Question: Alleged contradiction between Qur’ân [21:33] and astronomy

Question: In the Holy Qur’ân it says: "It is He who created the night, the day, the sun and the moon. Each one is traveling in an orbit with its own motion." [Sûrah al-Anbiyâ’: 33]. As we all know, the Sun is in a settled position. This seems to contradict to the above verse. I am looking forward to your explanation. Thank you. Answered by Sheikh Muhammad al-Sarî`, professor at al-Imâm University in Riyadh It is the nature of the believers that they believe in the Unseen. Allah tells us of more surprising matters than this in order to test us. For example, the Prophet (peace be upon him) said: “When the Sun sets, it prostrates before Allah and asks permission to rise.” It was a well known fact 1400 years ago that whenever the Sun sets in one country it is at the same time rising over other countries. However, the Muslims - then and now - still had to accept this.What we say in these situations is what the Qur’ân instructs us to say: “We believe in it, the whole of it is from our Lord”.In other words, when something is authentic from Allah or the Prophet (peace be upon him), we have to believe in it and affirm it even if we cannot understand it. The soul of each person lives inside him but he knows nothing about it. The human being cannot, in fact, comprehend each and every thing told to him by Allah. Allah says: “Of knowledge it is only a little that is communicated to you, (O men)”.In any event, the Sun is most definitely not fixed in its position, but it is traveling quite fast in its path around the center of the galaxy. It is just as Allah describes it in the Qur’ân: “And the Sun runs unto a resting place”. This fact is well known to all astronomers for many decades now.