| THE CONQUEST OF SPACE |
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From this point of view, three verses of the Qur'an should command our
full attention. One expresses, without any trace of ambiguity, what man
should and will achieve in this field. In the other two, God refers for
the sake of the unbelievers in Makka to the surprise they would have if
they were able to raise themselves up to the Heavens; He alludes to a hypothesis
which will not be realized for the latter.
1)
The first of these verses is sura 55, verse 33: "O assembly of Jinns and
Men, if you can penetrate regions of the heavens and the earth, then penetrate
them! You will not penetrate them save with a Power."
a) The word 'if' expresses in
English a condition that is dependent upon a possibility and either an
achievable or an unachievable hypothesis. Arabic is a language which is
able to introduce a nuance into the condition which is much more explicit.
There is one word to express the possibility (ida), another for the achievable
hypothesis (in) and a third for the unachievable hypothesis expressed by
the word (lau). The verse in question has it as an achievable hypothesis
expressed by the word (in). The Qur'an therefore suggests the material
possibility of a concrete realization. This subtle linguistic distinction
formally rules out the purely mystic interpretation that some people have
(quite wrongly) put on this verse.
2)
The other two verses are taken from sura 15, (verses 14 and 15). God is
speaking of the unbelievers in Makka, as the context of this passage in
the sura shows: 'Even if We opened unto them a gate to Heaven and they
were to continue ascending therein, they would say: our sight is confused
as in drunkenness. Nay, we are people bewitched." The above expresses astonishment
at a remarkable spectacle, different from anything man could imagine.
When talking of the conquest
of space therefore, we have two passages in the text of the Qur'an: one
of them refers to what will one day become a reality thanks to the powers
of intelligence and ingenuity God will give to man, and the other describes
an event that the unbelievers in Makka will never witness, hence its character
of a condition never to be realized. The event will however be seen by
others, as intimated in the first verse quoted above. It describes the
human reactions to the unexpected spectacle that travelers in space will
see: their confused sight, as in drunkenness, the feeling of being bewitched...
This is exactly how astronauts have experienced this remarkable adventure
since the first human space flight around the world in 1961. It is known
in actual fact how once one is above the Earth's atmosphere, the Heavens
no longer have the azure appearance we see from Earth, which results from
phenomena of absorption of the Sun's light into the layers of the atmosphere.
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