101 Reasons Why We Left Islam – Chapter 3: Islam and Science – Reason 34
The Quran makes several interlinked claims. First, the sky is a ceiling, and Allah holds this sky from falling. This sky ceiling could break down and fall on us as pieces, and when it does, “we” will simply dismiss it as a heap of clouds! All these claims are ancient fairytales and myths pointing out that the Quran is not from an all-knowing god. Let us start:
The Quran describes the sky/heaven as a ceiling:
Quran (21:32):
“And We made the sky a protected ceiling, but they, from its signs, are turning away”
Quran (2:22):
“He who made for you the Earth a bed and the sky a ceiling and sent down from the sky, rain and brought forth thereby fruits as provision for you. So do not attribute to Allah equals while you know”.
By suggesting that the sky is a ceiling, it was then asked, what stops it from falling? This is where the Quran makes the claim that the Sky is held up by Allah:
Quran (22:65) https://myislam.org/surah-al-hajj/ayat-65/
Do you not see that Allah has subjected to you whatever is on the earth and the ships which run through the sea by His command? And He holds the sky from falling upon the earth, unless by His permission. Indeed Allah, to the people, is Kind and Merciful.
Other translations have used more descriptive words:
- Yusuf Ali (…withholds the sky…)
- Abul Ala Maududi (…Holds back the sky…)
- Abdel Haleem (…Keeps the heaven from falling…)
- Sahih International (…restrains the sky from falling…)
You can see, they all have identified the term as holding it. This is further repeated in:
Quran (35:41): https://myislam.org/surah-fatir/ayat-41/
“Indeed, Allah holds the Heavens and the Earth, lest they cease. And if they should cease, no one could hold them [in place] after Him. Indeed, He is Forbearing and Forgiving.”
Only Allah holds the Heaven and Earth from falling onto each other – as it seems. But what happens if the sky falls? Well, according to the Quran, the sky falls on the Earth or fragments that could break off and fall on someone.
Quran 52:44: https://myislam.org/surah-tur/ayat-44/
And if they were to see a fragment of the heaven falling, they would say: A heap of clouds.
This specific verse is very telling. It suggests that people will not be aware when the sky falls because they will just assume it is a heap of clouds!
Quran 34:9: https://myislam.org/surah-saba/ayat-9/
See they not what is before them and behind them, of the sky and the Earth? If We wished, We could cause the Earth to swallow them up, or cause a PIECE of the sky to fall upon them. Verily in this is a Sign for every devotee that turns to Allah (in repentance).
Issue 34.1: The claim that there is a god holding the sky from falling is a ridiculous claim. The Earth’s atmosphere is simply made of gas, and outer space is not a solid object that ‘pieces’ could break off and fall. Moreover, the gas that makes up our sky and atmosphere is not being pushed out or held up; quite the opposite. The gravity of the Earth pulls down the Earth’s atmosphere. The Quran makes a critical scientific mistake by claiming there is a god holding it from falling when, in fact, it is the gravity of the Earth stopping the sky from escaping into space.
Issue 34.2: The claim that the sky could fall and fall like heaps of clouds is another ridiculous claim and suggests the Quran could not have come from an all-knowing god! The atmosphere is not solid but gases. The sky cannot simply fall; as established in 34.1, the sky is not being held up but pulled down! If anything, this god should be pushing the atmosphere down from escaping! Now we know so much about our planet and universe. There is absolutely no scientific or logical explanation for these claims.
Islamists Excuses:
Issue 34.1: The Quran is a book of signs and not a book of science. Allah is invisible, and his power is beyond anything we can see or comprehend. The verses use symbolic references to the sky, which is everything that goes beyond our close atmosphere. Some of the translations accurately refer to it as heavens. We know the Earth’s atmosphere acts as a ceiling that protects us from the outside universe. The power of Allah, through the gases of the atmosphere, protects objects from falling from the sky. The verses do not use the term ‘up’ to hold it. Holding could be from escaping. So, there are no errors here.
>>> Our response: Planets across our universe and beyond have atmospheres, some being pulled down better than others depending on their gravities and not by a god! Those planets with poor gravity have less atmosphere around them. Planets with strong gravity have a pressed-down atmosphere and everything in between. What determines the atmosphere is gravity, not anything else! Desert dwellers and ancient did not know about gravity until Newton discovered it in 1687. The Quran copied ancient false beliefs using the ‘God of gaps’ fallacy: “If we don’t know how it works, God must be doing it!”
Issue 34.2: Have you ever seen a meteorite falling to Earth? It looks like a heap of clouds. In the ancient days, they may have said ‘heap of clouds’, but this was, in fact, a piece of the outside atmosphere or heaven falling. What stops the majority of meteorites from falling from reaching the Earth is the atmosphere, and who created this atmosphere other than Allah? The Quran has used signs and metaphors to appeal to people across ancient times.
>>> Our response: This is a clever deflection, but the ancient people and even the Quran recognised the meteorites by calling them ‘falling stars’ – see reason 32. So, to suggest that ‘heap of cloud’ is about falling stars, then the Quran could have said, ‘They will just say it is a falling star’. Also, a heap of clouds looks very different to a meteorite, with a streak at night and hardly visible during the day. Neither explanation works. But what works is yet again another example of the ‘God of gaps’. Now we know that it is not pieces of the sky but meteorites, and the sky cannot break into pieces and fall on us.
Final thought:
Many ancient cultures believed the sky is a dome, that it could break into pieces and fall on us. Ancient Near Eastern cultures, such as the Mesopotamians and Egyptians, shared the belief that the sky was a solid structure. The Egyptians, in particular, envisioned the sky as a roof upheld by pillars. By the sixth century BC, some ancient Greek thinkers proposed that the heavens were composed of a series of hard spheres, an early interpretation of the dome theory. Meanwhile, the Sumerians believed the sky was made of tin, suggesting a solid, metallic dome. These varied perspectives illustrate how different ancient civilizations conceptualized the sky as a tangible, often protective, structure. You can see where desert dwellers were getting their science from at the time and how this made its way into the Quran!
Sources for further reading: