What is the wisdom behind the creation of the earth and the skies in six days? What are those six days like? Are they different from our days?

- What are those six days like? Are they different from our days?
- Allah Almighty has "kun fa yakun". Whatever He wishes happens at once. Why did He not create the world and the universe at once as He created Hz. Adam? What is the wisdom behind it?

Dear Brother / Sister,

Answer 1:

The heavens and earth were created in six stages one by one. Then, this marvelous universe came into existence.

This manifestation of wisdom in its creation showed itself with the occurrences in it as well. Night did not cover the earth suddenly; and day did not come at once. Dawn replaced the night and it was followed by sunrise. Then it became midday with the further rise of the sun, which was followed by the fertile afternoon and finally dusk.

If the day came all of a sudden, and if the night set in instantly, we could not talk about dawn, midday or afternoon?

This wise creation prevailed in the world of plants too. There is a divine art and wisdom hidden in the seed. The whole program of the large tree was drawn with the pen of fate in the tiny seed. The genetic code in it is so perfect as to astound scientists and again is full of profound mysteries that render them helpless.

The opening of the seed is a further marvel. The manifestation of the name of the Opener (al-Fattah). Despite the gravity, wise, and orderly walking upwards… Then, reaching the stage of sapling. The stages of growing tall and thickening, and then blossoming and yielding fruit… The growing, ripening of each fruit, the soft fruits having hard seeds do not occur suddenly. Everything takes place stage by stage.

The inconceivable happenings whose every stage is conducted with knowledge and wisdom fill the face of the earth with various scenes, and strike the men of contemplation with admiration for these divine arts.

What prevails on earth is wisdom, and in the Hereafter is power. If the world were the land of power, this marvelous universe would have been created all of a sudden in place of in six stages. The trees on it would have grown all of a sudden and have taken on their final form. Then, the divine works of art we have listed above would not have come into existence.

The realm of seeds would have remained in nonexistence and, their blossoming, growing, and sprouting would have not occurred.

If seeds had not existed, eggs and the seminal fluid would naturally have remained in nonexistence, and they would have been deprived of revealing the divine arts that they bear.

If plants had not existed, babies, lambs, calves would not have existed either. Thousands of works of art would have been reduced to one; hundreds of beauties would have disappeared.

The manifestations of the deeds of training and disciplining would not have been seen, only the products of the happenings of starting and inventing would have emerged on earth.

The divine wisdom did not let it happen and wished to construct the universe in six stages instead of constructing it all of a sudden.

Answer 2:

It is written in the Quran that the skies and the earth, that is, the universe, were created in six (6) days. We understand the creation of it in six days as six eras.

Man was created in the womb in six phases; he undergoes six periods in the world and barzakh; he undergoes six periods in a day and moves on to the next day. It is possible to say that everything undergoes six eras: birth, maturity, old age, death, barzakh, oblivion.

As for the issue of the creation of the skies and the earth in six days:

The first creation is the first day and era.
Hz. Adam’s creation is the second day and era.
The sending of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) is the third day and era.
The destruction of the world at the beginning of Doomsday is the fourth day and era.
The complete end of this world is the fifth day and era.
The period from Doomsday of the world to the morning of resurrection is the sixth day and era.

Thus, the six (6) days include the time, era and period from the first creation of the universe to the morning of resurrection.

If all that time is supposed to be a week, the six days of that week are spent in this world. The seventh day will start in the morning of resurrection and last forever.

Answer 3:

We can explain the verses about the creation of the universe in six days with a different interpretation as follows:

"Say: Is it that ye Deny Him Who created the earth in two Days? And do ye join equals with Him? He is the Lord of (all) the Worlds." (Fussilat 9)

"He set on the (earth) mountains standing firm, high above it, and bestowed blessings on the earth and measured therein all things to give them nourishment in due proportion, in four Days, in accordance with (the needs of) those who seek (sustenance)." (Fussilat 10)

"So He completed them as seven firmaments in two Days, and He assigned to each heaven its duty and command. And We adorned the lower heaven with lights, and (provided it) with guard. Such is the Decree of (Him) the Exalted in Might, Full of knowledge." (Fussilat 12)

When Allah Almighty willed to create the universe, He produced an indefinite amount of energy by showing His endless power; that energy condensed in time and transformed to gas. Then, it condensed again and transformed to its present solid state. The earth formed in two geological eras and then the sources there were determined; it reached its present state by forming in four geological periods eras based on the plan. The word yawm (day) in the verse means a long period whose beginning and end is not definitely known  (...) The skies formed seven layers together with the earth in seven long periods. They were all in the state of gas. It took them two periods to concentrate and solidify.

According to the analysis of the first sentence, the meaning is He created the earth in two days. When the earth was created, there was no “day” in the sense we know yet; so, day means time, that is, in two periods; Allah knows the best. One of them is the day when the sky was separated from the earth as it is stated in this verse:

"Do not the Unbelievers see that the heavens and the earth were joined together (as one unit of Creation), before We clove them asunder?" (al-Anbiya, 21/30),

and the other is when the crust of the earth started to be placed in the form of a cream layer as it is stated in this verse:

“And it is He Who spread out the earth." (ar-Ra'd, 13/3).

According to the second analysis, the meaning is as follows: He created the earth in two days. In that case, it is not mentioned in how many days the earth was created but its state in two days after it was created is mentioned; it means the two solstices that divide the year into two. The earth was created in a form to cycle between those two periods.  

He pressed onto it; the mountains nail the crust of the earth to its base. That "waw" is used for the beginning; it does not refer to the verb because there is an interval. He brought about abundance in it. He produced good things, and sources of abundance like water sources, mines, plants and animals with their power to be born and die. He ordained their sustenance in it; that is, He determined the amounts of rain and other things that plants and animals needed in order to live and arranged them in the form of earth. He did all of them in four days. Including the previous two, it is four days; there are two meanings in it like the others. One is the creation of the mines and the mountains; the other is the creation of the plants and animals, which amounts to four with the previous two. The other is the state, which shows the four seasons; thus, the previous two are included here. In my humble opinion, this meaning here is more in the foreground and more appropriate in terms of the coherence of the style of the expression. The bounties and sustenance of the earth grow in the four seasons every year. Their number, amount and shape form in them; therefore, attributing them to the deeds may express the same meaning. Then, in terms of that meaning, this sentence becomes clear:  four days equally for all researchers because all of the sustenance of those that seek sustenance grows in those four seasons; even if the sustenance is not equal, the days are equal. The number of the four seasons for each of them is four. It may be thought to mean those who ask about it.

Then, the skies are dealt with and it is stated that they were completed to seven strong skies in two days. One of those two days is for the creation of matter and the other is for the formation of things, which form the two days of the six days stated in the chapter al-Araf. Or, one of them is before the creation of the earth and the other is after that. The creation of some celestial bodies like the moon, Venus, Mercury, etc. is after the creation of the earth.

In my humble opinion, it is probable that one of those two days is the world and the other is the hereafter. He made them strong and completed them. He gave each sky the command related to them in the form of revelation. He gave the angels in each sky the command of the events to take place there, which is included in the completion. Since the evidence of the power of the Creator became manifest and appeared in the creation and completion of them, the subject of the sentence is transformed into the first person singular from the third person singular, and the following is stated:

"We have indeed decked the lower heaven with beauty (in) the stars." (as-Saffat, 37/6) .

And we have protected them. The devils cannot approach them. It is the determination of Allah, al-Aziz (the Mighty and Strong) and al-Alim (the Knower of All).

"Your Guardian-Lord is Allah, Who created the heavens and the earth in six Days, then He established Himself on the Throne (of authority) …" (al-Araf, 54)

An example of the harmony between the Quran and modern science is the issue of the age of the universe: Cosmologists calculated the age of the universe to be 16-17 billion years. It is stated in the Quran that the whole universe was created in 6 days. There is a surprising harmony between those figures that seem different at first sight. As a matter of fact, both of those figures related to the age of the universe are correct. That is, the universe was created in 6 days as it is stated in the Quran, and that period corresponds to 16-17 billion years in our perception of the time.

In 1915, Einstein put forward that time was relative and that the flow coefficient of time changed based on the place, the speed of the traveling person and the force of gravity at that time. It is seen that the duration of the creation of the universe stated in 7 different verses of the Quran is greatly parallel to the calculations of the scientists when the differences in the flow coefficient of time is considered. We can consider the 6 days mentioned in the Quran as 6 periods. When the relativity of time is taken into consideration, “day” expresses the 24-hour period only as perceived in the world under the circumstances of today. However, in a different place of the universe, at a different time and under a different condition, “day” is a much longer period of time. As a matter of fact, the word ayyam (days) in the phrase “6 days” (sittati ayyamin) also means era, period, duration apart from meaning days in the following verses: (as-Sajda, 4; Yunus, 3; Hud, 7; al-Furqan, 59; al-Hadid, 4; Qaf, 38; al-Araf, 54).

In the first periods of the universe, time flowed much faster than the pace that we are used to today. The reason is this: during the Big Bang, the universe had been condensed into a very small point. The expansion of the universe since that big bang and the tension in the volume of the universe expanded the borders of the universe to billions of light years away. As a matter of fact, the fact that the space has been tensioning since Big Bang has played an important role on the time of the universe.

The energy during the moment of Big Bang slowed down the flow of the time of the universe million by million times (10¹²). When the universe was created, the flow coefficient of the time of the universe, as it is perceived today, was a trillion times bigger, that is time flowed faster. Thus, during the time when we live a trillion minutes in the world, only one minute passes in terms of the time of the universe.

When the period of 6 days is calculated by taking the relativity of time into consideration, it corresponds to 6 trillion.  It is because the time of the universe flows a trillion times faster than that of the world. The number of years corresponding to 6 trillion days is about 16,427 billion. That figure falls into the interval of the estimated age of the universe. 

6.000.000.000.000 days / 365,25 = 16.427.104.723 years

On the other hand, each one of the 6 days of the creation corresponds to different time periods from one another – in terms of our perception of time. It is because of the fact that the flow coefficient of time decreases inversely proportionally to the expansion of the universe. Every time the size of the universe doubled since Big Bang, the flow coefficient of time decreased in half. As the universe got bigger, the doubling speed of the universe slowed down increasingly. That expansion rate is a scientific reality that is explained in the textbooks “the Foundations of Physical Cosmology” and that is widely known all over the world.

When we calculate each day of the creation in terms of the time of the world, the following state appears:

* When the moment that time started is taken into consideration, the 1st day (1st period) of the creation lasted 24 hours. However, that period corresponds to 8 billion years to the time as we perceive in the world. 

* The 2nd day (2nd period) of the creation lasted 24 hours. However, that period lasted half as much as the 1st day, that is, 4 billion years in terms of the time we perceive in the world.

* The 3rd day (3rd period) lasted half as much as the 2nd day, that is, 2 billion years.

* The 4th day (4th period) lasted 1 billion years.

* The 5th day (5th period) lasted 500 billion years.

* And the 6th day (6th period) lasted 250 billion years.

* Conclusion: The 6 days, that is, the 6 periods, of the creation lasted 15 billion 750 million years when they are added in terms of the time of the world. That figure is close to the estimations of today.

That conclusion is the reality found out by science of the 21st century. Science has once again approved the truth expressed by the Quran 1400 years ago. That harmony between the Quran and science miraculously proves that the Quran is the revelation of Allah, Who knows everything and created everything.

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