THE SKY MADE A DOME

It is He Who made the earth a couch for you, and the sky a dome. He sends down water from the sky and by it brings forth fruits for your provision. Do not, then, knowingly make others equal to Allah. (Qur'an, 2:22)

The Geminid meteor shower is observed at its highest intensity in the second week of December each year. The short lines in the photograph to the side are traces belonging to stars; the long ones belong to meteors. The meteors in the shower seen in the picture fall at a density of up to 58 per hour.

Here, the Arabic word for the sky is "assamaa binaan." As well as the meaning of "dome" or "ceiling," this also describes a kind of tent-like covering used by the Bedouin.22 What is being emphasised here, through mention of a tent-like structure, is a form of protection against external elements.

Even if we are generally unaware of it, a large number of meteors fall to the Earth, as they do the other planets. The reason why these make enormous craters on other planets but do no harm on Earth is that the atmosphere puts up considerable resistance to a falling meteor. The meteor is unable to withstand this for long and loses much of its mass from combustion due to friction. This danger, which might otherwise cause terrible disasters, is thus prevented thanks to the atmosphere. As well as the verses regarding the protective properties of the atmosphere cited above, attention is also drawn to the special creation in the following verse:

Do you not see that Allah has made everything on the earth subservient to you and the ships running upon the sea by His command? He holds back the heaven, preventing it from falling to the earth-except by His permission. Allah is All-Compassionate to mankind, Most Merciful. (Qur'an, 22:65)

The protective property of the atmosphere we discussed in the preceding section protects the Earth from space-in other words, from external elements. With the word "dome," referring to the sky in the above verse, attention is drawn to this aspect of the sky, which could not possibly have been known at the time of our Prophet (saas). The fact that this information was imparted 1,400 years ago in the Qur'an, when there were no spacecraft or giant telescopes, shows that the Qur'an is the revelation of our Lord, the Omniscient.

THE RETURNING SKY

The verse 11 of Surat at-Tariq in the Qur'an, refers to the "returning" function of the sky.

[I swear] by Heaven which returns. (Qur'an, 86:11)

The word "rajaai" interpreted as "return" in Qur'an translations has meanings of "sending back" or "returning." As is known, the atmosphere surrounding the Earth consists of many layers. Each layer serves an important purpose for the benefit of life on Earth. Research has revealed that these layers have the function of turning the materials or rays they are exposed to back into space or back down to the Earth. Now let us examine, employing a few fitting examples, this "returning" function of the layers encircling the Earth.

	The presence of water is essential for life on Earth. One of the factors acting in the formation of water is the Troposphere, one of the layers of the atmosphere. The troposphere layer enables water vapour rising from the surface of the Earth to be condensed from whence it returns to the Earth in the form of rain.
	The atmosphere layer that blocks the rays that might be fatal to life on Earth is the Ozonosphere. The Ozonosphere turns harmful cosmic rays like ultraviolet back to space, hence preventing them from reaching the Earth and harming life.
	Each layer of the atmosphere has beneficial attributes for human beings. For example, the Ionosphere layer, one of the upper layers of the atmosphere, reflects radio waves broadcast from a certain centre back down to the Earth, thus enabling broadcasts to be received from long distances.

The troposphere, 13 to 15 kilometres above the Earth, enables water vapour rising from the surface of the Earth to be condensed and turned back as rain. The ozone layer, the lower layer of stratosphere at an altitude of 25 kilometres, reflects harmful radiation and ultraviolet light coming from space and turns both back into space.

The ionosphere reflects radio waves broadcast from the Earth back down to different parts of the world just like a passive communications satellite. Thus, it makes wireless communication, radio, and television broadcasting possible over long distances. The magnetosphere layer turns the harmful radioactive particles emitted by the Sun and other stars back into space before they reach the Earth.

The fact that this property of the atmosphere's layers, that was only demonstrated in the recent past was announced centuries ago in the Qur'an, once again proves that the Qur'an is Allah's Word.

THE LAYERS OF THE EARTH

One item of information about the Earth given in the Qur'an is its similarity to the seven-layered sky:

It is Allah Who created the seven heavens and of the earth the same number, the Command descending down through all of them, so that you might know that Allah has power over all things and that Allah encompasses all things in His knowledge. (Qur'an, 65:12)

The information in the above verse is confirmed in scientific sources, wherein it is explained that the Earth consists of seven strata. These, as scientists have identified, are:

1^st layer: Lithosphere (water)

2^nd layer: Lithosphere (land)

3^rd layer: Asthenosphere

4^th layer: Upper Mantle

5^th layer: Inner Mantle

6^th layer: Outer Core

7^th layer: Inner Core

The word lithosphere is derived from the Greek word lithos, meaning stone, which is a hard stratum forming the Earth's top layer. It is quite thin in comparison to the other strata. The lithosphere under the oceans is still thinner, and is a region with volcanic activity. Its average thickness is 80 km. It is colder and harder than the other strata, and therefore, forms the earth's shell.

Below the lithosphere is the stratum known as the asthenosphere, from the Greek word for "weak," asthenes. This layer is thinner than the lithosphere and shifts. It was formed of hot, semi-solid substances capable of melting when exposed to high temperatures and pressure over geological time. It is thought that the hard lithosphere floats or moves over the slowly moving asthenosphere.23 Under these layers is a high-temperature layer some 2,900 km thick, made up of semi-solid rock known as the mantle. This contains more iron, magnesium and calcium than the crust, and is also hotter and denser, because temperature and density in the Earth increase with depth.

At the centre of the Earth is the core, approximately twice as dense as the mantle. The reason for that density is that it contains a higher proportion of metals (iron-nickel alloy) than rock. The Earth's core consists of two parts. One is the 2,200 km thick liquid outer core, the other a 1,250 km thick solid inner core. The liquid outer core provides the Earth's magnetic field as the planet rotates.

The truth of this similarity between the sky and the layers of the Earth, only identified by 20th century technology, is without doubt another of the Qur'an's scientific miracles.