How is the end of the world explained in the Quran?
I am quoting the answer from my Book “Science and Scriptures: Friends or Foes”
“…then when one blast is sounded…And the earth is moved. And its mountain and they are crushed to powder at one stroke"
When the reserves of nuclear fuel in the sun are depleted, it will explode and swell engulfing the inner planets, including the earth, in hot gases that will completely vaporize them as if they are crushed into powder as the above verse claimed. This event is further explained in the following verse Q75:7-9
"At length when the sight is dazzled and the moon is buried in darkness and the sun and the moon are joined together"
As the sun is depleted of its nuclear fuel, the violent explosion blow out the outer layers of the sun into the neighboring space in all directions, this ejection will glow and dazzle any onlookers on the solar system (If any alive). The extreme hot gas ejected from the sun will swell and consume all the inner planets and vaporize them. The sun and the moon (even the earth) are literally joined together. Q81:1-3
"When the sun with its spacious light is folded up"
The sun is the major sources of all activities in our system. It is the sources of light, heat energy and all our physical life. God told us it will become extinct and science confirmed it. The sun, in the order of the universe, is an ordinary medium sized star. The energy and violence of the sun defy the imagination. Tongues of hydrogen flame leap from the sun surface with the force of a billion hydrogen bombs. Matter at the core of the sun is so hot that a pinhead of it would give off enough radiation to kill a man 100 miles away. The sun began its existence by the condensation of clouds of Gas and dust that shrinks under the force of its Gravity as its core heat up. Nuclear reaction begins and the hydrogen of which it is largely composed of is converted into helium, releasing energy, and causing the sun to shine brilliantly in the heavens. As the hydrogen supply runs low, further nuclear reactions will begin and the sun will swell, getting hotter and denser at the core and cooler at the surface. When all the nuclear reserves are exhausted the sun will collapse under the force of gravity (As God said above despite the nuclear reactions that keep the sun shining which involves about 4 million tons loss of mass a second, the sun will be "Folded up" that is an inward collapse) when the sun collapse it will become a white dwarf, which is a dying star with no means of reheating and no future but extinctions. Or it will collapse further and condensed into a neutron star, shrinking so much that it forms a dense mass that would weight about 20 billion tons per cubic inch.
God further says Q81:2
"When the stars fall losing their luster"
How does a star fall? Stars at the end of their lifetime fall on themselves (Inward collapse). Depending on their size, a modest star like the sun will swell up blowing away its outer layers to become a red giant. After millions of years like that it will collapse under the force of gravity until it become a shrunken sphere of extremely dense, white hot matter (a white dwarf) it will then fades to yellow, red and finally into invisibility. At this stage it perfectly fit the Qur’anic explanation of falling and loosing luster. But massive stars collapse is a catastrophic event. Huge pressures converge on the core of the star squeezing the material at its center into a dense lump. The outer layers of the star are piled up around the dense lump at the center then the hot compressed gases rebound in a violent explosion, blowing the outer layers of the star into space. This is what is called the supernova, the most spectacular event in the observable universe. Other stars at the end of their luminous life collapsed without stopping. The matter at the center is squeezed from millions of miles wide to the size of a house, then like a football and pinhead and smaller into unimaginable density. The gravity in this star is inconceivably great that not even light could escape and since no rays of light can get out it becomes invisible. It has become a Black Hole in space, the most bizarre objects in the universe. So what is the ultimate fate of the universe?
Scientifically in the absence of definitive observational conclusions, one can only speculate on the possible fate of the actual universe. We have about four models viz. Open, Close, Flat and the accelerating expansion. In the open model the universe is unbound, the cosmological expansion will not halt, and eventually the galaxies and stars will all die, leaving the Cosmos a cold, dark, and virtually empty place. (Under this scenario time will come to a halt, just like a still picture being the same whether it’s a few seconds after the shot or a billion years). In the close model the universe is bound, the mass-energy content in the distant but finite future will come together again; the cosmic background radiation will be blue shifted, raising the temperature of matter and radiation to incredible levels, perhaps to reforge everything in the fiery crucible of the big squeeze.
Discussions of recurring cycles of expansions and contractions thus remain highly speculative. In the flat model, the universe will not collapse but slow down and become stable. In the accelerating expansion model, the universe will expand faster and faster until even the particles in normal matter are torn away from each other. As scientists are still speculating, the all-knowing says in chapter Q21:104
"The day we roll up the heavens like a scroll rolled up for books (completed) even as we produce the first creation, so shall we produce a new one. A promise we have undertaken. Truly shall we fulfill it"
When you talk about rolling up a scroll, technically you are talking about "contraction" God in the above verse told us in the future the whole universe will contracted into a singularity (of infinite density). Scientifically we knew that the universe began as a result of an explosion (Big Bang) from a singularity of infinite density (Q21: 30).
Immediately after this explosion, matter continued to move away from the point of explosion (to date). God says Q79:67
"One day everything that can be in commotion will be in violent commotion, followed by off repeated commotion.”
What is it that can be in commotion? All forms of matter are made up of atoms and all atoms have electrons that move in their shell. So on that day all forms of matter will be in violent commotion because it will be squeezed to a singularity of the big crunch. As such the constitution of the cosmos as we know it will be completely changed; all the laws governing it will be changed, from the great Galaxies down to the smallest atom. In the future all matter that is scattered will begin to contract until it reach the Big-Crunch (the violent commotion). But the Big crunch is not the end of it all as the above verse says “even as we produce the first creation, so shall we produce a new one” Therefore as this universe emerged from the big bang it will again, after the big crunch, reappear from another big bang. No scientist can rubbish this claim as they are still trying to understand which type of universe do we have, is it an open, close, flat or accelerating universe?
At present the critical rate of expansion and the amount of matter in the universe made possible the scenario of either the universe going to freeze or to slow down and crush back on itself. The Almighty is telling us that the universe is a closed one that will contract and vanish only to reappear again as a new universe. God finally asked Q36:81
"Is not he who created the heavens and the earth able to create the like thereof? Yea indeed for he is the supreme creator of skill and knowledge (infinite)"
The creation, destruction and re-creation of the universe is something like a pulsating star depicting the manner of a close universe of an endless circle.
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