Dear brother in faith and Islam, Assalam Alaikum (Peace be upon you).
 This is a new episode of our show: “Scientific inimitability of Quran and Sunna”.
 There are signs of Allah in the Noble Quran, in the universe and in His divine Actions.
If we were to ponder over Allah’s Actions, we would find a Hand of Wisdom and Knowledge, an Omnipotent and Merciful hand which controls everything, and if we were to reflect on Allah’s creations, we would find out that inimitability and perfections are manifested in them.
 In this episode let us welcome Dr. Mohammad Rateb Al Nabulsi, the lecturer in the faculty of education in Damascus University, and he is a preacher and a Khateeb in Damascus’ mosques. Welcome Dr. Nabulsi.
  For a start esteemed Doctor, we have read in your book “The favor of Scientific inimitability in Quran and Sunna” that you specifically talked a lot about one Ayah in Ar-Ra’d Surat, which goes as follows:

﴾Allah is He Who raised the heavens without any pillars that you can see.﴿

[Ar-Ra’d, 2]

  What is the interpretation of this Ayah?

The interpretation of the Ayah:

Dr. Nabulsi: 

  In The Name of Allah The Most Gracious, The Most Merciful. Blessings and peace be upon our master, Prophet Muhammad, the Truthful and the Faithful.
  Ustaz Abdulhaleem, first may Allah reward you for these seminars.
  I should give you an introduction before interpreting this Ayah.
  In our first episode, I said: The human reasoning is a means to know the Almighty Allah, yet it is a limited means in the sense that if the mind has a tour in the universe, it will undoubtedly believe that there must be a creator for this universe, and then revelation comes to answer this question by telling that mind that Allah is the Creator of the universe and Allah is He Who raised the heavens.
  Hence, this Ayah embraces the answer for the mind’s enquiry about a Creator of this universe, so the answer is as follows:

﴾Who has created the seven heavens one above another﴿

[Al-Mulk, 3]

﴾Allah is He Who raised the heavens without any pillars that you can see.﴿

[Ar-Ra’d, 2]

  There should be a harmony between human’s reasoning and divine reporting, and to elaborate that let me give you the following example:
  When one of us enters a university and sees all its features such as the buildings, laboratories, halls, auditoriums, dormitories, lush gardens and courts, he will realize by his reasoning tens of facts from what he saw.
  He will notice the well-done buildings which are suitable for the purpose of the university, the marvelous halls with their sound proof walls, luxurious seats, mobile boards which are automatically erased, the dormitories which are surrounded with gardens, the whole set up of the university which is far away from noise and the huge laboratories, noticing all that will make you deduce that there must be a wise managing staff, a delicate planning and architecture, yet you wouldn’t predict who the dean is? You wouldn’t know the bylaws? You have no idea when the student passes and when he/she fails? You wouldn’t know the names of the teachers? Impossible!
  Therefore, visiting the buildings of this university tells you that there must be distinguished architects and scientists behind them, but it can’t tell you who they are? What are their names? What system controls them? How a student passes the exams? And in order to know all that, you should get yourself a booklet about the university.
  Same goes for the universe, for looking and reflecting on it should be accompanied with revelation. Hence, revelation completes the reflection and pondering over the creation of heavens and earth, and the role of the reasoning is to reflect and know that there must be a creator for the universe, whereas the role of revelation is to tell you the following:

﴾Allah is He Who raised the heavens without any pillars that you can see.﴿

Reasoning is useless without revelation to guide it:

  One more important thing, revelation tells you what Allah wants from you! Why did he create you? Why did he make the worldly life so limited and short? Why did he make it a bridge to the hereafter? All these enquiries are answered in the revelation.
  Therefore, we can’t depend only on reasoning and mind in our faith, exactly like the eye, which even though might be very clear and sound in a person, yet it is useless without light (one can’t see without light). A seeing person and blind one are the same in a dark room. The uselessness of the eye without light, which is the intermediate factor between the eye and objects, is like the uselessness of the mind without revelation to guide it to the right path. Reasoning without revelation is described in the following Ayahs:

﴾Verily, he thought and plotted; So let him be cursed! How he plotted! And once more let him be cursed, how he plotted! Then he thought; Then he frowned and he looked in a bad tempered way; Then he turned back and was proud; Then he said: "This is nothing but magic from that of old; "This is nothing but the word of a human being!" I will cast him into Hell-fire﴿

[Al-Muddathir, 18-26]

 The mind alone is not enough because it is limited. The need of light for the eye to see is similar to the need of revelation for the mind to perceive.
  The divine answer for the mind, which enquired about the existence of a Creator for this universe, is as follows:

﴾Allah is He Who raised the heavens without any pillars that you can see.﴿

 It means that Allah raised the heavens with pillars which you can’t see.
  This Ayah is the only explanation of the theory of gravity in the universe.

There are unseen gravity forces in the universe:

  There are unseen gravity powers in the universe.
  Putting a magnet hidden under a paper with a nail on it enables the magnet to move the nail without being seen by the eye.
  Same goes for you, as you are connected to gravity powers. What is the weight of a human being basically?
  It is but the gravity power that pulls him to the center of the earth, and this fact is supported by the difference of man’s weight between the earth and the moon, for there is lesser gravity on the moon and man becomes weightless, while the astronauts wake up in their spaceships by the roof because there is no gravity. Allah says:

﴾Allah is He Who raised the heavens without any pillars that you can see.﴿

 Out of divine wisdom, the earth revolves around the sun, which is obvious to all of us, and its speed is 30 Kilometers per second, and since we started this lecture, we have undoubtedly travelled hundreds of thousands of Kilometers in the space.
  The earth revolves around the sun in an oval orbit which means that its orbit has two diameters, a long one and short one.
  The oval orbit is different from a circular one, for the latter has one diameter only whereas the former is like an egg and it has two diameters, long one and short one.
While the earth is revolving around the sun, it comes close to its short diameter, so the distance between the earth and the sun becomes closer, and you know Ustaz Abdulhaleem that gravity law is related to distance and mass and when the mass increases then the gravity increases as well and when the distance decreases the gravity increases, in that case, we would have a high possibility of earth‘s gravitation towards the sun, so what does happen in this case? The earth increases its speed when it is closer to the sun (as if it is a thinking object) which creates centrifugal power equals the gravity power which keeps the earth on its orbit, how?
  In order to understand that, try to fill a bucket with water and start rotating it, you will see that water doesn’t fall to the ground, why? Because while rotating the bucket you are creating a centrifugal power away from the center (of rotation) and this power keeps the water within the bucket. Same goes for the earth, for when it reaches the closest point to the sun, and in order to avoid being gravitated towards the sun, it increases its speed, and this excessive speed creates an additional centrifugal power which keeps the earth on its orbit, taking of course into consideration that the earth is an inanimate thing.

Allah’s signs in the horizons:

  Can anyone believe that a vehicle is driven by itself without a driver? Can anyone believe that a car made of iron is able to stop on the traffic red light by itself? Do materials have minds? It is Impossible. However, why did an earth, which is made of rocks, increase its speed? Why did it continue moving? Because there is strong gravity and because there is a Creator Who makes it move and he is Allah.
  The benign thing about the earth is “gentleness”, because if the earth increases its speed suddenly, everything on it will collapse, but for a profound wisdom, its speed accelerates gradually to keep everything steady in its place.
  If a car full of boxes takes off or stops suddenly, the boxes will fall.
  The reason of that is due to “the law of Inertia” according to which a moving object tends to move along a straight line path indefinitely while still objects will stay at rest.
  Why do we use seatbelts in the car? They are to protect us in case the car stopped suddenly, because you are moving at a speed equal to the car’s speed and you are controlled by “the law of inertia”, and thus you will keep moving at the same speed even though the car stopped, and this results in accidents, therefore the seatbelt keeps you stuck to the car seat.

 Again when the earth reaches the closest point to the sun it increases its speed and creates a centrifugal power equals the gravity power which keeps the earth on its orbit.
Now when the earth reaches the furthest point from the sun on its orbit, the gravity is weak and there is a big chance that the earth keeps moving in the outer space. Therefore, we have two dangerous situations, the first danger is that the earth will be gravitated towards the sun and this will evaporate it in one second, and the second danger is to slip away from sun gravity and keep moving in the outer space which will bring its temperature down to minus 270 degrees (The Absolute Zero) which is a certain death to everything on earth at this low temperature.
  Again we have a danger of being gravitated to the sun and burn in it, and a danger of slipping away from sun’s gravity which means a certain death because of the very low temperature.
  When the earth reaches the furthest point from the sun on its orbit, it decreases its speed and consequently decreases the centrifugal power in order to make it equal to the gravity power which keeps it on its orbit.
  This orbit and movements must be controlled by a wise Divine Omnipotence to act like this, and this divine wisdom makes the earth’s acceleration and deceleration very gentle, which is manifesting one of Allah’s names “The Gentle”.
  The reckless car driver disturbs the passengers by his sudden taking off and sudden stopping, unlike the gentle driver with whom the passengers are never disturbed. Also a gentle plane’s pilot lands very gently unlike another one who lands the plane as if he is landing it on a stair. Allah is “Gentle”.

 The broadcaster:

 Esteemed Doctor, let us go back to the heavens and pillars we started with, you told us that there are no pillars according to the Ayah, and these pillars are unseen ones and they are but the gravity powers.

The wisdom behind raising the heavens without any pillars that we can see:

  Dr. Nabulsi:

 Now suppose that the earth slipped away from the sun’s gravity and kept going in the outer space, and if hypothetically we want to bring it back, we need a trillion steel (the braided steel is the strongest material ) cables with a diameter of 5 meters each to be tied to the sun, given that every 5 meters diameter cable is able to pull 2 million tons of weight, then we need to plant those cables on the surface of earth with a space of 5 meters between every two cables (which is the diameter of one cable), and thus we will live in a forest of cables which will limit our movement on earth, it will prevent building houses, paving roads and will prevent the sun light from reaching the earth, and consequently, there will be no life on earth.
  However, Allah’s wisdom decreed that the heavens should be raised without pillars that you can see, and those pillars are but the gravity power!!!
  The gravity power of the sun is 2 million billion, and all this power is to incline the earth three millimeters per second, and the oval orbit is the earth’s orbit around the sun.
The power needed to incline the earth three millimeters per second is what is meant by the Ayah:

﴾Allah is He Who raised the heavens without any pillars that you can see.﴿

 The broadcaster:

 This reminds us of what early scholars said about the shape of the earth and that it is oval and not flat, and this is but inimitability.
  After we tackled the gravity powers between the heavens and earth, now let us tackle the other Ayah: “By the sky (having rain clouds) which gives rain, again and again” which is totally a different Ayah that is mentioned in the Noble Quran, and there is inimitability in explaining it.
  The interpretation of the Ayah: “By the sky (having rain clouds) which gives rain, again and again.”:

 Dr. Nabulsi:

 We used to interpret this Aya as follows: Water steam ascends up to the sky and comes back as rain, then it was discovered that the electromagnet transmission in radio broadcasting bounces back when it is emitted in space, what brings it back? They found out that there is a layer responsible for returning back these waves to the ground without which we would have never had radio or visual transmission, and this layer is called ionosphere.
Actually, we found out that whatever is organizing the movement of the entire universe is mentioned in the following Ayah:

﴾By the sky (having rain clouds) which gives rain, again and again.﴿

[At-Tariq, 11]

 This means that every planet orbits in a closed orbit to come back to the relatively starting point.
  The opened orbit will take a spiral shape, whereas the closed orbit will bring the planet back to the starting point.
  The time of Big Ben clock is adjusted according to a star’s movement, and they have to change the clock's speed by one or two seconds per year (On top of the pendulum is a small stack of old penny coins; these are to adjust the time of the clock. Adding or removing a penny will change the clock's speed by 0.4 seconds per day), therefore the star is more accurate than any clock on earth (because the most accurate clock has to be adjusted).

﴾By the sky (having rain clouds) which gives rain, again and again.﴿

 Every planet in the universe is moving, and had it not been for this movement, the universe will collapse and turn into one mass because of the gravity powers according to which, in that case, the larger star will gravitate the smaller one till the universe turns into one mass and life ends. Therefore, we have life thanks to the movement in the universe. The movement of any star (or planet) in a closed orbit will bring the planet back to the starting point. This fact organizes the entire universe:

﴾By the sky (having rain clouds) which gives rain, again and again. And the earth which splits (with the growth of trees and plants),﴿

[At-Tariq, 11-12]

 The broadcaster:

 We glorify the Almighty Allah with these words, and now we can see clearly the inimitability in Quran’s Ayahs, which descended 1400 years ago, is unfolding by the scientists recently, through microscopes and by using spaceships.

Unfolding the inimitability of the Quran’s Ayahs which descended 1400 years ago:

 Dr. Nabulsi:

 This confirms what Allah says:

﴾We will show them﴿

[Fussilat, 53]

 “Asseen” (The Arabic article for “Will” in English), is used for future, and “Almeem” (Arabic article for “them” in English) is a third person pronoun, therefore Allah is the speaker here, and the believer is the addressed one, while the third person is the absent one, Allah says:

﴾ We will show them Our Signs in the universe, and in their ownselves, until it becomes manifest to them that this (the Qur'an) is the truth.﴿

[Fussilat, 53]

Conclusion and farewell:

  The broadcaster:

 Glory be to Allah! Dear brother and sisters, with this reflecting and pondering over Allah’s noble Ayahs, and over Allah’s creation of heavens and earth lectured by the esteemed doctor Mohammad Rateb Al Nabulsi, I will leave you now, and we will continue this reflection on Allah’s creatures in the coming episode. Till that time, by Allah’s will, farewell and I will leave you in Allah’s protection.