Eighth to the Sixteenth Century - Rashid Islamic Center

94 • The Making of Islamic Scienceadorned the sky with stars (Q. 67:5) and is the One who has set inmotion all the stars and planets so that humanity may be guided bytheir positions in its travels (Q. 6:97); He is the One Who covers theday with the night and the night with the day (Q. 7:54; 39:5). He hascreated the day and the night (Q. 21:33), the sun and the moon, eachrevolving in its precise orbit (Q. 39:5).The Radiant CosmographyReflections on QurāĀnic cosmological data by the Companionsof the Prophet were supplemented by his sayings on the creationof the heavens and the earth. This was to give birth to an Islamiccosmological tradition based on the interpretation of the QurāĀnicdata, the sayings of the Prophet, and reflections on these twoprimary sources by the Companions of the Prophet. This was latersupplemented by scientific observations. During the subsequentcenturies, many other cosmological schemes and models wereformulated by Muslim scientists and scholars, but all of those schemeswere compared to this early cosmology. This first cosmology has beencalled the Radiant Cosmography (al-hay’a as-saniya) by Jalal al-Dinas-Suyuti (d. 1505), whose book of the same title summarizes eightcenturies of scholarship on this topic.Four attributes of God mentioned by the QurāĀn are especiallyrelevant to this cosmology: al-Khâliq (the Creator), al-Bâri (theMaker), al-Mušawwir (the Shaper), and al-Badî‘ (the Originator). Theearly commentators explained these attributes in detail. They alsowrote exegeses on the verses related to the creation of the cosmos andproduced a small body of literature that outlined essential aspects ofthis early Islamic cosmology much before the emergence of sciencein Islamic civilization and before any translations were made fromGreek, Indian, or Persian sources. There are two main aspects to thisearly cosmology: spiritual and physical. The spiritual cosmology cameinto existence as a result of profound meditation on the cosmologicalverses of the QurāĀn, such as the famous “Verse of the Throne” (Q.2:255) and the Light Verse (Q. 24:25). This cosmology envisionsa spiritual hierarchy of existence and uses symbolic language.The physical cosmos is not absent from this cosmology, but it is