“Six or Eight Days of Cre­ation” Revisited

A Short Response To The Mis­sion­ary Confusion

The mis­sion­ar­ies have once again amused us with their attempt to ​“rebut” the solu­tion to their claimed ​“con­tra­dic­tion” in the Qur’an. In their lat­est trea­tise, as per their tra­di­tion of inco­her­ent rea­son­ing, they say :

The first thing we would like to point out is that Yahya’s claim that the four days of v. 10 are not sep­a­rate from the first two days is sim­ply an assumption.

If that is the best that the mis­sion­ar­ies can bring up with in their ​“rebut­tal”, then there is noth­ing else to ​“rebut” except for their obsti­nate refusal to accept the pro­posed solu­tion to the so-called ​“con­tra­dic­tion”. As Yusuf Ali duly notes in foot­note 4470 :

The Com­men­ta­tors under­stand the ​“four Days” in verse 10 to include the two Days in verse 9, so that the total for the uni­verse comes to six Days. This is rea­son­able, because the process­es described in vers­es 9 and 10 form real­ly one series. In one case it is the cre­ation of the form­less mat­ter of the earth ; in the oth­er case it is the grad­ual evo­lu­tion of the from of the earth, its moun­tains and seas, and its ani­mal and veg­etable life, with the ​“nour­ish­ment in due pro­por­tion”, prop­er to each.A. Yusuf Ali, The Holy Qur’an : Text, Trans­la­tion & Com­men­tary, p. 1288

We have no prob­lems accept­ing this expla­na­tion, so there is indeed noth­ing fur­ther to dis­cuss if the mis­sion­ary refus­es to accept this expla­na­tion. If the major com­men­ta­tors of the Qur’an had under­stood the vers­es in ques­tion as not­ed by A. Yusuf Ali, there is noth­ing left for the mis­sion­ary use as an objec­tion tool. See our Appen­dix for the spe­cif­ic quo­ta­tions of these major commentators.

It is also worth not­ing that the mis­sion­ary tra­di­tion relies on char­ac­ter assas­i­na­tion, made appar­ent by the descrip­tion of the cit­ed author Harun Yahya as a ​“con­tem­po­rary Mus­lim pro­pa­gan­dist”. Whether he is a ​“pro­pa­gan­dist” or oth­er­wise as per the mis­sion­ary claim, it is the argu­ment that real­ly mat­ters and the mis­sion­ar­ies has failed to respond to the solu­tion pro­posed apart from their ​“reluc­tance” to do so. This behav­iour is no dif­fer­ent from the atti­tude of the so-called ​“apos­tle”, Paul of Tar­sus, when he made sev­er­al ven­omous attacks and char­ac­ter assas­i­na­tions in his epis­tles on those who recog­nise his teach­ings for what it is and opposed him. This is a top­ic that we will, insha’al­lah, dis­cuss in the near future.

The next argu­ment of the mis­sion­ar­ies is that they had pur­pose­ly dis­tort­ed the con­text of Qur’an, 41:9 – 12 by trans­lat­ing thum­ma as ​“then”. The fol­low­ing is the dis­tort­ed trans­la­tion belong­ing to the missionaries :

THEN (thum­ma) He turned to the heav­en, and it had been smoke : He said to it and to the earth : ​“Come ye togeth­er, will­ing­ly or unwill­ing­ly.” They said : ​“We do come (togeth­er), in will­ing obe­di­ence.” So He com­plet­ed them as sev­en fir­ma­ments in two Days, and He assigned to each heav­en its duty and com­mand. And We adorned the low­er heav­en with lights, and (pro­vid­ed it) with guard. Such is the Decree of (Him) the Exalt­ed in Might, Full of Knowledge.

In his trans­la­tion Yusuf Ali has trans­lat­ed thum­ma as ​“more­over”, which is more suit­ed for the con­text of the verse in ques­tion. This is fur­ther con­firmed by The Hans Wehr Dic­tio­nary of Mod­ern Writ­ten Ara­bicJ. M. Cow­an, The Hans Wehr Dic­tio­nary of Mod­ern Writ­ten Ara­bic, p. 106, under ​“thum­ma”.. There­fore this cer­tain­ly lends sup­port to the ear­li­er con­tention, that “…the process­es described in vers­es 9 and 10 form real­ly one series”.Yusuf Ali, op. cit.

Imam Al-Baidawi him­self had some­thing to say on the issue :

It is appar­ent that thum­ma here refers to dif­fer­ence of the two cre­ations (i.e., that of earth and that of Heav­en) not to lax­i­ty in time.Tafsir-ul-Baidawi, Vol. 5, p. 26

So Imam Al-Baidawi asserts that thum­ma in this con­text sep­a­rates the cre­ation of earth and things in it from cre­ation of Heav­en as two dis­tinct process­es, not that they were sep­a­rat­ed with time interval.

In light of the above expla­na­tions, we have duly fol­lowed the prin­ci­ples of the Qur’an explains the Qur’an, in accor­dance to how tafsir is per­formed, 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. Hence there is lit­tle to add from here.

To con­clude this short response, our pre­scribed method­ol­o­gy as explained by ​“con­tem­po­rary Mus­lim pro­pa­gan­dist” Harun Yahya is con­sis­tent with the major­i­ty of the Qur’an­ic com­men­ta­tors and had indeed resolved this imag­ined ​“con­tra­dic­tion” that exists with­in the purid mind of the mis­sion­ar­ies. It leaves us with a con­clu­sive expla­na­tion of the Qur’an, and hence swift­ly refutes the mis­sion­ar­ies’ lie that ​“the Qur’an is not God’s word”. And only God knows best.

All praise is for God Almighty, the Lord of the Worlds. He has no Son and has no need for a Son. For they are among those who dis­be­lieve when they say ​“God has a Son!” and yet He is free from all the attrib­ut­es the mis­sion­ar­ies have ascribed to Him. And it is to Him alone we sub­mit in total obe­di­ence, even though the dis­be­liev­ers may dis­like it. Amin ! Amin ! Thum­ma Amin !