101 Reasons Why We Left Islam – Chapter 3: Islam and Science – Reason 23
Quran 18:86 is problematic, and here is why. It continues the narrative of a flat Earth since it suggests that the Sun sets in the West in some dark mud spring (some translated it as hot spring, murky water, or dark sea). On a Flat Earth, the Sun has to go somewhere in the West before reappearing in the East the next day. On a Spherical and rotating Earth, the Sun is not going anywhere. The Earth’s rotation gives the illusion of the Sun moving across the sky. Put yourself in the shoe of any desert dweller at the time who believe the Earth is flat, they would see the Sun traveling across the sky during the day. The next day, as if by magic, this same Sun appears from the East again. People would ask: “Where did the Sun go?” We saw this happening before in Reason 22. Quran 18:83 to 18:90 comes with a story that affirms this worldview.
If you are Arab, you should read the verse from the source. If you are not Arab, you should read the different translations (we have the link below). Question: Have any bits that appear in brackets for these been added by the translators? For context, the story goes like this: Zul-Qarnain (man with two horns) is said to be either Alexander the Great or Cyrus the Great, but who he is does not matter here; he was on a mission to conquer the world. In doing so, he reached the end of the world East (believed to be India and China at the time) and some mountainous regions of the West (believed to be Europe). Japan, Australia, and America were not discovered at the time.
Quran Chapter [18:83-86]
83. They ask you concerning Zul-qarnain. Say, “I will rehearse to you something of his story.”
84. Verily We established his power on earth, and We gave him the ways and the means to all ends.
85. One way he followed, 86. Until, when he reached the setting of the sun, he found it set in a spring of murky water: Near it are People: We said: “O Zul-qarnain! either to punish them, or to treat them with kindness.”
In the post moon landing, this verse became central to the debate. Islamic Dawah throw everything at it, the toilet and the sink – everything they could find, going as far as twisting the meaning of this verse. When questioned and they suggested the word used in the verse وجدها (Wajadha) which every Arab knows means “and he found it” means “appeared to him” or “as if”. There is nowhere in the verse that it says this. The word for “appear to him” is ضهرله (Dhar-lah) or “as if” كما لو (Kama Lou) or كأنما (Ka’anma) are not in the verse. And that is why whenever you see it in translation, they added that in brackets.
You can check the different translations here: https://corpus.quran.com/translation.jsp?chapter=18&verse=86
- Sahih International: Until, when he reached the setting of the sun, he found it ‘as if’ setting in a spring of dark mud, and he found near it a people. Allah said, “O Dhul-Qarnayn, either you punish ‘them’ or else adopt among them ‘a way of’ goodness.”
- Pickthall: Till, when he reached the setting-place of the sun, he found it setting in a muddy spring, and found a people thereabout. We said: O Dhu’l-Qarneyn! Either punish or show them kindness.
- Yusuf Ali: Until, when he reached the setting of the sun, he found it set in a spring of murky water: Near it he found a People: We said: “O Zul-qarnain! (thou hast authority,) either to punish them, or to treat them with kindness.”
- Shakir: Until when he reached the place where the sun set, he found it going down into a black sea, and found by it a people. We said: O Zulqarnain! either give them a chastisement or do them a benefit.
- Muhammad Sarwar: to the West where he found the sun setting into a warm source (spring) of water and a people living near by. We asked him, “Dhu ‘l-Qarnayn, you may punish them or treat them with kindness?”
- Mohsin Khan: Until, when he reached the setting place of the sun, he found it setting in a spring of black muddy (or hot) water. And he found near it a people. We (Allah) said (by inspiration): “O Dhul-Qarnain! Either you punish them, or treat them with kindness.”
- Arberry: until, when he reached the setting of the sun, he found it setting in a muddy spring, and he found nearby a people. We said, ‘O Dhool Karnain, either thou shalt chastise them, or thou shalt take towards them a way of kindness.’
However, Quran.com did the unthinkable in this instance. They went beyond adding brackets by rewriting the verse completely during the translation. This is utter blasphemy in Islam. But desperate times call for desperate actions:
“Until he reached the setting ˹point˺ of the sun, which appeared to him to be setting in a spring of murky water, where he found some people. We said, “O Ⱬul-Qarnain! Either punish them or treat them kindly.”
You can see with your own eyes how far they would go to hide the actual translation of this verse. Moreover, the same word (Wajadha) appears again in Quran 18:90, and you see them translating it as “he found it”. And despite their best efforts, they left the actual meaning of the word there for everyone to see.
They say: there is no smoke without fire. And if it was not fire, they are trying to hide, why do we see so much smoke. They have lied to fix a blatant mistake.
Issue 23.1: Yet again, we find the Quran making a mistake that clearly fits the narrative of a flat Earth. On a rotating Earth, we get the illusion of sunrise and sunsets. There is no place or a ‘point’ where the Sun rises. There is no specific place or a ‘point’ where the Sun sets. In reality, the Sun is not travelling our sky in any direction. It is the Earth rotation creating the illusion of the Sun moving across the sky from a sunrise to a sunset. But to also say it sets in a muddy hot spring or water is a fabricated fairytale that only works on a flat Earth.
Issue 23.2: Only on a flat Earth would we have the extreme East and extreme West. On a spherical Earth, there is no extreme East or West. If you keep going East, you will come full circle back! The same applies to any direction you go. In narrating this story with two ‘points’ of sun rise in the West and sun set in the East, the Quran yet again fails to demonstrate it had a superior understanding to what 7th century desert dwellers would have known.
Issue 23.3: Allah is perfect, His words are perfect, and they do not need you or me to fix it. The extent we see Islamic pages and Dawah men do to cover and fix the Quran is very evident in verse 18:86. Why would Allah need humans to fix or add ‘bracket’ meanings to His words. Evidently, we are dealing with the writings and thoughts of a 7th century desert dweller who has left people desperate to maintain their faith to the unthinkable in desperate attempts to fix the Quran.
Apologist Response:
Issue 23.1: To start with, the verse never says the Earth is flat. This is what you get out of it and that is not necessarily correct. The verse narrates the story that the people had asked the Prophet about Zul Qarnian. Trying to change the narrative could have confused people. You cannot apply presentism in this context. Also, many of the Tafsirs agree with this view. In fact, even though these tafsirs were written at a time when people believed the Earth is flat, we could not find one tafsir that suggests the Sun sets anywhere. Ibn Kathir, for example, says about this verse that it is nothing but saying that if you continue walking, you reach a water point where the Sun sets.
>> Our response: We never said the verse says the Earth is flat but rather it continues the same narrative of a flat Earth by suggesting the Sun goes somewhere to set – a scientific error. It is true, Ibn Kathir and the English translated Tafsirs do not say the Sun sets physically somewhere but the ones Quran.com presents are the three they see as accurate as possible – part of the cover up. The Arabic Tafsirs do not necessarily agree. For example, Al Qurtibi makes it clear when he says:
“Until when he reached the setting of the sun, he found it setting in a murky spring. Ibn Asim, Amer, Hamza, and Al-Kisa’i recited “Hamiya,” meaning hot. The rest are sludge, meaning a lot of sludge, which is the black clay…”
Al Tabari goes into a whole two different readings of the ‘hot’ part and reaches to a Hadith:
“The Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, looked at the sun when it set, and said: In the fire of God. The hot one, in the hot fire of God, had it not been removed from God’s command, it would have burned up everything on the earth.”
In the timeline of tafsirs, Ibn Kathir wrote his in the 14th century. Whereas, Al Qurtibi was 13th century and Al Tabari was 9th century.
Both tafsirs can be read here: https://quran.com/18:86/tafsirs/ar-tafseer-al-qurtubi
Issue 23.2: There is no suggestion that Zul Qarnain reached the end of the world but rather the he reached the ends of his empire or land. This does not mean he reached the end of the world.
>> Our response: The sunrise ‘point’ and sunset ‘point’ are indicated clearly in the verse and thus mark the start and end points of the Earth. Several of the Tafsirs talk about the directions of the Earth being these start and end point from which Gog and Magog reside, read the full tafsir of Al Qurtibi.
Issue 23.3: The Arabic language is beautiful because words can sometimes have different meanings in different context. The vast difference in meanings reflect that. This is not a fault from an all-knowing God but the fault of humans with different perspectives. Adding context to the meanings is not replacing the word of fixing it.
>> Our response: This does not address the issue of having two words, using in the same verse and in the same context, would be translated as ‘found it’ in one verse and ‘appeared to’ in another verse. We say the same context because one is sunrise and is not scientific error but the other is a sunset and it is a scientific error. Evidently, Allah could have used different word to avoid confusion – but His knowledge did not extend this far.
Final Thoughts:
Argue, as some will blindly insist, the fact is that people for 1400 years believed there is a specific place where the sun sets; this fits into the flat Earth narrative. This includes many Islamic scholars. Some of the later Tafsirs (Ibn Kathir and the like) moved away from the idea of the sun setting in a physical spring because by then, Islam had passed India and found that the Sun still sets further away in the East. So, they realised the earlier assumptions of the Sun setting where Zul Qarnian (Believed at the time to be Alexander reaching India) was not true but that the location is likely to be further. We go with the original scholar, closer to the Prophet’s times, and we see clear evidence of human errors. This error will reach climax in the last of this series linked to Earth form. Reason 24 and the concept of stationary Earth – something that even today, we find Islamist scholars posting Youtube videos claiming the Earth is fixed and it is the Sun that rotates around us!