A Closer Look To Classical Islamic Cosmology

There are several cosmological verses in the Qur'an (610-632) which some modern writers have interpreted as foreshadowing the expansion of the universe and possibly even the Big Bang theory: Don't those who reject faith see that the heavens and the earth were a single entity then We ripped them apart? And the heavens We did create with Our Hands, and We do cause it to expand.Quran 51:47 In contrast to ancient Greek philosophers who believed that the universe had an infinite past with no beginning, medieval philosophers and theologians developed the concept of the universe having a finite past with a beginning. This view was inspired by the creation myth shared by the three Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The Christian philosopher, John Philoponus, presented the first such argument against the ancient Greek notion of an infinite past. His reasoning was adopted by many, most notably; Muslim philosopher, Al-Kindi (Alkindus); the Jewish philosopher, Saadia Gaon (Saadia ben Joseph); and the Muslim theologian, Al-Ghazali (Algazel). They used two logical arguments against an infinite past, the first being the "argument from the impossibility of the existence of an actual infinite", which states: "An actual infinite cannot exist." "An infinite temporal regress of events is an actual infinite." ".•. An infinite temporal regress of events cannot exist." The second argument, the "argument from the impossibility of completing an actual infinite by successive addition", states: "An actual infinite cannot be completed by successive addition." "The temporal series of past events has been completed by successive addition." ".•. The temporal series of past events cannot be an actual infinite." Both arguments were adopted by later Christian philosophers and theologians, and the second argument in particular became more famous after it was adopted by Immanuel Kant in his thesis of the first antimony concerning time.[45] In the 10th century, the Brethren of Purity published the Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity, in which a heliocentric view of the universe is expressed in a section on cosmology: "God has placed the Sun at the center of the Universe just as the capital of a country is placed in its middle and the ruler's palace at the center of the city."