العروة الوثقى الزيدية - موقع إسلامي يهدف لتعريف الزائر بفكر وتراث المسلمين الزيدية

The Question

Question: Modern science has uncovered that the earth is spherical, and the sun likewise, and that the sun is thousands of kilometers distant from the earth; and Allah said in Surat Al-Kahf, relating from Dhu al-Qarnayn: “Until, when he reached the setting of the sun, he found it setting in a spring of dark mud, and he found near it a people.” [Al-Kahf:86]—with the knowledge that Dhu al-Qarnayn (Peace be Upon Him) did not depart from the earth. So is modern science opposed to the Qur’an? Or does the verse have an interpretation other than the apparent?
And also, modern science uncovered that the sun is shining upon the earth always, and there have been narrated hadiths from the Prophet (May Allah bless him and his family and grant them peace) that the sun, when it sets, settles at the pillars of the Throne… etc., or as he said; so are these hadiths false?

The Answer

The answer—and Allah is the One Who grants success: The earth is spherical, as the scholars of astronomy have settled upon in this age; and the Imam al-Mahdi Ahmad ibn Yahya al-Murtada said that long ago in the introduction of al-Bahr, and the owner of al-Kashshaf, and al-Razi—this is what I have seen in the books of these; and perhaps others among the earlier ones say that.
And know that there is no opposition and no contradiction; for Dhu al-Qarnayn’s seeing of the sun, at its setting, in a spring of dark mud is like one of us seeing it, at its setting, in the Red Sea, as it appears to the eye; so its setting in a spring of dark mud is only in consideration of what appears to the one who sees and looks, and not as a setting and disappearance from the earth entirely, decisively; and that can be known by the telephone and the broadcasting device (radio).
As for the hadiths that were mentioned: if interpreting them is possible, then that; otherwise, they are left.

Source: Min Thimār al-ʿIlm wa al-Ḥikmah vol.3