L
love my god
The Six Periods of the Creation
There is absolutely no ambiguity whatsoever in the Biblical [ The
Biblical description mentioned here is taken from the so-called
Sacerdotal version discussed in the first part of this work; the
description taken from the so-called Yahvist version has been
compressed into the space of a few lines in today s version of the
Bible and is too insubstantial to be considered here.] description of
the Creation in six days followed by a day of rest, the sabbath,
analogous with the days of the week. It has been shown how this mode
of narration practiced by the priests of the Sixth century B.C. served
the purpose of encouraging the people to observe the sabbath. All Jews
were expected to rest [ 'Sabbath' in Hebrew means 'to rest'.] on the
sabbath as the Lord had done after he had laboured during the six days
of the week.
The way the Bible interprets it, the word 'day' means the interval of
time between two successive sunrises or sunsets for an inhabitant of
the Earth. When defined in this way, the day is conditioned by the
rotation of the Earth on its own axis. It is obvious that logically-
speaking there can be no question of 'days' as defined just now, if
the mechanism that causes them to appear-i.e. the existence of the
Earth and its rotation around the Sun-has not already been fixed in
the early stages of the Creation according to the Biblical
description. This impossibility has already been emphasized in the
first part of the present book.
When we refer to the majority of translations of the Qur'an, we read
that-analogous with the Biblical description-the process of the
Creation for the Islamic Revelation also took place over a period of
six days. It is difficult to hold against the translators the fact
that they have translated the Arabic word by its most common meaning.
This is how it is usually expressed in translations so that in the
Qur'an, verse 54, sura 7 reads as follows:
"Your Lord is God Who created the heavens and the earth in six days."
There are very few translations and commentaries of the Qur'an that
note how the word 'days' should really be taken to mean 'periods'. It
has moreover been maintained that if the Qur'anic texts on the
Creation divided its stages into 'days', it was with the deliberate
intention of taking up beliefs held by all the Jews and Christians at
the dawn of Islam and of avoiding a head-on confrontation with such a
widely-held belief.
Without in any way wishing to reject this way of seeing it, one could
perhaps examine the problem a little more closely and scrutinize in
the Qur'an itself, and more generally in the language of the time, the
possible meaning of the word that many translators themselves still
continue to translate by the word 'day' yaum, plural ayyam in Arabic.
[ See table on last page of present work for equivalence between Latin
and Arabic letters.]
Its most common meaning is 'day' but it must be stressed that it tends
more to mean the diurnal light than the length of time that lapses
between one day's sunset and the next. The plural ayyam can mean, not
just 'days', but also 'long length of time', an indefinite period of
time (but always long). The meaning 'period of time' that the word
contains is to he found elsewhere in the Qur'an. Hence the following:
--sura 32, verse 5:
". . . in a period of time (yaum) whereof the measure is a thousand
years of your reckoning."
(It is to be noted that the Creation in six periods is precisely what
the verse preceding verse 5 refers to).
--sura 70, verse 4:
". . . in a period of time (yaum) whereof the measure is 50,000
years."
The fact that the word , yaum' could mean a period of time that was
quite different from the period that we mean by the word 'day' struck
very early commentators who, of course, did not have the knowledge we
possess today concerning the length of the stages in the formation of
the Universe. In the Sixteenth century A.D. for example, Abu al Su'ud,
who could not have had any idea of the day as defined astronomically
in terms of the Earth's rotation, thought that for the Creation a
division must be considered that was not into days as we usually
understand the word, but into 'events' (in Arabic nauba).
Modern commentators have gone back to this interpretation. Yusuf Ali
(1934), in his commentary on each of the verses that deals with the
stages in the Creation, insists on the importance of taking the word,
elsewhere interpreted as meaning 'days', to mean in reality 'very long
Periods, or Ages, or Aeons'.
It is therefore possible to say that in the case of the Creation of
the world, the Qur'an allows for long periods of time numbering six.
It is obvious that modern science has not permitted man to establish
the fact that the complicated stages in the process leading to the
formation of the Universe numbered six, but it has clearly shown that
long periods of time were involved compared to which 'days' as we
conceive them would be ridiculous.
One of the longest passages of the Qur'an, which deals with the
Creation, describes the latter by juxtaposing an account of earthly
events and one of celestial events. The verses in question are verses
9 to 12, sura 41:
(God is speaking to the Prophet)
"Say. Do you disbelieve Him Who created the earth in two periods? Do
you ascribe equals to Him. He is the Lord of the Worlds.
"He set in the (earth) mountains standing firm. He blessed it.
He measured therein its sustenance in four periods, in due proportion,
in accordance with the needs of those who ask for (sustenance? or
information?).
"Moreover (tumma) He turned to heaven when it was smoke and said to it
and to the earth: come willingly or unwillingly! They said: we come in
willing obedience.
"Then He ordained them seven heavens in two periods, and He assigned
to each heaven its mandate by Revelation. And We adorned the lower
heaven with luminaries and provided it a guard. Such is the decree of
the All Mighty, the Full of Knowledge."
These four verses of sura 41 contain several points to which we shall
return. the initially gaseous state of celestial matter and the highly
symbolic definition of the number of heavens as seven. We shall see
the meaning behind this figure. Also of a symbolic nature is the
dialogue between God on the one hand and the primordial sky and earth
on the other. here however it is only to express the submission of the
Heavens and Earth, once they were formed, to divine orders.
Critics have seen in this passage a contradiction with the statement
of the six periods of the Creation. By adding the two periods of the
formation of the Earth to the four periods of the spreading of its
sustenance to the inhabitants, plus the two periods of the formation
of the Heavens, we arrive at eight periods. This would then be in
contradiction with the six periods mentioned above.
In fact however, this text, which leads man to reflect on divine
Omnipotence, beginning with the Earth and ending with the Heavens,
provides two sections that are expressed by the Arabic word tumma',
translated by 'moreover', but which also means 'furthermore' or
'then'. The sense of a 'sequence' may therefore be implied referring
to a sequence of events or a series of man's reflections on the events
mentioned here. It may equally be a simple reference to events
juxtaposed without any intention of bringing in the notion of the one
following the other. However this may be, the periods of the Creation
of the Heavens may just as easily coincide with the two periods of the
Earth's creation. A little later we shall examine how the basic
process of the formation of the Universe is presented in the Qur'an
and we shall see how it can be jointly applied to the Heavens and the
Earth in keeping with modern ideas. We shall then realize how
perfectly reasonable this way is of conceiving the simultaneous nature
of the events here described.
There does not appear to be any contradiction between the passage
quoted here and the concept of the formation of the world in six
stages that is to be found in other texts in the Qur'an.
There is absolutely no ambiguity whatsoever in the Biblical [ The
Biblical description mentioned here is taken from the so-called
Sacerdotal version discussed in the first part of this work; the
description taken from the so-called Yahvist version has been
compressed into the space of a few lines in today s version of the
Bible and is too insubstantial to be considered here.] description of
the Creation in six days followed by a day of rest, the sabbath,
analogous with the days of the week. It has been shown how this mode
of narration practiced by the priests of the Sixth century B.C. served
the purpose of encouraging the people to observe the sabbath. All Jews
were expected to rest [ 'Sabbath' in Hebrew means 'to rest'.] on the
sabbath as the Lord had done after he had laboured during the six days
of the week.
The way the Bible interprets it, the word 'day' means the interval of
time between two successive sunrises or sunsets for an inhabitant of
the Earth. When defined in this way, the day is conditioned by the
rotation of the Earth on its own axis. It is obvious that logically-
speaking there can be no question of 'days' as defined just now, if
the mechanism that causes them to appear-i.e. the existence of the
Earth and its rotation around the Sun-has not already been fixed in
the early stages of the Creation according to the Biblical
description. This impossibility has already been emphasized in the
first part of the present book.
When we refer to the majority of translations of the Qur'an, we read
that-analogous with the Biblical description-the process of the
Creation for the Islamic Revelation also took place over a period of
six days. It is difficult to hold against the translators the fact
that they have translated the Arabic word by its most common meaning.
This is how it is usually expressed in translations so that in the
Qur'an, verse 54, sura 7 reads as follows:
"Your Lord is God Who created the heavens and the earth in six days."
There are very few translations and commentaries of the Qur'an that
note how the word 'days' should really be taken to mean 'periods'. It
has moreover been maintained that if the Qur'anic texts on the
Creation divided its stages into 'days', it was with the deliberate
intention of taking up beliefs held by all the Jews and Christians at
the dawn of Islam and of avoiding a head-on confrontation with such a
widely-held belief.
Without in any way wishing to reject this way of seeing it, one could
perhaps examine the problem a little more closely and scrutinize in
the Qur'an itself, and more generally in the language of the time, the
possible meaning of the word that many translators themselves still
continue to translate by the word 'day' yaum, plural ayyam in Arabic.
[ See table on last page of present work for equivalence between Latin
and Arabic letters.]
Its most common meaning is 'day' but it must be stressed that it tends
more to mean the diurnal light than the length of time that lapses
between one day's sunset and the next. The plural ayyam can mean, not
just 'days', but also 'long length of time', an indefinite period of
time (but always long). The meaning 'period of time' that the word
contains is to he found elsewhere in the Qur'an. Hence the following:
--sura 32, verse 5:
". . . in a period of time (yaum) whereof the measure is a thousand
years of your reckoning."
(It is to be noted that the Creation in six periods is precisely what
the verse preceding verse 5 refers to).
--sura 70, verse 4:
". . . in a period of time (yaum) whereof the measure is 50,000
years."
The fact that the word , yaum' could mean a period of time that was
quite different from the period that we mean by the word 'day' struck
very early commentators who, of course, did not have the knowledge we
possess today concerning the length of the stages in the formation of
the Universe. In the Sixteenth century A.D. for example, Abu al Su'ud,
who could not have had any idea of the day as defined astronomically
in terms of the Earth's rotation, thought that for the Creation a
division must be considered that was not into days as we usually
understand the word, but into 'events' (in Arabic nauba).
Modern commentators have gone back to this interpretation. Yusuf Ali
(1934), in his commentary on each of the verses that deals with the
stages in the Creation, insists on the importance of taking the word,
elsewhere interpreted as meaning 'days', to mean in reality 'very long
Periods, or Ages, or Aeons'.
It is therefore possible to say that in the case of the Creation of
the world, the Qur'an allows for long periods of time numbering six.
It is obvious that modern science has not permitted man to establish
the fact that the complicated stages in the process leading to the
formation of the Universe numbered six, but it has clearly shown that
long periods of time were involved compared to which 'days' as we
conceive them would be ridiculous.
One of the longest passages of the Qur'an, which deals with the
Creation, describes the latter by juxtaposing an account of earthly
events and one of celestial events. The verses in question are verses
9 to 12, sura 41:
(God is speaking to the Prophet)
"Say. Do you disbelieve Him Who created the earth in two periods? Do
you ascribe equals to Him. He is the Lord of the Worlds.
"He set in the (earth) mountains standing firm. He blessed it.
He measured therein its sustenance in four periods, in due proportion,
in accordance with the needs of those who ask for (sustenance? or
information?).
"Moreover (tumma) He turned to heaven when it was smoke and said to it
and to the earth: come willingly or unwillingly! They said: we come in
willing obedience.
"Then He ordained them seven heavens in two periods, and He assigned
to each heaven its mandate by Revelation. And We adorned the lower
heaven with luminaries and provided it a guard. Such is the decree of
the All Mighty, the Full of Knowledge."
These four verses of sura 41 contain several points to which we shall
return. the initially gaseous state of celestial matter and the highly
symbolic definition of the number of heavens as seven. We shall see
the meaning behind this figure. Also of a symbolic nature is the
dialogue between God on the one hand and the primordial sky and earth
on the other. here however it is only to express the submission of the
Heavens and Earth, once they were formed, to divine orders.
Critics have seen in this passage a contradiction with the statement
of the six periods of the Creation. By adding the two periods of the
formation of the Earth to the four periods of the spreading of its
sustenance to the inhabitants, plus the two periods of the formation
of the Heavens, we arrive at eight periods. This would then be in
contradiction with the six periods mentioned above.
In fact however, this text, which leads man to reflect on divine
Omnipotence, beginning with the Earth and ending with the Heavens,
provides two sections that are expressed by the Arabic word tumma',
translated by 'moreover', but which also means 'furthermore' or
'then'. The sense of a 'sequence' may therefore be implied referring
to a sequence of events or a series of man's reflections on the events
mentioned here. It may equally be a simple reference to events
juxtaposed without any intention of bringing in the notion of the one
following the other. However this may be, the periods of the Creation
of the Heavens may just as easily coincide with the two periods of the
Earth's creation. A little later we shall examine how the basic
process of the formation of the Universe is presented in the Qur'an
and we shall see how it can be jointly applied to the Heavens and the
Earth in keeping with modern ideas. We shall then realize how
perfectly reasonable this way is of conceiving the simultaneous nature
of the events here described.
There does not appear to be any contradiction between the passage
quoted here and the concept of the formation of the world in six
stages that is to be found in other texts in the Qur'an.