What does Quran says about the dynamic motion of the Earth?

7. Decoding the verses of the Holy Quran

Twice the Quran mentions the earth as a resting place. Despite all the movements that the earth is under, it does not swing from side to side or shiver from time to time. The Quran says beautifully:

Or ˹ask them,˺ “Who made the earth a resting place, caused rivers to flow through it, placed firm mountains upon it, and set a barrier between ˹fresh and salt˺ bodies of water? Was it another god besides Allah?” Absolutely not! But most of them do not know.”

– Chapter 27 ( Surah An-Naml), verse 61 

So, What does Quran says about the dynamic motion of the Earth? Surah An-Naml and modern science 

The Quran mentions the earth as a resting place

From The inimitable and physical sciences by Syed Iqbal Zaheer 

Some Movements of the Earth 

First movement

The earth is spinning around its own axis at the speed of 1000 km per hour. That’s so fast, but we merely feel it.

7b Second movement 

coming soon

7c Third movement 

coming soon

Forth movement

There is another movement on the earth. At an incredible speed of 100,000 km/h (30 km/s), it is orbiting the sun. The rockets reach a speed of 25,000 km/h, which is one-fourth of the earth’s orbit around the sun. At such incredible speed, stability is difficult to maintain. Humans, however, feel as though they are motionless on the planet. This starts to clarify why the stability of the earth was mentioned in the Quran as a blessing to humanity. Jacques Laskar’s research in 1989 demonstrated that the Earth’s orbit is chaotic and that it would be impossible to forecast where the Earth will be in its orbit in a little more than 100 million years if the beginning location of the Earth today were to be measured with an inaccuracy of only 15 meters.

Fifth movement 

The earth goes around the sun not at a fixed speed. It moves in an elliptical pattern, slowing slower as it approaches the aphelion and increasing as it gets closer to the sun. However, we rarely notice the speed variations. Around 105,000 km/hr is the speed at aphelion, when the earth is farthest from the sun. However, it begins to accelerate as it revolves, increasing by 3500 km/h when it reaches a point known as perihelion. We rarely feel it, even though it occurs four times a year.

Sixth movement 

The story of celestial movement has been given an incredible twist by cosmologists: the earth’s orbit around the sun is not straight. It’s spiral. The moon is to blame for this. As it orbits the earth, the moon essentially draws the entire planet to itself. This causes the ground to move in a spiral pattern, but the people who live there are unaffected by these repeated motions.

Seventh movement 

At 729,000 km/h, our solar system is swimming around the galaxy at a neck-breaking speed. The earth’s travel about the galaxy’s center is 200 km/h if its rotational speed is 30 km/s over that region. However, according to this incredible mathematical formula, the entire solar system ought to separate from the galaxy and take off into empty space. This is true for all galaxies.

Astrophysicists have been baffled by this question for decades. It was discovered that there must be some substance preventing the stars from separating from the galaxy. “Dark Matter” is the moniker given to it. When it comes to the Sun’s motion, science has shown that the Quran is correct. Click Here. 

Eight movement 

There is another movement of the earth that is even more fascinating. There are around 200 billion galaxies in the known universe. The nearest neighboring spiral galaxy next to our galaxy, the Milky Way, is called the Andromeda Galaxy. It has one trillion stars in comparison to ours, which has about 200 billion stars. It is more massive and larger than our galaxy, about 220,000 light-years across (light-years is the distance the light travels in one year with a speed of 3*108 m/s). The Muslim astronomer Al-Sufi first sighted this galaxy in the year 905 C.E.

The Andromeda galaxy is at a distance of about 2 million light years from our galaxy and it is traveling at the speed of 300,000 km a second, reaches us in 2 million years. Our galaxy is moving towards the Andromeda galaxy. They are getting closer to each other and are expected to collide, one hitting the belly of another, in about 4 billion years.

When the two collide, not that all of their respective stars are expected to collide, stars have a great distance between them. The chances of one hitting the other have not got a huge chance, but it cannot be ruled out. Anyways, our main focus is that the earth is suffering another motion; it is driving into the Andromeda galaxy, but again it stays stable.

Ninth movement

Galaxies occur in families or groups. The family to which our galaxy belongs is called the Local Group; it has 40-50 other small or big galaxies. The local groups belong to a larger group called a cluster. The cluster to which our local group belongs is called Virgo; it consists of 2000 galaxies spread over 15 million light years. Now, our entire Local Group is hurtling towards the center of the Virgo Cluster at one million miles per hour. 2-3 clusters combine to form a supercluster. The Virgo cluster belongs to a supercluster called Laniakea, which consists of 100,000 galaxies spread over 500 million light years.

Tenth movement 

A vast amount of space, which includes the Milky Way and superclusters of galaxies, is rushing in the direction of an enigmatic, enormous, invisible mass known as the “Great Attractor.”. It lies 250 million light-years away from our own galaxy.

Eleventh movement 

The Great Attractor is moving towards something larger known as the Shapley Supercluster, and it has a mass of more than ten million billion suns (one billion light-years across). It is the most massive cluster of galaxies, and we and every galaxy in our corner of the universe are moving towards it.

Twelfth movement 

The superclusters are flying out, as the scientists say, at the mind-blowing rate of approximately 67.4 kilometers per second per megaparsec. This rate is known as the Hubble constant. . As we know, accelerating movement is easily recognizable, especially when the speed is almost that of light. But, once again, we on earth feel none of the movements sketched out above.

The Holy Quran talks about this expansion in the following words:

“We built the universe with ˹great˺ might, and We are certainly expanding ˹it˺.”

– Chapter 51 (Surah Adh-Dhariyat), verse 47

Quran even talks about the big bang and the expanding universe. Click here to read more

The Earth – a resting place

We might compare the effects of multiple movements with movements created by humans, such as of an aircraft. When it takes off, we feel as if we are leaving something of us behind us. When it climbs to higher altitudes, we feel the upward movement. As it takes a turn, we can feel our weights shifting from side to side. Then, if for weather reasons the aircraft loses altitude and dips down, we can feel the effect on us. The sign saying “keep your seat belt fastened” waits for the aircraft to stabilize its speed. Until then, water will spill from a glass on the table. Once the craft begins to fly in a straight line, at constant speed, water in the glass becomes still, until there is another movement, sideways or up and down, or the speed is changed through acceleration or deceleration. That is the time the pilot asks us to fasten seat belts.

Now, the earth rotates around its own axis and revolves around the sun, but not smoothly at one speed, but rather accelerates twice in its helical round and decelerates twice. But that’s not all. It also runs in a zigzag fashion with the moon while it is making its rounds around the sun. If you add another movement, the picture becomes a little difficult for the human mind to imagine. The point of discussion is, despite so many movements, we do not feel any disturbance. A glass filled to its brim will not spill on your table. And we are yet to speak of other, dizzying movements of the earth. It is after accounting for these movements that we realize the true meaning of the Quranic statement:

“Or ˹ask them,˺ “Who made the earth a resting place, caused rivers to flow through it, placed firm mountains upon it, and set a barrier between ˹fresh and salt˺ bodies of water? Was it another god besides Allah?” Absolutely not! But most of them do not know.”

– Chapter 27 ( Surah An-Naml), verse 61 

So, isn’t the Quran the Word of God?

My final words

The glorious Quran says:

“We will show them Our signs in the universe and within themselves until it becomes clear to them that this ˹Quran˺ is the truth. Is it not enough that your Lord is a Witness over all things?”

– Chapter 41 (Surah Fussilat ), verse 53 

Some people require only one sign, while others require numerous signs to embrace the truth. On the other side, there are others who, even after receiving thousands of indications, refuse to embrace the reality. The Quran describes these persons as: