A whale that holds up the Earth?!

Discussion in 'Refutation' started by Unbeknown, Mar 5, 2021.

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  1. Unbeknown

    Unbeknown Senior Moderator

    Sean Carroll on the other hand is dead sure: "we are done finding the 'underlying ingredients' of everyday life - and we will not change our minds even in a million years"

     
  2. Aqdas

    Aqdas Staff Member

    Shaykh Asrar in Islam Answers Atheism:

    20210226_164651.jpg
     
  3. Unbeknown

    Unbeknown Senior Moderator

    from the above article:

    "But the fact that we’re still discussing such questions 40 years after Hawking’s first papers on black holes and information is testament to their enormous significance."

    or to the enormous lack of tangible evidence and mere guesswork involved ...
     
  4. Adham12

    Adham12 Active Member



    Asalamalykum,

    Can anyone comment if what he says is true about the Hadith Shariff?
     
  5. abu Hasan

    abu Hasan Administrator

    intellectual slaves of science had a little hiccup recently.

    ---
    and the first few lines in the nature article describes the phenomenon well.

    ---
    and here.


    ask how many have seen black holes? those 'i don't believe in what i don't see' types?
     
    Unbeknown likes this.
  6. Etiquettes
    Brothers if someone asks you a question, you should answer it in a positive way. There in no need to attack, make assumptions and have suspicions about people. Sayyiduna Muhammad Rasulullah sall Allahu ‘alaihi wa Aalihi wasallam said: I warn you of suspicion, for suspicion is the most false form of talk. Bukhaari Muslim. Obviously questions should be asked in a positive way with good manners and etiquettes. Especially when they are related to the Deen and Imaan.

    I was asked about this tafseer and narration a few years ago by a scientific minded brother who was denying it. I reminded him that we are believers in the unseen why is it so difficult to accept this authentic sahih hadith (as mentioned by Imam al Haakim rahmatullah ‘alaihi ) when we believe in Allah, Angels, Jinn, Heaven, Hell etc all which are ghaib hidden from us. Also a Qalam pen that talks (which has been mentioned in many ahaadith).

    There may be a difference in the translation and interpretation of the word al Nun but it has been translated as fish. In another narration it has been translated as inkpot but that was in a different context altogether. I have translated the hadith for the benefit of the brothers:

    The Hadith

    It is narrated from Ibn ‘Abbas radi Allahu Ta'ala a'nhu that verily the Prophet Muhammad Sall Allahu a'laihi wa Aalihi wasallam said:
    Verily the first thing that Allah created was the al Qalam (the pen), He said to it write! The Pen replied O Lord what shall I write? He said: Write the al Qadr (destiny). So the pen wrote from that day right up until the establishing of the Day of Judgment. Then the book was wrapped up (closed) and the pen was lifted. And His throne is on water, the water vapour rose up and the skies where made out of it. Then Nur (light) was created and the earth was spread upon it and the earth is on the back (zahar) of the Nun, the earth started to shake so it was made stationary (by placing) the jibaal (mountains). And the mountains will (stand) proud on the earth until the Day of Judgment then Sayyiduna Ibn ‘Abbas radi Allahu Ta'ala a’nhu then recited… Nun wal Qalam…

    • ‘Abd ur Razzaq
    • al Faryaabi
    • Sae’ed bin Mansur
    • Ibn Jarir
    • Ibn al Mundhir
    • Ibn Mardawiyah
    • Ibn Abi Hatm
    • Abu al Shaykh in al Azmah
    • al Haakim Said that it is authentic Sahih
    • al Bayhaqi in al Aasmaa wa al Sifaat
    • al Khatib in his Taarikh
    • al Diyaa fi al Muktaarh
    • al Suyuti in al Durr al Manthur fi al Tafseer al Mathur Voume 8 Page 240-341.
    Amjad al Ahaadith Volume 1 page 100-101

    When I presented the above narration to the brother explaining the meaning of the Arabic words and the interpretation he accepted it al Hamdulillah.

    We need to use hikmah in the way that we deal with people, what do you expect from an average Muslim brought up in Daar ul Harb like the UK in a secular education system. Whose teachers throughout his entire life have been non Muslim Kufaar.

    Wa billahi Tabaarak wa Ta’ala tawfeeq

     
    Ghulam Ali likes this.
  7. thanks aH for the detailed response.
    much appreciated.
     
  8. AbdalQadir

    AbdalQadir time to move along! will check pm's.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/30/science/30species.html

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/13/new-species-2011-conservation-international_n_848787.html

    They have NOT even discovered all the real life life-forms that exist RIGHT NOW and their inter-relationships with other life forms!

    AND YET these are the same group of people who want us to swallow their garbage theories hook, line and sinker that man originated from monkeys based on what they SPECULATE happened millions of years ago, that the universe is eternal, and what not!
     
  9. AbdalQadir

    AbdalQadir time to move along! will check pm's.

    as usual, you spew white lies and attack straw men to hide the ugliness of your character.

    no one deems it a crime to ask to learn. only your "questions" are in an arrogant tone towards Islamic scholars and literature AND accompanied by a preemptive scorn and ridicule.

    assuming you have some shame, if not intelligence, to make it easy for someone like you to understand, think of this example:

    2 guys from the amazon forest who don't know diddly squat of physics, happen to come across some of newton's laws, and they both ask "questions":

    person 1: i just read that acceleration is directly proportional to the force acting on and inversely proportional to the mass of a body. i also read that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. can you please explain to me what it means. (a genuine questioner's neutral attitude looks like this. even if he might not agree with your answer later on, at least he has asked a question with no preconceived notions, no preemptive arrogance, bias, ridicule, and scorn)

    person 2: i just read a preposterous crock of nonsense that acceleration is directly proportional to the force acting on and inversely proportional to the mass of a body. i also read that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. i just punched a dent into your car. where is the dent on my hand? i thought newton was supposed to be the father of classical physics, and we are supposed to believe this? can you offer me an explanation to these theories? (this is YOUR attitude towards anything you read from Muslim scholars or in texts that your little mind can't understand!)

    just imagine if you, as a scientist (supposedly) pick up the second questioner on his attitude, and he comes back with:

    dishonesty and cheapness at its finest! the only one you're fooling and lying to is - yourself

    no one called you out on just asking.

    -----------

    leaving the specific quotes aside, convince you HOW? what do you know about the science of narration and the procedures for establishing the authenticity of a narration?

    do you know what to look for, who to trust, what are the right questions to ask, how to catch out a con, etc?

    it's like some pendu rickshaw-wala from sialkot who never went to school, saying, "if someone can convince me that the internal combustion engine converts energy from one form to another, i will believe him, even though i know nothing about physics and don't wish to learn either!"
     
    Ghulam Ali likes this.
  10. abu Hasan

    abu Hasan Administrator

    on the contrary there is nothing in the saying that suggest that you should be dead literal about it. if you want to force it in your own framework, we cannot help it.

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    tafsir is an extensive science and it is not as easy as computing the sum of two plus two. just as you may find it difficult to explain the article on supermassive black holes (from wikipedia) to someone without a background in physics, so also is explanation of certain hadith and akhbar to a person who has no knowledge of tafsir. al-itqan of suyuti is a recommended minimum if you have to understand principles of tafsir.

    ---
    as usual, you are like the rest of the so-called 'scientific minds' who are satisfied with sample data (without bothering to check sources etc) and make sweeping generalisations. as for reasoning abilities, the less said the better.

    anyway, firstly, sayyiduna ibn abbas raDiyallahu anhu did not write any book of tafsir. that which has been narrated from him via his students such as mujahid, ikrimah etc was collated by later scholars and compiled as 'tanwir al-miqbas'.

    as for sayyiduna ibn abbas himself, sayyiduna umar would ask for his tafsir - and sayyiduna ibn abbas was probably not even twenty; and RasulAllah sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam made du'a for him: "O Allah, give him knowledge of the religion and teach him the meanings of the qur'an". he is known as Habr al-ummah and turjuman al-qur'an.

    ----
    now, like all reports, some are rigorously authenticated and some are weak; some narrators are known for weird reports and ulama are urged to be cautious when taking from such criticised narrators as kalbi, muqatil, suddi al-saghir, awfi etc., as suyuti mentioned in tahbir.

    imam shafiyi is reported to have said that only about a 100 narrations of ibn abbas in tafsir, are established.

    imam ahmed is reported to have said that three kinds of books are [mostly] baseless: on battles, on wars and tafsir. according to imam ahmed's companions, he meant that most of the reports in these three subjects are not rigorously authenticated or through verified chains.

    ----
    indeed, the tafsir made by ibn abbas is among the most reliable (when authentically established as his speech) but that does not mean the 'book' named as tafsir ibn abbas takes the same ruling.

    as far as books go, the tafsir of ibn jarir al-tabari is hailed by many prominent ulama as the most important book of tafsir; imam nawawi said that: 'such a book has never been written'.

    ---
    for example the verse of al-anbiya, 30:

    "the skies and the earth were both sealed, and We ripped them asunder.."

    ibn abbas said: "the sky was stitched and it did not rain; the earth was sealed and nothing grew from it; Allah opened the skies and it rained and opened the earth and vegetation grew from it."

    obviously, the saHabah were aware that everything reported was not to be taken literally.

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    as AQ pointed out, you seem to have a poor opinion of islamic scholars and have that orientalist mindset which refuses to acknowledge that anyone other than white and west can be intellectually superior. if not, why the assumption of literalism?

    thousands of questionable and rationally unsound concepts are swallowed by slaves of science without as much as a whimper, but they readily become champions of reason when an obscure issue which might not even be accepted among authorities and use this to paint religion with a broad brush of 'my reason cannot accept it.'

    as an exercise, take that article on supermassive black holes and try to establish evidence for every statement made therein. and then tabulate how many hypotheses and inductions are made. i would have done so, but i don't have much time.

    i must agree with AQ that the orientalist attitudes must be effaced first for real progress in the path.

    such repeated self-accolades and i-am-intellectually-superior tone does not reflect well upon yourself. do you imagine that we have been living in caves?

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    Allah ta'ala knows best.
     
    Ghulam Ali likes this.
  11. i wrote that the tafsir of ibn abbas :ra: is supposed to be the most authentic because isn't he known as THE mufassir of the Koran par excellence? and hazrat abdullah ibn abbas was amongst the sahaba whereas latter mufassirs were not.

    wa salam.
     
  12. as for my sceptical attitude and rationalism it probably is largely to due with my upbringing and scientific education in the UK but i don't think asking critical questions is a bad thing even if it makes some people uncomfortable.

    at the same time if someone can convince me that these words are rigorously authenticated to be actually of the beloved prophet himself صلى الله عليه وسلم then i will believe it and say the meaning is something i cannot comprehend.
     
  13. sidi abu hasan,

    my enquiry is genuine. my tone was one of genuine astonishment because i didn't expect to find such. ursa major - the great bear -- etc. are just names for clusters of stars which looked vaguely to the ancients like their namesakes. no one today - afaik -- really believes that those stars actually are a great bear. see, there is nothing in the quoted sayings/tafsir which suggest it is metaphorical or spiritual or angels in the form of these creatures etc. i don't see why it should be deemed a fault to ask!

    i deliberately used the word 'visibly' because with our sight or using instruments we cannot see any whale holding up the earth. if people say the whale is there but we just cannot see it with our limited human vision that is not really a valid answer because then anyone can claim anything.

    thank you for at least trying to give a genuine answer though aH :)
     
  14. AbdalQadir

    AbdalQadir time to move along! will check pm's.

    actually the genuineness of his question becomes irrelevant, null and void when he makes arrogant judgement calls before even asking the question.

    arrogant judgement call - "this preposterous thing"

    anyone who can read proper english (despite not going through the british school system), can see the arrogant overtones and sarcasm in this: Are we supposed to believe that there is a whale which is holding up the Earth etc?

    and this: I thought Ibn Abbas was the most reliable tafsir and it contains this?

    followed by this: but seriously, what are we to make of this?
    It's completely irrational and visibly false. There is no whale holding up the earth!


    his humble request to a brother to explain the hadith is more like an officer working for her majesty's government giving an order to some babu - I'm being serious --I hope a learned brother like aH can provide some kind of explanation!

    the only hint of genuineness, overcast by the whole "God save the queen" attitude, appears in the last sentence of his post: If (3) then how can we explain this?; and due to all of the above just looks like a desperate call to rationalize an interpretation with his "the west is great" worldview and set his heart at ease!

    this is what happens when people are at a war with themselves and TRY to hold two opposing things/views dear to themselves! one will definitely eventually give way to the other. for his sake, i hope that Islam prevails in his life.

    sure, but under such circumstances, our questions are rhetorical or loaded and not for the sake of genuinely probing. example: i believe that Ali loved Abu Bakr and Umar, ridwan Allahi 3alaihim. if i ask a shia: "how is it possible that the lion of Allah show taqiyyah and cowardice if he truly believed Abu Bakr and Umar were in the wrong? wouldn't he unsheath his sword?" it is not for the sake of me learning or accepting shiaism!

    the worst form of sarcasm is asking questions you already know (or believe you know) the answers to

    this attitude is no different than the many "questions" by islamophobes, shias, wahabis, and so on - EVEN IF - he did have a genuine query by some freak of luck

    any genuine question to sincerely learn, is ALWAYS based on TRUE neutrality and lack of bias even if it is asked by kafirs. even if after getting an answer the questioner doesn't agree with it, the genuineness to get down to the bottom of things shows in the way the question is asked

    indeed brother, but we should not confuse empathy for laxity.

    i believe tolerating this attitude of his, of judging the world by the "the western way of life and thinking is superior" yardstick, is laxity. laxity gives way to a little more laxity, which gives way to a little more laxity and before we know it, people make a mockery of deen and try to make it into some sort of a hippy movement!

    a muslim is also someone who isn't stung from the same hole twice. he is also someone who should tie his camel.

    just on what grounds should i empathize with this "query", yet i should be tough on the idiot who says that Imam Bukhari makes his blood boil and his blood pressure rise?

    if it IS about empathy, i choose to show it to Ibn Abbas, a companion and a mufassir, radi Allahu 3anhu, rather than someone i don't know on a forum who speaks with such arrogant overtones when talking about him: I thought Ibn Abbas was the most reliable tafsir and it contains this?

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    the fundamental flaw with this person's query is not the query itself. it is this whole inferiority complex towards what should be his own kind and this whole wide eyed astonishment towards the liberal west and what george bush called "our way of life"

    until this root cause of the disease is tackled, you can respond sweetly all you want to a million and one queries*, and you'd only be fiddling with the symptoms, and to not much avail.

    which is why in response to

    sure, but i'm not talking about the mistake from the past

    but rather the attitude that led to it, and sadly that attitude lives on - so far!

    ---------

    * i am not knowledgeable in the tafsir of this verse, and in the same vein, reading the sharh of the Sahih Bukhari hadith that 'the sun sets behind the 3arsh' is still pending. i hope you can provide me some kind of an explanation for that too, abu Hasan!
     
  15. Noori

    Noori Senior Moderator

    subhan Allah, ذلك فضل الله يؤتيه من يشاء
     
  16. abu Hasan

    abu Hasan Administrator

    Last edited: Sep 5, 2012
  17. abu Hasan

    abu Hasan Administrator

    needless to say, supermassive black holes are a fact. you don't believe it? you must be a troglodyte.

    how does this sound:
     
  18. abu Hasan

    abu Hasan Administrator

    nj is just curious and i don't see any issue with his query. true, he finds some things incredible, but then, he is just asking. it is not his fault, it is the fault of the stupid education system, which has stunted thinking - ask de bono about it.

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    one should not ridicule a muslim for a fault or mistake from the past, after he has repented from it. my question to AQ is: why is it difficult to believe that nj has a genuine concern? agreed, he has assumptions and pre-conceived notions but we all do, don't we?

    empathy should become second nature of a muslim. wa billahi't tawfiq.

    ---
    i find your lack of belief disconcerting. are you telling me that you do not believe in the great bear or the dragon or the dove? if so, why not the whale?

    how much milk is in the way of milky way?

    how did you decide that it was the most reliable tafsir?

    Allah ta'ala knows best.
     
    Ghulam Ali likes this.
  19. AbdalQadir

    AbdalQadir time to move along! will check pm's.

    A leopard doesn't lose his spots.

    A genuine seeker questions to learn.

    Uncle toms pose rhetoric questions to show their "enlightened" states of mind.

    I do feel sorry for brother Abu Hasan who tries his best to have husn az-zann and make excuses only for such "laaton key boutt" to never change their ways!
     
  20. sherkhan

    sherkhan Veteran

    How do you know it is preposterous? Are you simply going by your/our limited human comprehension capability? Is it that only what can be sensed (by our sensory faculties) can exist? You mean to say that anything which can't be sensed, can't exist? Why are subatomic models, god particles or models of universe hypothesized by scientists more real or believable, even though nobody has ever seen any of these (except come up with "experimental" results validating the model)?

    Doesn't one of the hadiths on Mir'aj mention about an angel in the form of gigantic rooster who extends all the way from the Throne to the lowest of the seven layers of the earth? For that matter have you seen any angel or even a jinn - have you come to terms with these beings only because the holy Qur'an explicitly mentions them?

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    In his malfuzat Fawa'id al-Fua'd, Hazrat Nizamuddin Awliya recounts an incident when a philosopher entered into a discussion with a caliph and managed to convince him that every phenomena had a natural cause. When Shaykh Shihabuddin Suhrawardi came to know that the caliph had been brainwashed, he beckoned both the caliph and the philosopher to look skyward. Both saw the angel that the Shaykh had described as the one responsible for directing the movement of clouds and sky. Moral of the story is that we can't see the angels or such beings responsible for many natural phenomena.

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    I don't know if the above descriptions in Tafsir Ibn Abbas and Qurtubi are Israiliyat. I don't know if they are based on forged hadiths. But I wouldn't dismissively begin the discussion with the premise that these descriptions are preposterous, just because we can't see them.
     
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