GRAVITATION AND MOTION
15- I swear by those that recede
16- By flowing that go to nest
81- The Rolling, 15-16
To have a better insight into the meaning of these verses, let us see first the signification of the words used then in Arabic.
The Arabic word “hunnes” which we have mentioned in English with the expression “Those that receded” has also the following connotation “shrinking”,” sinking”, retrogression”, “regression”. On the other hand the Arabic word Kunnes means “to follow a definite itinerary“, “to return home “also “nest of a moving object”. And the word “flowing” in the 16th verse is expressed by the word “jariye”.
We are inextricably bound by an indefinite number of scientific laws in our daily life, among others, the law of gravitation, the law of motion, the law of thermodynamics, etc. While we eat or relieve nature, we are subject to the law of gravitation. When astronauts eat and relieve nature in the space, they have to have recourse to special arrangements in order to satisfy their demands, because their bodies were created according to the standards of the earth where the gravitational force reigns.
Discoveries of scientists are not discoveries of the non-existent, as their function is to throw light on the already existing things. The gravitational force has always existed in the universe. But it fell to the lot of Isaac Newton (1642-1727) to clarify it by a mathematical formula. Newton showed
by the law of gravitation that God’s creation was based on the law of gravity, which governed the stars, the Earth, the Moon and that Man’s erect posture, was not a haphazard, but a result of the gravitational force inherent in matter.
Referring to the fine balances of the universe, Isaac Newton said that the author of this extremely sensitive system, composed of the Sun, the planets and the comets, can but be a Creator endowed with intelligence and power. He was the ruler of all these things whose dominion embraced all and whom we call our omniscient Lord.
UNIVERSAL MATHEMATICS
The Quran often speaks of the fact that God created everything within a given measure. This means that everything in the universe is governed by mathematics. The thing made to measure is commensurable, measurable by a given standard and can be expressed in mathematical terms. Newton corrected the results that Kepler and Galilei had reached, gave them precision and proved that the material universe could be explained in mathematical terms.
Science took cognizance of the importance of the gravitational force in the 1700s. God alluded in the Quran in the 600s to the law of gravitation, to which He had had recourse in His creation. In the verses mentioned at the head of this chapter, one can see the allusion to the gravitational force and to the balance between gravitation and motion. Both the nucleus of atom and the Sun, occupying a central position among the planets have been in state of recession and retrogression, while the nucleus and the sun in the solar system attracted to itself the planets with the objective of driving them home. This force is called gravitational force. The nuclei which have already retrograded in the center wants to integrate the electrons, and the sun, acts likewise by drawing the planets them unto themselves by applying forces that cause them to recede. The word khunnas mentioned in Verse 15 of the sura The Rolling can easily be claimed to be signifying the gravitational force. (Men at the time of the descent of the Quran had no proper term for gravitational force. So that it had to use the word khunnas, meaning “receding”)
Despite the attraction by the nucleus of atom, electrons do not adhere to the nucleus. Likewise, the planets do not come into contact with the sun despite the latter’s gravitational force. It is the motion of electrons and planets that prevent the electrons from adhering to the nucleus and the planets to the sun. The word jariye used in sura The Rolling 16th verse, signifies flowing and is important in that it signifies the factor that prevents adhesion. Had the electrons and planets tended to adhere to the nucleus and to the sun respectively, defying khunnas, i.e. the gravity, no planet, no solar system, no orbit, no vital energy, and no majesty would exist. If the electrons and planets were to scatter in defiance of the khunnas having been released from the gravitational force, again, neither galaxies, nor the animal kingdom, nor vegetation, nor we would exist. Thanks to these two separate phenomena, electrons go back to their orbits, their homes, and planets to where they belong, to move in their orbits. This is marvelously expressed with the word Kunnes in verse 16. The Quran uses the word khunnas to signify gravitation, and motion by the word jariye that resists against the force of attraction and to be within the orbit again by the word kunnas. Thus, in a period when there was no term to express gravitation, the Quran had already revealed the phenomena that depended on gravitation.
MARVELS FROM ATOMS TO STARS
As we already have seen, God testified under oath, certain phenomena. The oaths we see pronounced in verses point to the flawless creations of God, and the miraculous announcements in the Quran for minds cleansed from obduracy.
The gravitational force that protons exert in the innumerable nuclei of atoms in our body and the electrons oppose to this force while remaining within the orbit. These happenings in the atom are in continuous and harmonious activity thanks to the nuclear force and to the other forces of the atom. If the atoms of our body we call ‘I’ were to stick to the chair we sit in and to integrate with the ground upon which we stretch out, there would no longer be an entity called ‘I’. Again, had the electrons of the chair we sit in came into collision with the electrons of our body, giving rise to chaos or had the gravitational force concealed in the nuclei of atoms on the ground jumbled the atoms in our body, could we exist ever? No. Both the gravitational force and the motion, as well as other forces harmoniously contribute to our being.Forces that have come about and everything in the Creation reminds us of God.
