Six or Eight Days of Creation ?

The gist of the mis­sion­ary claim is as follows :

    Two days for the cre­ation of the earth, then four days to fill the earth with moun­tains, bless­ings and nour­ish­ment for all its inhab­i­tants, and in the end two more days to cre­ate the sev­en heav­ens and cre­ate the stars in them. This adds up to 2+4+2 = 8 days in con­tra­dic­tion to the 6 days men­tioned in the oth­er verses.

Response

The prob­lem of the mis­sion­ar­ies with their so-called find­ings of con­tra­dic­tions” in the Noble Qur’an is that they fail to note the method­ol­o­gy of how tafsir is per­formed. In response to this alleged con­tra­dic­tion” in the afore­men­tioned vers­es, we would like to cite Harun Yahya’s How Do The Unwise Inter­pret The Qur’an ?” for a refutation.

    The Sub­ject of Cre­ation in Six Days

    It is stat­ed in var­i­ous parts of the Qur’an that the uni­verse was cre­at­ed in six days. Par­tic­u­lar atten­tion is often drawn to one sec­tion how­ev­er, where the num­ber of days in the sep­a­rate vers­es men­tion­ing the dif­fer­ent stages of cre­ation adds up to 8. Those who are unable to grasp the evi­dent log­ic behind these vers­es assume them to con­flict with all the oth­er Qur’an­ic vers­es, which state the cre­ation to have occurred in six days. These vers­es are as follows :

    Say : Do you reject Him Who cre­at­ed the earth in two days, and make oth­ers equal to Him ? That is the Lord of all the worlds.’ He placed firm­ly embed­ded moun­tains on it, tow­er­ing over it, and blessed it and mea­sured out its nour­ish­ment in it, laid out for those who seek it — all in four days. Then He turned to heav­en when it was smoke and said to it and to the earth, Come will­ing­ly or unwill­ing­ly.’ They both said, We come will­ing­ly.’ In two days He deter­mined them as sev­en heav­ens and revealed, in every heav­en, its own man­date. We adorned the low­est heav­en with lamps and guard­ed it. That is the decree of the Almighty, the All-Know­ing. (Surah Fussi­lat : 9 – 12)

    If the days men­tioned in the above vers­es are cal­cu­lat­ed, they add up to 8. Where­as it is stat­ed in verse 3 of Surah Yunus and oth­ers that the Earth, the skies and every­thing in between were cre­at­ed in 6 days. This sit­u­a­tion could appear incom­pre­hen­si­ble to a super­fi­cial read­er who refus­es to use his mind and log­ic or to pay close atten­tion. Those who approach the Qur’an to try to dis­cov­er faults and con­tra­dic­tions fre­quent­ly cite the above verse.

    Yet, if a per­son con­cen­trates and uses wis­dom he can read­i­ly see that there is absolute­ly no para­dox at all. If we pay atten­tion to the peri­ods of time stat­ed in the vers­es we can reach the fol­low­ing calculations :

    - It took four days from the time the uni­verse was start­ed until the sus­te­nance had been made ready, or rather the nec­es­sary envi­ron­ment for liv­ing things was suit­able, along with the cre­ation of plants and animals.

    - The begin­ning of this peri­od, name­ly the shap­ing of the Earth along with the uni­verse, or in short the cre­ation of the world, took the ini­tial two of these four days. So, these two days are not a sep­a­rate time frame from those first four days. They are, to be more pre­cise, the first two days of the four days men­tioned in the next verse.

    - In the 11th and 12th vers­es state that the sky was formed in 2 days. In con­clu­sion, they add up to 6 days.

    In short, the vers­es explain the sep­a­rate time frames for each of the events that take place with­in the six days of creation.

    It is imper­a­tive to clar­i­fy the point that the term day” men­tioned in these vers­es is not used to refer to a 24 hour-day but instead to indi­cate the dif­fer­ent peri­ods and phases.

We have used the tra­di­tion­al method of Qur’an­ic exe­ge­sis, i.e., al-Qur’an yufas­siru ba’­duhu ba’­dan (dif­fer­ent parts of the Qur’an explain each oth­er). What is giv­en in a gen­er­al way in one place is dis­cussed in detail in some oth­er place in the Qur’an. What is dealt with briefly at one place is expand­ed in some oth­er place. For more dis­cus­sion on how the ear­li­er Qur’an­ic com­men­ta­tors inter­pret­ed this issue, refer to : Six or Eight Days of Cre­ation” Revis­it­ed

And only God knows best !Endmark


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2 responses to “Six or Eight Days of Creation ?”

  1. Saeed ali Avatar
    Saeed ali

    Heav­en or Earth, which was cre­at­ed first & six of eight day of creation
    Are you the hard­er to cre­ate, or is the heav­en that He built ?
    He raised the height there­of and ordered it ;
    and He has made dark the night there­of, and He brought forth the morn thereof.
    And after that, He spread out the earth. — Sura 79:27 – 30

    For earth To spread out“is not like To cre­ate” as spread­ing out is part of creation
    And for sky also To raise “ is also not like “ To cre­ate”” as Rais­ing of height is also part of creation
    That means cre­ation had start­ed for heav­en before rais­ing height of it and for earth before spread­ing out of it
    But after cre­ation of sin­gle heav­en he made them in to sev­en heavens
    mor­ev­er He turned to the heav­en, and made them(fasawwahunna) into sev­en heav­ens. — Sura 2:29
    So He completed(Faqadahunna) them as sev­en fir­ma­ments in two Days Sura 41:12

    It is clear that cre­ation of sev­en heav­en was done in two steps
    1. cre­ation of sin­gle heav­en which was in the form of smoke(vapor or foam)
    2. then from sin­gle heav­en sev­en heav­ens were made
    Which were com­plet­ed in two days
    Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly cre­ation of earth was also com­plet­ed in two days
    Say : Is it that ye deny Him Who cre­at­ed the earth in two Days ? 41:9
    Both cre­ation of sev­en heav­ens and earth was com­plet­ed in two days
    After that he had cre­at­ed all that is on the earth
    He set on the (earth), moun­tains stand­ing firm, high above it, and bestowed bless­ings on the earth, and mea­sure there­in all things to give them nour­ish­ment in due pro­por­tion, in four Days, in accor­dance with (the needs of) those who seek (Sustenance).41:10
    In Ara­bic we have to care­ful­ly exam­ine these threewords
    KHALAQA (TO CREATE)
    SAWWA(TO MAKE)
    Qada (to complete)
    Allathee kha­laqa fasawwa 87:2
    So it can be con­clud­ed that first heav­ens and earth were cre­at­ed in Two days and after that what is on the earth is cre­at­ed in four days
    Quran also men­tion that sin­gle heav­en was cre­at­ed before spread­ing of earth
    But Quran describes that sev­en heav­ens were com­plet­ed in two days and earth was also cre­at­ed in two days. so there is not the ques­tion of which was cre­at­ed first.
    Sev­en heav­ens or earth ?
    If you ask which was cre­at­ed first heav­en or earth ?
    Then answer is heav­en as per verse 79:27 – 30
    Be care­full about heav­en and sev­en hevens

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