object. For example, we say that the car moves with a speed of 100 km/hour according to a stable thing. That’s how the shadow moves according to the movement of the earth and the sun is stable with respect to the earth because the earth rotates around it.
Scientific fact:
It was shown that the earth isn’t stable as it was thought in the past, but it revolves around the sun and around itself. Therefore as a result of this movement, the length of the object’s shadow always changes due to the movement of the earth around the sun and around itself.
This is a picture of the surface of the earth as it appears from the surface of the moon. The length of the shadow changes because of the rotation of the earth around itself. And due to the rotation of the earth around the sun, the length of the shadow slightly changes and varies according to the four seasons. And this is what the Quran referred to as God be He exalted says: (Have you not seen how your Lord spread the shadow. If He willed, He could have made it still – But We have made the sun its guide, then We withdraw it to Us a gradual concealed withdrawal.) [Surat Al-Furqan, verse: 45, 46].
The point of inimitability:
In God’s saying: (Have you not seen how your Lord spread the shadow. If He willed, He could have made it still – But We have made the sun its guide) an indication to the rotation of the earth around itself and the sun is the guide, i.e., the sun is the body that the movement is measured according to it.
And in His saying: (then We withdraw it to Us a gradual concealed withdrawal) an indication to the rotation of the earth around the sun because the length of the shadow changes not only in day and night but also according to the seasons of the year as the earth rotates around the sun and it inclines on its axis of rotation for about 23 degrees, therefore the length of the shadow varies due to the angle that the sunrays fall in.
These facts weren’t known at the time of the descending of Quran, therefore these verses are considered to be a sign of the scientific miracles in the holy Quran, as they talked about the rotation of the earth around itself and around the sun.
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By: Abduldaem Al-Kaheel
