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Says God in Qur'an : "We have built the heaven with mighty force and We have most certainly expanded it." (Chapter 51 : Verse 47). "He raised its (the heaven's) height and brought order to it." (79:28). What we may call height looking from earth is in fact any dimensional expanse from a general point. So here also God means that he expands the sky's limits. At the moment of beginning of expansion * gravitational force came into being ! * space was born ! And most notably * time came into existence !
Einstein's Relativity Theory deduces that the time is dependent upon succession of events and was originated as a result of commencement of expansion of the Primeval Point. But our mind can conceive erroneously, only as space being present first before anything came into it. Likewise, it is at a loss to imagine : "What before time started?' In fact it is wrong to express 'before time started' at all ! Even though it is impossible to make one understand such a stage by explanation, its feasibility or possible meaning will be indicate later (Insha Allah).
Evolutionary Stages
In the next moment of the Big bang all the fundamental forces involved in the structure of matter came into being such as the 'strong', 'weak' and electromagnetic forces. The most basic building blocks of matter, namely the "exotic" particles, and from them, quarks were created. Quarks joined together giving rise to fundamental particles of atoms such as electrons, protons and neutrons. All this happened in several sub-stages but took only a second to complete! By the hundredth second nucleus of helium was constituted and it took 100,000 years for a few nuclei such as those of hydrogen to form. 300,000 years elapsed before electrons got attached to nuclei so as to form atoms of these few elements. The embryonic universe was still expanding fast but the familiar stars and planets were yet along way to form. The matter created was a vast body of dense smoke - a cloud of dust. It was dark, impermeable to light. By the end of this period it became more transparent and become bright with light through. Qur'an informs " "Then turned He to the heaven when it was (merely) smoke..." (41:11).
Changes took place in the single massive expanse of smoke. The dust particles coalesced and started separating into many individual bodies. Each in turn condensed due to gravitation and started rotating. They became far more denser, heating up in the process : This went on till millions of stars emerged shining and each cloud became a galaxy. Our such is such a star in our Milk Way Galaxy. The remnant portions of clouds around some of the stars also condensed into relatively cold bodies that we call planets, much less massive than the stars. They started rotating around the stars nearby. They are the sisters of the respective stars rather than their daughters. Some planets acquired satellites by the same process. Our moon is the earth's satellite. Let us look at what Qur'an has to say : "....the heavens and the earth were of one piece, then We parted them,...." (21:30) "Then turned He unto the heaven when it was smoke, and said unto it and unto the earth : Come both of you, willingly or lath. They said : We came, obedient." (41:41) It has already taken 1000 million years to reach this state. The universe was almost recognisable as today's. The universe continued to develop with more galaxies. Life started to appear and evolve. This goes on till date - 15,000 million years since beginning of time. A sketchy account of evolutionary stages is indicated in Qur'an, though not in identical terms of science. "He it is Who created the heavens and the earth in truth. In that day when He said : Be ! It is !" (6:73) In the Chapters Al-Imran and Mo'min (verses 47 & 68 respectively) God mentions that on His saying "Be!" To whatever God wants to create it comes into being. In chapter Baqara, Verse 117 He points out that He likewise created heavens and earth with originality, that is, without any pre-existing model! Let us see a few more details of this aspect later. When Allah says "Be!" It does not mean they materialize instantly. For, the Creator of Time has set up time stages for such creations. We find in Qur'an: "Allah it is Who hath created seven heavens, and of the earth the like thereof. The commandment cometh down among them (slowly)..." (65:12). 'Among them' indicated the commandment will still be in progress even after their creation commenced; progress of commandant and progress of creation will be concurrent at least for some time. This times taken for some of the creations after His decree "Be!" Are as follows: "Allah it is Who created the heavens and earth, and that which between them, in six Days..." (32:4), out of which - "Then He ordained them seven heavens in two Days..." (41:12), and - "...Him Who created the earth in two Days..." (41:9).
heat, radiation, magnetic storms, electric hurricanes. Out of and because of this constant churning and pyrotechnics were born galaxies of stars, planets and whatever exist in between we have now. So, From Chaos Came Cosmos. Chaos means disorder and confusion. Cosmos means both orderliness as well as universe. Declares Qur'an : "(After building the heaven) He raised the height thereof and brought order in it" (79:28).
Why They?
It is amazing to note that Muslims are not the ones to be addressed these questions. For they are not to be the discoverers of the process of cosmic evolution. We can expect that unbelievers of the present day will ultimately come to study and marvel at Qur'an, just as Muslims do, and so believe in it as the Word of God and accept Islam as a result, God willing. It is therefore the duty of Muslims to publicise scientific contents of Qur'an to the masses of the world.
Fig.4 : A portion of remaining pieces of smoke in the galaxy condensed into cool planets circling around stars. Fig.5 : In the same way some planets got satellites (moons) orbiting them.