Sapient Thoughts #10: Does the Hadith of the Sun prostrating support geocentrism? | Mohammed Hijab (2021-01-16) #

0:00:02 [Music]
0:00:16 to another episode of sapient
0:00:18 thoughts where we discuss theo
0:00:20 philosophical issues
0:00:21 we tackle some of those arguments of the
0:00:23 detractors of islam
0:00:25 in addition to making positive arguments
0:00:27 for the veracity
0:00:29 of islam today in sha allah what we're
0:00:31 going to be doing is dealing with a very
0:00:33 prominent hadith that you'll find in
0:00:35 many of the
0:00:36 anti-islamic apologetics and
0:00:39 anti-islamic
0:00:40 websites of those individuals who are
0:00:42 trying
0:00:43 to attack the deen the religion of islam
0:00:46 so this is a famous hadith really a
0:00:49 cosmological hadith
0:00:50 which is mentioned by abu dharr
0:00:52 al-khafari and the contention
0:00:53 is that this hadith fully supports
0:00:56 without a shadow
0:00:57 of a doubt a geocentric model
0:01:01 and in fact some add to this and say it
0:01:04 shows that the quranic picture or that
0:01:06 the islamic cosmology
0:01:08 generally is that of not only a flat
0:01:10 earth which they've said and spoken
0:01:12 about and we have a separate video
0:01:14 on but one which is flat and stationary
0:01:17 and where in which the uh the sun is
0:01:20 going around
0:01:21 in a geocentric way and thus it's
0:01:24 confirming
0:01:25 the 7th century you know understanding
0:01:28 of cosmology and this is an evidence
0:01:31 that it's false so as i've mentioned the
0:01:35 discussion of flat earth versus round
0:01:37 earth is in a separate video
0:01:38 which you can find on this series so if
0:01:40 you want to see me talk about that
0:01:43 you can pause the video now watch that
0:01:44 video and come back
0:01:46 now in regards to this particular video
0:01:49 let's read the hadith in question and
0:01:51 move on
0:01:52 to what the specific contentions are so
0:01:55 the hadith
0:01:56 is narrated by abu dhabi may allah be
0:01:59 pleased with him
0:02:00 and he said that the prophet sallallahu
0:02:01 alaihi wasallam said
0:02:04 do you know where the sun set
0:02:07 do you know where it goes i said
0:02:12 allah and his messenger know best he
0:02:14 said it goes and prostrates beneath
0:02:16 the throne then it asks for permission
0:02:19 to rise
0:02:20 and permission is given to it soon it
0:02:23 will prostrate
0:02:24 and it will ask for permission to rise
0:02:27 but permission
0:02:27 will not be given to it it will be said
0:02:31 to it go back to where you came from
0:02:34 so it will arise from its place of
0:02:37 setting
0:02:37 and that is what allah may allah be
0:02:39 glorified may he be glorified
0:02:41 refers to in the verse and the son runs
0:02:44 on its fixed course for a term appointed
0:02:48 and that is a decree of the mighty the
0:02:50 all-knowing he's mentioning
0:02:52 uh the prophet muhammad mentioning an
0:02:53 ayah surah asi in chapter 36 verse
0:02:56 number 38
0:02:59 that the son runs on an or on a fixed
0:03:02 uh term decreed
0:03:06 so let's talk about what the contentions
0:03:08 are the contentions really you could say
0:03:10 are three in number three main
0:03:12 contentions
0:03:13 the first one relates to this
0:03:14 prostration of the sun what do we
0:03:16 understand
0:03:17 from this uh hadith when we talk about
0:03:19 the prostration of the sun
0:03:21 is it to be suggested that this is an
0:03:23 anthropomorphic or a personified picture
0:03:25 of the celestial
0:03:26 sphere that is the sun and isn't this
0:03:29 more in line with mythology
0:03:31 and ancient legend than it is with the
0:03:33 scientific contemporaneous reality that
0:03:35 we know
0:03:36 from examination and from uh
0:03:40 advances in science that's number one
0:03:42 the second thing is about
0:03:43 that the the going how could the sun be
0:03:46 going
0:03:47 uh underneath the throne and this shows
0:03:50 they say
0:03:51 the fact that the sun is going somewhere
0:03:53 in sunset
0:03:54 that it's confirming they say the
0:03:57 geocentric picture
0:03:59 thirdly they say the time of sunset so
0:04:02 why is it that the time of sunset is in
0:04:04 any way significant
0:04:05 knowing that sunset is at different
0:04:07 times at different points of the round
0:04:08 earth
0:04:10 i know there may be some flat earth is
0:04:12 listening to this
0:04:13 and as i've said there's a video for you
0:04:15 guys or for other people
0:04:17 uh about the flowers so that's these are
0:04:19 the three main contentions
0:04:21 so let's deal with them one by one and
0:04:24 in terms of verses of the quran
0:04:26 we'll be discussing those verses
0:04:29 of the quran which people try to use to
0:04:31 refer to geocentrism
0:04:33 in an entirely different video so the
0:04:35 first issue that people have
0:04:36 is in relation to prostration they say
0:04:39 what is this prostration
0:04:49 that everything in the heavens and the
0:04:51 earth
0:04:53 you know glorifies allah and nothing
0:04:57 in the heavens and the earth does
0:04:58 anything but glorify
0:05:00 allah but you do not understand the way
0:05:03 in which
0:05:04 that takes place so this verse shows
0:05:07 that the celestial bodies the inanimate
0:05:10 objects all of those things
0:05:12 in the world whether living or not has a
0:05:15 means
0:05:16 of glorifying allah and this is actually
0:05:19 in the realm
0:05:20 of the metaphysical so science does not
0:05:23 tap
0:05:23 into this and it has nothing to do with
0:05:26 science
0:05:26 in fact the quran explicitly says
0:05:29 let's be hap in other words
0:05:33 the sun and the moon and or the universe
0:05:37 it has a way of glorifying allah
0:05:39 subhanahu wa ta'ala
0:05:41 which is distinctly different distinctly
0:05:44 different from the way in which we do so
0:05:46 so to try and impose an
0:05:48 anthropomorphized or a personified
0:05:50 understanding on the celestial spheres
0:05:53 or the inanimate objects
0:05:55 is nothing but going against the quran
0:05:58 and a misunderstanding of the entirety
0:06:00 of the quran
0:06:00 so the prostration is not a prostration
0:06:03 like
0:06:04 you know where you put your head on the
0:06:05 floor or the fact that prostration
0:06:07 requires
0:06:08 stationary action from the human actor
0:06:11 in fact
0:06:12 with different uh species different
0:06:15 animals different inanimate objects
0:06:17 different spheres
0:06:18 the the prostration does not in any way
0:06:20 need to be correlated
0:06:22 with such human prostration it's not
0:06:24 like the sun is growing
0:06:25 arms and a forehead and is throwing
0:06:27 itself on the floor
0:06:29 this is not the understanding in fact
0:06:30 the quran refutes this understanding
0:06:32 very categorically
0:06:34 so this very literary it's not even
0:06:37 literal it's a literalistic reading
0:06:39 of the quran the hadith is is is the
0:06:42 first point
0:06:43 is the first point of confusion for
0:06:45 those individuals who try and ask about
0:06:47 the prostration
0:06:48 so clearly here the prostration is
0:06:50 referring to something which is
0:06:52 metaphysical and untappable by the
0:06:54 scientific method
0:06:55 and one can say that you know the
0:06:57 prostration not just the prostration
0:07:00 but the submission of the sun
0:07:03 the islam and the sujood of the sun
0:07:06 is expected since allah subhanahu wa
0:07:09 ta'ala
0:07:09 talks about that the heavens and the
0:07:12 earth will obey
0:07:14 allah
0:07:16 willingly or unwillingly in other words
0:07:18 they're obeying the laws of allah
0:07:20 subhanahu wa'ta'ala
0:07:21 now some individuals will say so why
0:07:24 does the hadith say that the prophet
0:07:26 muhammad sallam is saying that the sun
0:07:28 is going somewhere or to an appointed
0:07:32 destination in the first place
0:07:34 now i want you guys to to understand in
0:07:37 the arabic language there's two things
0:07:38 something called
0:07:39 zaman and that basically
0:07:43 when you're referring to destinations
0:07:45 there are two types of destination
0:07:47 time-bound ones and place-bound
0:07:50 ones as we'll come to know with this
0:07:53 particular hadith and the area in which
0:07:56 links with this particular which the
0:07:58 prophet sallah mentioned itself
0:08:01 the son we know from tafsir
0:08:04 is going towards the day of judgment
0:08:08 and this is the tafseer of chapter 36
0:08:10 number 38 where it says
0:08:14 that the sun is running to a destination
0:08:18 what destination is it is a time-bound
0:08:20 destination or is it a place-bound
0:08:21 destination
0:08:22 so the exegetes of islam the medieval
0:08:24 exegetes are talking about the end of
0:08:27 day so this is
0:08:28 eschatological in nature it's not
0:08:30 talking about a particular place where
0:08:32 in which this is going
0:08:34 uh whether this those who espouse the
0:08:36 scientific miracles narrative says the
0:08:38 solar apex
0:08:39 and those who want to talk about the uh
0:08:42 you know the
0:08:43 the scientific errors narrative are
0:08:44 going to say is beneath the earth
0:08:46 both of which are not indicated by the
0:08:48 primary text and what's the evidence of
0:08:50 this
0:08:51 the evidence of this is the exact
0:08:52 phraseology the exact terminology
0:08:55 of the of the hab of going is mentioned
0:08:58 in the quran where is it mentioned is
0:09:00 mentioned in chapter 37
0:09:02 and verse number 99 well well where the
0:09:04 allah
0:09:05 narrates that ibrahim is saying
0:09:11 i am going to allah and he will guide me
0:09:15 the same
0:09:16 exact phraseology
0:09:20 i am going now what does this mean does
0:09:23 that mean that
0:09:24 somehow abraham is doing an israel
0:09:27 maharaja you know of his own no it
0:09:29 doesn't mean that it means
0:09:31 as qatar says that this is in many ways
0:09:33 a figurative
0:09:35 kind of going or if you don't want to
0:09:37 say it's a figurative kind of going
0:09:39 uh or something which is metaphoric then
0:09:41 you could say he is going with his
0:09:43 as pattada says who's part of the self
0:09:45 of the predecessors
0:09:47 he says this means that ibrahim is going
0:09:50 with his hammel
0:09:51 with his knee with his kalb with his
0:09:53 knee meaning with his intentions with
0:09:54 his khal meaning with his heart meaning
0:09:56 this the hab or this going it's not
0:09:59 talking about
0:10:00 a place bound going now bear that in
0:10:03 mind
0:10:04 because there's another hadith which is
0:10:05 extremely important
0:10:07 maybe ironically but definitely
0:10:08 interestingly narrated also by abu dhabi
0:10:12 i'll tell you why this is important he
0:10:14 says that the prophet muhammad said
0:10:16 the seven heavens and the seventh earth
0:10:18 in comparison to the corsi is nothing
0:10:20 but
0:10:21 a ring thrown in the desert and
0:10:24 certainly the hugeness of the hajj over
0:10:25 the course is like the desert over that
0:10:27 ring allahu akbar
0:10:29 allah the magnitude
0:10:33 of the hulk of the creation of allah
0:10:35 subhanahu wa ta'ala
0:10:36 look at that that the entire seven
0:10:39 heavens
0:10:40 is like a ring thrown in the desert
0:10:42 compared to the kursi now the corsi is
0:10:44 roughly translated as the footstool of
0:10:46 allah subhanahu wa ta'ala but it's
0:10:47 something which is not
0:10:49 okay they cannot be imagined and then
0:10:51 that compared to the arsh which is the
0:10:52 throne
0:10:53 and also the sealing of creation is is
0:10:56 insignificant as well
0:10:58 now why am i mentioning this because the
0:11:01 question is
0:11:02 is there something that the sun does or
0:11:05 could there be on the
0:11:06 islamic cosmology something that the sun
0:11:10 does or somewhere
0:11:11 where the insignificant sun which is
0:11:14 placed
0:11:15 in the dunya in the worldly heaven how
0:11:18 do we know it's in the worldly heaven
0:11:19 because allah says
0:11:24 anywhere with the celestial objects in
0:11:26 chapter 67 verse number four
0:11:28 that is dunya so one of the seven
0:11:31 heavens
0:11:32 and then you have the kursi which is
0:11:34 like a ring compared to that
0:11:36 the movement of the sun in in this
0:11:38 context of the grand
0:11:40 scheme the cosmological grand scheme of
0:11:43 things
0:11:44 is completely insignificant
0:11:47 does it mean to say that and this is
0:11:49 another question does it mean to say
0:11:51 that if it's going under the harsh
0:11:53 is the assumption the false assumption
0:11:56 that
0:11:57 it wasn't underdarsh in the first place
0:11:59 or the throne
0:12:00 it must have been underdarsh because
0:12:02 according to this hadith i've just
0:12:03 mentioned
0:12:04 and other things in the quran as well
0:12:08 other that
0:12:12 the throne is the ceiling of creation so
0:12:15 there's nothing that can be
0:12:17 contained within the creation that would
0:12:19 not be in any way under the arch in the
0:12:21 first place
0:12:22 from the quranic cosmological
0:12:24 perspective thus
0:12:26 the sun was always underneath dash
0:12:30 in as much the same way as ibrahim was
0:12:32 always on the earth
0:12:34 when he said innit
0:12:38 and so it's not insignificant to say
0:12:40 that i'm going somewhere or that someone
0:12:42 is going somewhere
0:12:43 or to some time when in fact they are
0:12:47 staying
0:12:47 in the same course that they are on a
0:12:50 physical
0:12:51 trajectory level so this question of
0:12:55 going somewhere that the hab the going
0:12:59 of the sun is one that has been confused
0:13:02 by the compounded ignorance of those who
0:13:05 fail to look
0:13:06 at the entire corpus of the quran and
0:13:08 sunnah
0:13:09 especially in the phraseological usage
0:13:12 of the key terms
0:13:13 that we have just mentioned also to add
0:13:16 it's very important we said we started
0:13:17 this segment off by talking about that
0:13:20 there are two kinds of
0:13:21 zeman and mccann or place and time okay
0:13:24 in the arabic language and both of them
0:13:25 have
0:13:26 for all intents and purposes exactly the
0:13:28 same grammatical
0:13:29 and usually the same phraseological and
0:13:32 semantical
0:13:32 structures now here we said
0:13:36 that the the hab of the sun or the going
0:13:40 of the sun
0:13:41 is not in reference to the
0:13:44 actual going the physical going but in
0:13:47 fact it's about it's a time
0:13:48 bound
0:13:52 not mccann restriction and what is the
0:13:54 evidence of this from the sunnah
0:13:56 the evidence of this from the sunnah is
0:13:58 that the prophet muhammad
0:14:02 he ended the hadith with the vikra or
0:14:06 the
0:14:06 mentioning of washington
0:14:10 and the son runs to an er a determined
0:14:15 uh
0:14:16 a determined to a a a place slash time
0:14:20 determined it can be either
0:14:21 and we said here that almost all the
0:14:24 exegetes
0:14:26 agree that it's an eschatological
0:14:28 referencing meaning
0:14:29 it's talking about the end times and the
0:14:31 day
0:14:32 of judgment so this shows that when he
0:14:35 was referring to abu dhabi about
0:14:37 the hell of the sun it was for
0:14:40 eschatological reasons
0:14:41 rather than cosmological reasons
0:14:45 and now this is where probably the
0:14:48 biggest
0:14:49 issue that people have with this hadith
0:14:51 lies which is
0:14:53 in the understanding that is it
0:14:56 why did the prophet muhammad mention
0:14:58 this at sunset time
0:14:59 and they say this is probably the
0:15:01 biggest indication of geocentricity
0:15:03 or geocentrism and the answer to this is
0:15:06 actually ironically
0:15:07 that this is probably if you want to use
0:15:10 anything if you want to mention
0:15:12 cosmology in this uh this this sense
0:15:15 would would uh validate the heliocentric
0:15:18 model how is that possible
0:15:20 it could validate the heliocentric what
0:15:21 i was saying this is hadith is
0:15:23 heliocentric but that's not my claim
0:15:25 just to be clear
0:15:26 just as i would say it's not right to
0:15:28 say it's talking about geocentrism
0:15:30 but why is that you see the prophet
0:15:33 salallahu
0:15:34 he mentioned this hadith at the time of
0:15:36 sunset
0:15:37 now if the assumption is since he
0:15:40 mentioned it in the time of sunset
0:15:42 that has to do with the movement of the
0:15:43 sun because
0:15:45 the sujud he says that the sun set
0:15:48 and then it asked for permission to rise
0:15:51 again from allah to the throne and ask
0:15:53 permission to rise
0:15:54 again now if you think about it there is
0:15:56 a verse in the quran
0:15:58 which is very powerful and telling it is
0:16:01 in chapter 22 verse number 18. what
0:16:03 allah says
0:16:12 and then the verse continues do you not
0:16:14 see
0:16:15 that to allah prostrate all things
0:16:19 in the heavens and in on the earth
0:16:23 and the shams the sun and the moon
0:16:26 wait a minute wait a minute why is this
0:16:28 significant
0:16:29 because if there is an inextricable link
0:16:32 that is to be made between the sujud
0:16:36 the prostrate the prostrating to
0:16:39 under the sun sorry the prostrating of
0:16:42 the sun
0:16:44 and the sunset
0:16:48 if there's an inextricable link the
0:16:50 quran says
0:16:52 yes and it's mentioned in
0:16:55 which means it's a continuous present
0:16:57 tense wait a minute
0:16:59 what does this mean it means to say that
0:17:00 the sun
0:17:02 is always prostrating to allah it's not
0:17:06 doing it
0:17:07 in the past it's not sajid allah and
0:17:09 it's not doing it in the future or it's
0:17:11 going to do it in the future say yes
0:17:14 yes because these would be the things
0:17:16 you'd have to put proof
0:17:18 in the prefix of the word is saying yes
0:17:21 which means it's happening continuously
0:17:24 in the present
0:17:27 wait a minute if this means what it says
0:17:31 that it would say it would suggest
0:17:34 that so long as the sun is prostrating
0:17:38 it's also setting and obviously
0:17:41 if we now want to introduce the flat
0:17:44 earth
0:17:44 stationary earth cosmology which those
0:17:48 detractors of islam are insisting
0:17:51 on their websites and on their
0:17:54 anti-islamic apologetics
0:17:56 that the quran depicts
0:18:00 a flat earth stationary earth cosmology
0:18:02 with the
0:18:03 sun going around it wait a minute but on
0:18:06 such cosmology
0:18:08 the sun would not be setting at all
0:18:11 times
0:18:12 wait a minute wait a minute yes because
0:18:15 if it was a flat earth stationary earth
0:18:17 cosmology
0:18:18 the sun would go underneath the earth
0:18:21 and there would be
0:18:22 time periods where in which it's not
0:18:24 setting on
0:18:25 anybody at all there would be no such
0:18:28 thing
0:18:29 as a constant or
0:18:32 a constant sunset so this in fact
0:18:36 ironically
0:18:38 it actually takes away from the
0:18:39 cosmology that they are trying to build
0:18:42 in their scientific era narrative and in
0:18:45 fact
0:18:46 on the heliocentric model this is
0:18:48 definitely the case
0:18:50 where in which the earth rotates around
0:18:53 its own axis
0:18:55 it's always setting it's always setting
0:18:58 on someone
0:18:59 the sun is always setting on someone why
0:19:02 because the earth is continually
0:19:04 spinning around its own axis
0:19:06 thus if sujood or prostration
0:19:09 is connected with rob or
0:19:13 setting of the sun then it must always
0:19:16 have
0:19:16 resetting it must always be setting and
0:19:19 this would in fact
0:19:21 negate the flat earth stationary flat
0:19:24 stationary earth
0:19:25 geocentric cosmology which these
0:19:27 anti-muslims are trying
0:19:29 to project now they could say well this
0:19:31 is a contradiction between the hadith
0:19:33 and the quran
0:19:34 and if this was the case the muhaddithin
0:19:36 would have rejected it and it would be
0:19:37 seen as i loved the hadith
0:19:38 the hidden defect of the hadith just
0:19:40 like hadith
0:19:41 for example was rejected on similar
0:19:43 grounds as muslim
0:19:44 so if it was a contradiction it would
0:19:46 have been rejected because of meta
0:19:48 criticism
0:19:49 or the criticism of the content of the
0:19:51 hadith but the
0:19:52 aramaic did not see it as that so it's
0:19:56 not something it's
0:19:57 as we have just done now uh we have
0:19:59 reconciled it with the
0:20:00 quran we have reconciled it with a
0:20:02 heliocentric model
0:20:03 i don't think there's an issue here and
0:20:06 so with all of this having said
0:20:08 being said we can conclude quite safely
0:20:12 that this hadith is not talking about
0:20:16 the sun
0:20:17 going under the throne and it wasn't
0:20:20 under the throne before that
0:20:22 or it's not talking about the sun going
0:20:23 under the earth because if it was if
0:20:26 it's a flat stationary earth it would
0:20:27 not be setting and we know from the
0:20:29 quran it is
0:20:30 the sun is constantly prostrating and if
0:20:32 it's constantly prostrating it must
0:20:34 mean it's constantly setting and
0:20:35 therefore
0:20:37 the boomerang the intellectual boomerang
0:20:40 has hit them once again
0:20:42 it's always ironic that when those
0:20:44 individuals they try and attack islam
0:20:47 the very evidences they use are usually
0:20:49 used against them
0:20:55 [Music]
0:20:58 a