Introduction

Today, most people understand the term cosmology to mean “the science of the cosmos, i.e., of the universe as a whole,” a branch of astronomy, a science. But in medieval times, cosmology was a subject of philosophy and theology, calling upon (intuitive) reason, scriptures, or myths. In fact, even today, many theistic thinkers in particular insist that cosmology be viewed much more broadly than science does (with its observational data, physical principles and equations, etc.) to include metaphysical considerations. Alongside such approaches, serious works on the philosophy of cosmology have proliferated in the past decade or two (Smeenk and Ellis 2017).

Dictionaries and encyclopedias acknowledge this double nature of cosmology. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary (n.d.) gives two definitions for cosmology: a) a branch of metaphysics that deals with the nature of the universe; and b) a branch of astronomy that deals with the origin, structure, and space–time relationships of the universe. The Oxford English Dictionary (n.d.) gives the following definition: “The science or theory of the universe as an ordered whole, and of the general laws which govern it. Also, a particular account or system of the universe and its laws.” The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology gives a somewhat different definition: “The world view and belief system of a community based upon their understanding of order in the universe” (Darvill [2000] 2003, 238). And in a section on “Cosmology and Worldview,” the Encyclopedia of Religion (n.d.) says: “Cosmology refers to more consciously entertained images, doctrines, and scientific views concerning the universe.”

Three other terms associated with cosmology, though much less frequently used, complicate matters: cosmogony, cosmogenesis, and cosmography. Cosmogony, which deals with the origin of the universe, is rarely used because first, as per the aforementioned definitions of cosmology, it is supposed to be encompassed by the latter, more general term, and second, because there is very little that can be said about the origin of the universe scientifically and rigorously, as will be discussed later. Cosmogenesis is sometimes used to refer to the origin and very early evolution of the universe, i.e., a bridge between cosmogony and cosmology, if one does distinguish between the two. Cosmography, which describes the contents (objects) and features (geometry and changes) of the cosmos, is thus supposed to be part of cosmology, as per the aforementioned. In old works, however, since the cosmos was simply the Earth, the moon, the sun, the planets, and the stars, cosmography was nothing more than Earth-based astronomical descriptions of the sky, its contents, and its phenomena.

Islamic works on cosmology tend to be a mixture of these three concepts/topics/branches infused to varying extents with scriptural and theological inputs. Seyyed H. Nasr (1998), a neo-traditionalist Muslim theo-Sufi-philosopher, stresses: “The meaning of the term cosmology in the Islamic, or other traditional, contexts differs profoundly from the meaning given to it in the context of modern science . . . Traditional cosmologies [including the Islamic conceptions] deal with cosmic reality in its totality including the intelligible or angelic, [and] the metaphysical principles [pertaining] to the cosmic realm.” He adds: “Islamic thought has always considered the question of cosmogenesis to be religious and metaphysical, not merely extrapolation of the natural sciences.” He goes further: “The genesis and history of the cosmos is based on a qualitative conception of time totally different from the quantitative time of modern geology, astronomy, and astrophysics” (Nasr 2006). Muzaffar Iqbal (2006), also a neo-traditionalist Muslim thinker, says: “Before the emergence of the [Greek-influenced] Islamic philosophical cosmology, however, there existed another cosmological tradition, the ‘Sacred Cosmology,’ based on the Qurʾānic descriptions of creation and on the sayings of the Prophet.” And Angelika Neuwirth (2001) explains the “Qurʾānic understanding of cosmology” as “[a] divinely governed order of the universe and the place of humans within it.”

Reading scientific papers on cosmology and Islamic medieval and even contemporary Muslim thinkers’ works on cosmology are two very different exercises that tend to have little overlap, as we shall see. In this article, I want to review and (gingerly) propose views on contemporary cosmology with an Islamic background or worldview: What can the Islamic culture bring to current and future cosmological discussions, such as what relates to “big history” (cosmic times, very large scales, etc.), multiverse, the anthropic principle, etc.?

I will start by summarizing Islamic cosmology as found in medieval works and as carried forward today by Muslim neo-traditionalist thinkers such as Nasr and Iqbal. I will then summarize the main ideas and results from modern (scientific) cosmology. And, last but not least, I will look at the philosophical and theological issues contemporary cosmology raises and present Islamic views on it, both from recent writings and potential future contributions.

Classical Islamic Cosmology

In addition to the “Sacred Cosmology” Iqbal claims was constructed very early on from the Qurʾān and the Prophetic tradition, Islamic classical cosmologies came to include full models by Greek-influenced Muslim philosophers (the falāsifah), Sufi cosmic visions, synthetic approaches by groups/schools such as the Ikhwan as-Safa (tenth century CE) and the Illuminationists (the Ishraqi school), and ideas proposed by individual, independent thinkers such as Al-Biruni (973–1051).

In presenting Sacred Cosmology, Iqbal (2006) starts with “Qurʾānic data,” i.e. the “cosmological” elements and descriptions that can be found in the Qurʾān. For Iqbal, these include God’s Throne and Footstool; the Guarded Tablet and the Pen; the angels; the sun, the moon, and the stars; water and winds; mountains and oceans, etc. Additional Sacred Cosmology elements and descriptions include “cosmic distances” (500 years of travel between one heaven and another), time (night and day), light and darkness (thousands of “veils” between the heavens), and more (“mansions” of the moon, etc.).

One may be surprised by this strange mix of physical and metaphysical elements, but it must be recalled that Iqbal came to subscribe to Nasr’s “scientia sacra” philosophy, which insists (see the previously quoted Nasr statements) that the cosmos must be viewed in an integrated way, with everything from water and mountains to angels and spirits, all the way to the divine throne. Iqbal is far from the only Muslim author to try to mine the Qurʾān for cosmological “data”: Mohammad Ali Tabataba’i and Saida Mirsadri (2016) published a long paper on Qurʾānic cosmography, discussing the shape of the firmament and God’s footstool with several diagrams, insisting that the Qurʾānic heavens are actually flat. However, one can simply object to this idea of “Qurʾānic data” by recalling that the Qurʾān itself tells us to adopt an empirical or at least observational approach, “Say, [O Muhammad], Travel through the land and observe how creation began (or was begun)” (Qurʾān 29:20), not to look in the text, much less in the hadiths, for “data.”

In fact, there is in the Qurʾān and in the Islamic tradition (Guessoum 2010) an important distinction that tends to be blurred or even totally ignored in such mixed or integrated cosmological conceptions: the idea of “two worlds,” the physical, observable world ('alam al-shahādah) and the “unseen,” metaphysical world ('alam al-ghayb). The first, defined as containing all material beings and things, is therefore the universe, as scientists define it. The second, defined as all matters relating to God, paradise, hell, angels, and spirits, etc., can only be discussed on purely religious bases, usually inferred from the scriptures and prophetic statements.

The Qurʾān does have numerous verses pointing to various natural and cosmic objects and phenomena (in particular, the word sama (heaven) and its derivatives can be found 310 times). However, its aim is not to present a cosmology but rather to insist on the following important principles:

• The universe was created by God, who has absolute and exclusive power of creation.

• The universe was created with a purpose.

• The universe is continuously sustained by God.

• The cosmos is characterized by wholeness, order, and harmony between all its elements and events.

For a more detailed treatment of classical Islamic cosmologies, one should refer to Nasr’s ([1963] 1993) seminal work, Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines. For a concise summary and discussion, the chapter on “Islam and Cosmology” in my (Guessoum 2010) Islam’s Quantum Question may be useful. Here, I only mention very briefly the foremost Muslim thinkers and schools and their main cosmological ideas, focusing on those that may help us later consider Islamic views on contemporary cosmology.

Al-Kindi (800–73) adhered to the doctrine of creation ex nihilo, but most later Muslim philosophers, Al-Farabi (870–950) in particular, stayed true to Aristotle and rejected the idea that God had “suddenly” decided to create the world, as that would have involved the eternal and static God in unseemly change.

Ibn Sina (Avicenna 981–1037), one of the greatest and most sophisticated of the Muslim philosophers, conceptualized the creation process as a self-awareness and a self-discovery by the Divine and divided the process of creation into four kinds:

• Ihdāth: Creation of objects or entities in nature, either temporary or eternal.

• Ibdā`: Creation—without intermediary—of eternal, non-decaying entities.

• Khalq: Creation through other agents.

• Takween: Creation through worldly, decaying, temporary agents.

The Ikhwān as-Safā (literally the Brethren of Purity), an esoteric society that appeared in Basra (Iraq) in the tenth century, represented a complex school of thought, a mixture/synthesis of rationalism, peripatetics, and Sufism. In their cosmology, they subscribed to the Platonic doctrine of emanation and a numerological system for the universe, starting from 1, which to them represents “existence” or “being”, and ending with 0 (for them, the same as 10), which represented infinity or the divine essence. They also associated the divine throne with the ninth sphere/heaven that separates the realm of the Divine from the cosmos of matter, and the divine footstool with the firmament of stars.

Al-Biruni (973–1051), Muslim polymath extraordinaire, saw the world as the handiwork of God and considered the observation and study of nature a religious duty (Nasr [1963] 1993, 275–76). He subscribed to the doctrine of creation ex nihilo, but based on various considerations, including widely different and unrealistic dates given by ancient civilizations, concluded that the age of the universe could not be determined. His cosmology/cosmography to a large extent resembled that of the Greeks (Aristotle and Ptolemy): a spherical cosmos centered at Earth, made up of spheres or shells containing the elements of Aristotle (water, earth, air, fire) and the planets. He also stated that his observations and investigations of nature led him to conclude that the laws of nature must remain unchanged through time.

Ibn Rushd (Averroes 1126–98), another great Muslim philosopher and polymath, although strongly influenced by Aristotle, remained true to the spirit—but not the letter—of the Islamic/Qurʾānic teachings. He subscribed to the doctrine of the eternal cosmos, but he insisted that the universe is and has remained in constant change or evolution, as God continues His creation. He also remained true to the Aristotelian theory of final causes, in which the reasons for any phenomenon or event must be found in the goal that any being is meant to reach.

The later centuries of the Islamic civilization were dominated by the Sufi doctrines, particularly Ibn Arabi (1165–240) and disciples, and the Gnostic Ishraqi (illumination) doctrines of Suhrawardi (c. 1155–91) and others.

The Sufi doctrine can be stated in the following central principle: there is no reality outside of the absolute reality; that is, there is nothing other than God. Furthermore, in the Sufi philosophy, important knowledge, including cosmological knowledge, can be acquired through spiritual experience. In fact, objective results obtained exclusively through reasoning can constitute a “veil” that actually prevents one from seeing the true nature of things. Sufis consider the universe a theophany, whereby God “sees” Himself in His creation (see, for instance, Chittick 1987).

Scientific Cosmology

Knowledge of the universe, with its general field and branches (astronomy, cosmology, etc.) has witnessed extraordinary developments over the past century. Seminal theoretical works and crucial observations have led to more and more sophisticated theories (relativity, Big Bang, inflation, imaginary time, etc.) and increasingly accurate data and constraints.

Scientific cosmology can be said to have been born in 1917 with Albert Einstein’s ([1917] 1952) historic paper on “Cosmological Considerations,” based on his general theory of relativity. The universe had suddenly become the subject of mathematical and physical investigation, and scientific conclusions (dynamic versus static) could now be drawn. In 1923, Edwin Hubble, using the newly constructed 100-inch telescope at Mount Wilson Observatory in California, established that the Andromeda “nebula” was too far away and hence too big to be a nebula (cloud), and thus had to be a galaxy of its own; the Milky Way was theretofore one of a multitude of galaxies. And in 1929, Hubble found that most galaxies are receding away from us and from each other, and that this could only be explained by the whole universe expanding forth. At about the same time, Georges Lemaitre ([1927] 1979, 844–48), a Belgian physicist and Jesuit priest, proposed a “primeval atom theory,” which later evolved into the Big Bang theory, whereby the universe was initially in a highly compact and hot state that expanded all the way to the huge cosmos we see today.

In almost exactly 100 years, we have gone from a universe that is less than 100,000 light years across to one that is a million times bigger, with trillions of galaxies each containing billions of stars and planets, and 13.8 billion years old (an age now accurately determined to within 0.02 billion years). It is also accelerating and made mostly of dark matter and dark energy, as well as a small amount of “normal” matter (what we know in nature around us, from Hydrogen to the rest of the elements in the periodic table).

This huge leap in cosmological knowledge has been strikingly expressed by the UCLA cosmologist Edward L. Wright (2005) as: “Only one (cosmological) fact was known in 1917, namely that the sky is dark at night—and Einstein ignored it” (referring to the fact that a static and infinitely old and big universe could not be dark).

The main findings of contemporary cosmology may briefly be summarized as follows:

1. Our universe is not static and infinitely old; it started from a point (a “singularity” where temperature, density, and other parameters are infinite) at a specific time in the past (13.8 billion years ago) and evolved to its present state. This is the now strongly evidence-supported Big Bang theory, which allows cosmologists to calculate various characteristics of the universe, past, present, and future.

2. The expansion of the universe has, for the last few billion years, been accelerating due to some “dark energy,” which stretches space–time as if some internal repulsion was pulling the fabric apart. While an accelerating expansion intuitively seems to imply an “open,” infinitely expanding universe leading to a dark, cold “Big Chill” or even a “Big Rip” (parts of the universe splitting from others), a “Standstill” (equilibrium between gravitational pull back and expansion) or even a “Big Crunch” (gravity succeeding in pulling the whole universe back to contraction to a point/singularity) are theoretically possible. Which of these scenarios represents the future of the universe depends on the as-yet-undetermined natures of dark matter and dark energy and the total mass–energy content of the universe.

3. The age and the size of the observable universe (since its creation/emergence) can now be determined very accurately. However, first we can only observe part of our universe, as “other parts” are unreachable to us, being on farther and faster-expanding regions of the universe. Second, our cosmos may be part of an infinite structure where bubbles such as ours appear and collapse all the time. Furthermore, our universe could be one of zillions of (finite-sized but very different) universes in a multiverse.

4. Only 5% of our universe’s matter–energy content is the “ordinary” forms we know; an additional 27% is “dark matter” (which manifests itself only gravitationally), and 68% is “dark energy,” which accelerates the universe in its expansion (ESA and the Planck Collaboration 2013).

This modern view of the cosmos raises some important philosophical and theological questions. First, in terms of size: What does it mean that the universe is one hundred billion times bigger than the solar system (even when we include its cometary Oort cloud, which makes it bigger than the last orbit of planets by a factor of a thousand) and one million billion billion times bigger than humans? Even more striking is the fact that humans have only existed in the last tiny fraction of the universe’s history. Indeed, if we represent the universe’s timeline by one calendar year, then the sun would have formed on September 1, Earth on September 2, the moon on September 3, and humans (in their sapiens stage of evolution) on December 31 at 11:40pm. How can any theistic anthropocentrism survive the knowledge that the universe has existed without us for 99.998% of its history? Or how could Earth and humanity still be seen as central in any way when the Milky Way alone contains an estimated ten billion Earth-size planets and the observable universe consists of trillions of galaxies, at least half of them more or less similar to the Milky Way?

But in the last few decades, a new development, the discovery of the “fine-tuning of the universe” and the formulation of an “anthropic principle” has given a new, important twist to the humbling—and to some, depressing—conception of humanity’s place in the universe. What has been discovered is that our universe seems to be particularly suited to the emergence of complexity and life: if the parameters that make up the physical cosmos had been drawn at random, the probability that they would have values allowing for life and intelligence to appear (at some point in time and space) would be ridiculously small, one in billions of billions of billions . . . This observation and realization is referred to as the “fine-tuned universe,” while the conclusion that, as Freeman Dyson (1979, 250) puts it, “the universe in some sense must have known we were coming,” is often called the “anthropic principle” (anthropos meaning “human” in Greek). This idea has given birth to countless articles and books. One of the earliest and most extensive (with 738 pages) is The Anthropic Cosmological Principle by John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler (1988), and one of the most thorough in recent years is A Fortunate Universe: Life in a Finely Tuned Cosmos by Geraint F. Lewis and Luke A. Barnes (2016).

However, I should note that not everyone is impressed, much less enthralled, with the anthropic principle. Michel Paty (2006), emeritus director of research at the French National Centre for Scientific Research, declares: “The strong anthropic principle is a useless metaphysical concept.” (The strong version of the anthropic principle stipulates that the universe, from the start, had to have properties allowing life to develop within it at some stage in its history. The aforementioned references on the subject unpack this controversial idea.) A bit more tellingly, Malcolm S. Longair, Jacksonian Professor of Natural Philosophy at Cambridge University, said: “I hate the anthropic principle theory; I consider it as an absolutely last recourse, in case all physical arguments failed. The whole essence of the anthropic argumentation seems to go against the flow of what we aspire to achieve as scientists” (Demaret and Lambert 1994, ix).

Few people dispute the fine-tuning observations; for instance, had our universe had any other number of dimensions than three for space and one for time, there would be no complexity (planets and big molecules like DNA), let alone any life or intelligence. Other “fine-tuning marvels” (Davies 2006, 164–66), the number of which varies between six and at least a few dozen, range from “the nuclear interaction could not have been more than 4 to 6% stronger” to “the cosmological mass-energy density Ω could not have deviated by 10^–60–10^–56 from the critical value.”

This much is agreed upon: for us (and the rest of life in the universe and even its wonderful stellar and planetary phenomena) to exist, our universe had to be very finely tuned. What is in dispute is whether this gives the universe any teleological arrow toward life and humans, whether any anthropic principle should be formulated. Indeed, the majority of scientists and philosophers respond to the fine-tuning observation that either science will, sooner or later, explain this fine-tuning or there must be zillions of universes out there (the multiverse), with a random distribution of parameters and laws such that one or more of them would have the “right” set of values to allow for life, intelligence, and consciousness to emerge at some point somewhere.

I should also note, however, that Robin Collins has made an additional argument from the fine-tuning of the universe, one for discoverability: “[T]he fundamental parameters of physics fall in a relatively small range that maximizes our ability to make scientific discoveries” (Collins 2016), and “[u]nlike the much discussed anthropic fine-tuning (or fine-tuning for life), this kind of fine-tuning cannot be explained by the multiverse hypothesis since it does not encounter an observer-selection effect” (Collins 2018). Similar, but less developed, ideas were put forward in 2004 by Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards in The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos is Designed for Discovery.

Philo-Theological Reactions

The first major result established by modern cosmology is that the universe has a finite age; it started from a singular “point” in an “explosive” event and process (the big bang) and has expanded and evolved under the combined effect of that thrust and the gravitational forces, leading to the formation of stars and planets and other cosmic objects. Of course, this has brought back the discussions on creation ex nihilo versus an eternal universe, recalling the old debates and arguments about God and creation (among Christians, Muslims, and others) and adding new scientific ingredients. For example, Pope Pius XII in 1951 proclaimed the church’s support for the Big Bang theory, which had first been introduced as Lemaitre’s “primeval atom”; the pope noted the similarity with the Fiat lux of Genesis and declared: “Hence creation took place in time, therefore there is a creator, therefore God exists!” (Pope Pius XII 1951). Likewise, Muslims (e.g., Alkassimi [2008] 2023; Nasser 2019) saw in this development support for the Qurʾānic verse “Be! And it is,” which appears eight times in the book and was a final victory of the (classical) Muslim theologians, who insisted on creation at a specific moment in time, over the philosophers, who preferred an old, eternal universe. This support for creation ex nihilo also propelled among theists the “cosmological argument” for the existence of God (the “Kalam argument”), which originated with Muslim philosophers (Al-Kindi and others later).

Resistance to such “inferences,” or even any theo-philosophical discussions from cosmological findings, was expressed by materialists such as David Bohm, who accused “scientists who effectively turn traitor to science” of “discard[ing] scientific facts [in order] to reach conclusions that are convenient to the Catholic Church” (Peat 1997, 145), and Stephen Hawking, who in his paper with James B. Hartle (Hartle and Hawking 1983) and in his famous book, A Brief History of Time (Hawking 1988), tried hard to show that the Big Bang’s beginning was not necessarily a boundary or edge, and famously asked: “[W]hat place then for a creator?” Others, like Fred Hoyle (1948), railed against the “creation-in-the-past” that the Big Bang (which he rejected) suggests: “It is against the spirit of scientific enquiry to regard observable effects as arising from ‘causes unknown to science’ and this in principle is what creation-in-the-past implies.”

The philosopher Ernan McMullin has noted that the word “creation” is an explanatory term; it points to a cause (a Creator) for the appearance of the universe. Obviously, this is not a scientific explanation, for science cannot establish “a sufficiently strong principle of causality” to that effect (McMullin 1981). He then asks: Can philosophy do so? He then explains that ex nihilo creation is not the only way to establish a divine origin of the universe; this is only the most intuitive view; one can indeed argue almost equally well for a divine origin of an eternal universe.

The “singularity”—with or without cause— and creation ex nihilo or continua have also led to numerous writings and pronouncements. As usual, Paul Davies (1988, 55–56) expressed the central issue—and the stakes—most eloquently: “[A] singularity is the nearest thing that science has found to a supernatural agent,” i.e., a creator. Hawking and others have tried to eliminate the singularity from Big Bang cosmology using imaginary time, quantum effects, and other approaches. The problem still remains and awaits a unified theory of gravity with quantum mechanics and the rest of physics.

Contemporary philosophers and theologians have also debated whether a universe that starts from a point is a stronger argument for God. Ian Barbour’s (1997, 214) view is that “the doctrine of creation is not really about temporal beginning but about the basic relationship between the world and God.” John Polkinghorne (1998, 54) reinforces this idea: “[T]heology could have lived with either physical theory, for the assertion that God is Creator is not a statement that at a particular time he did something but rather that at all times he keeps the world in being.” This is indeed an important argument, as it broadens the conception of creation from the “origination” of things (including the universe) in various ways (see previously how Ibn Sina defined four types of creation) to the sustaining of the world/cosmos through the laws that keep nature functioning perfectly. Both ideas, whether there was a big-bang type of beginning or not and whether creation entails a sustaining of the world/cosmos, are most strongly expressed by Keith Ward:

The Big Bang has not the slightest theological significance. It does not matter whether the world began with a bang or whether it began at all. It might always have been there. Theologians have always agreed that this does not make any difference. When you say that God “creates” the Universe, you just mean that everything—however long it has been there—always depends, at every moment of time, upon God. That is all you mean. It’s a pity that some physicists use the world “creation” when they actually mean “origin” of the Universe. Creation isn’t at the beginning, it is now and always. (Stannard 1996, 16)

Now, as I mentioned, the universe that contemporary cosmology has revealed is incredibly huge and old. We really seem like a speck of dust in its immensity, and at most a distant goal in its evolution, humans appearing in the last evening of the cosmic year, though it later appeared that “the universe must have known we were coming.” But in fact, the universe could not have been small or young today.

Indeed, since humans, and all complex living creatures (from the simplest bacteria to the most biologically and neurologically advanced animals), are the product of evolution, we could only have emerged after a few billion years of the universe’s existence (that is how long evolution took to go from single cell to intelligent animals). In other words, no creature (on Earth or elsewhere) could be asking any question or wondering about its existence in a universe that is younger than a few billion years. And since the universe expands in all directions, it had to reach a size of dozens of billions of light years during that time. And finally, only a universe with enough initial energy could expand so much in time and space that it ends up producing so much matter in the form of countless stars, planets, and complex creatures.

What about our small size (compared to any and all cosmic objects, particularly the universe as a whole) and makeup? The cosmologist Joel Primack and his artist and philosopher wife Nancy Ellen Abrams have tried to address such questions in their book, The View from the Center of the Universe (Primack and Abrams 2006), by building strong connections between cosmology and culture/myths. They insist that cosmology must address humans and their conception of, and place and role in, the universe. They write: “Traditional cultures’ cosmologies were not factually correct, but they offered guidance about how to live with a sense of belonging in the world” (Primack and Abrams 2006, 16).

They argue that in a non-literal but very meaningful way, we are at the “center” of the universe (Primack and Abrams 2006, 270–72). They expound on seven such “center points,” but the following three are the more convincing:

• We are made of the rarest elements the cosmos has made.

• We live at the midpoint of our planet’s and sun’s lifetimes.

• We have sizes that are, in powers of ten, in the middle of the entire scale of objects.

Primack and Abrams sometimes use cosmology to enlighten certain old traditional concepts, for instance the “pre-initial vacuum field,” to explain the scriptural “primeval waters” that one finds in Islam, in Christianity, and in Babylonian creation stories, or the Kabbalistic beliefs to illustrate the ideas of “eternal cosmic inflation.”

Similarly to what Primack and Abrams did, that is, relate contemporary cosmology in all its rigor and surprising results to human culture and myth, discussions of Islamic cosmologies that relate tradition and modern science in an intelligent way, may be useful and even needed today in light of the crisis of meaning that has disturbed humans everywhere and led to rejections of both religion and science by large segments of humanity.

Islamic Views on Contemporary Cosmological Issues

The Islamic discourse has always adopted the argument from design as a strong and obvious argument for the existence of God. Indeed, one can find numerous verses to this effect in the Qurʾān, and this argument constitutes the backbone of the Islamic “natural theology.” Ibn Rushd makes the design argument a bona fide proof for the existence of God, the Maker, and insists that the recognition of design (“the existence in the artifact of an order in its parts”) is a greater channel to humans’ knowledge of God than the mere belief that objects have been “made” (Ibn Rushd, n.d., translated by Hourani 1976). So, for Muslims, the fine-tuning of the universe is nothing new. However, modern-day Islamic culture promotes traditionalist theology rather than natural theology, especially one (the anthropic principle) that is built on a grand evolutionary scheme, from the Big Bang to humans. Still, some Muslim authors have found in the Qurʾān verses that seem to support fine tuning, e.g., “Verily, all things have We created in proportion and measure” (54:49). Likewise, in 15:19, the Qurʾān describes the creation of “all kinds of things in due balance.” Furthermore, the Qurʾān adopts an anthropocentrist view by stressing that “He has made subservient to you whatever is in the heavens and whatever is in the earth” (45:13 and other verses), which has led some Muslim commentators (Setia 2004; Altaie 2008) to rather hastily identify the concept of taskheer (subservience) with the anthropic principle.

However, in the classical Islamic corpus, one can find a few references to the idea of “balance” in creation, relating to both nature and humans. In his masterful Qurʾān exegesis/commentary Mafātīh al-Ghayb, Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (twelfth-century exegete, theologian, and philosopher) stresses the idea that each object in nature has its proper mode of physical existence among many possible ones, a mode that is precisely predetermined (muqaddar bi maqādīr makhsusah) by the Creator; for example, the celestial objects have precise orbits and space–time coordinates that show a complete ordinance (tadbir kamil) and a profound wisdom (hikmah bālighah) (Setia 2004). Al-Razi insists that all objects, in the heavens and in the Earth, living or inert (jamādāt) have been decreed by Allah in a manner that serves the interests (masālih) of humans. Finally, Al-Razi draws our attention toward the complex interconnections between the benefits that lie in the cosmic horizons (al-ni`am al-āfāqiyyah) and those that can be found within ourselves (al-ni`am al-anfusiyyah), biologically or spiritually. He concludes that such benefits are for drawing humans to attain the deeper everlasting spiritual benefits of showing gratitude to the Creator.

According to Marc Geoffroy (2000, 131; my translation), for Ibn Rushd the idea of “measure” (qadar, miqdār) “must be understood both as ‘measured quantity’ and as ‘decision’, as when we say for example ‘taking measures’, the measure given to something implying a destination or purpose for that thing.”

Finally, Badī`uzzaman Said al-Nursi, Turkish theologian and thinker (1877–1960), was very impressed with the “ubiquitous balance” and the “cooperation” one can see throughout the cosmos, and this for him constitutes “material evidence” of the divine unity. Adi Setia (2004) cites Nursi (1993) from The Supreme Sign: The Observations of a Traveller Questioning the Universe Concerning His Maker, with statements like: “[U]niversal co-operation visible throughout the cosmos” and “the comprehensive equilibrium and all-embracing preservation prevailing with the utmost regularity in all things.”

Let us now turn to the concept of “multiverse,” which has received extensive discussion from both scientific and philosophical perspectives. This topic has historical roots extending over centuries, if not millennia, if we consider the ancient and medieval “many worlds” debates, which bear some resemblance, though not equivalence, to multiverse discussions. The contemporary discourse has been refueled by new scientific ideas, particularly fine-tuning, eternal inflation, bubble universes, and the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. In contrast, premodern debates were predominantly based on philosophical arguments and sometimes theological considerations. The new multiverse hypothesis is, in part, a response to the fine-tuning problem, but also an outcome of theoretical models that, while yet unconfirmed, predict the possible existence of countless universes characterized by different parameters and laws. If that is the case, then the presence of a universe hospitable to life is not just unsurprising but even expected.

Within the Islamic intellectual discourse, divergent perspectives on the concept of the multiverse have emerged. Some scholars have shown resistance to this idea, seeing it as a materialist response to the fine-tuning discovery, a rather desperate response to the theistic position, which sees fine-tuning as indicative of divine design. Conversely, some Muslim thinkers have embraced the multiverse hypothesis, interpreting it as a manifestation of God’s omnipotence and in consonance with the Qurʾān. (For instance, “It is Allah Who has created seven heavens and of the earth the like thereof (i.e., seven)” (Qurʾān 65:12), “seven” being commonly interpreted as “many.”) Furthermore, they point to the endorsement of the many-world idea by eminent classical Muslim philosophers and theologians. Indeed, Al-Farabi (nineth century) and Ibn Sina (tenth and eleventh centuries) advocated for the concept, envisioning multiple worlds either as parts of “our world” or as entities existing outside of it. Similarly, major scholars such as Al-Biruni (eleventh century) and Al-Razi (twelfth century), who were steeped in diverse disciplines, formulated arguments expressing the infinitude of God’s grace and creation across temporal and spatial dimensions. The prime opponent of the many-worlds idea was the hugely influential theologian Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali (1058–1111), who believed our world represents the singularly optimal creation—and thus has to be unique.

Contemporary Muslim scientists and intellectuals display a spectrum of perspectives on the multiverse. The eminent Shii philosopher Morteza Motahhari (b. 1919/1920, with varying name spellings and birth dates in the literature) has expressed support for the idea of worlds before ours: “[H]ow do we know that there were not other worlds before, with different laws?” (Motahhari 1950–51, 109).

Faheem Ashraf (n.d.) sees some similarity and consonance between the multiverse and the “seven heavens” of the Qurʾān (e.g., 65:12). Indeed, he identifies the term “heavens”(samāwāt) with “universes,” then interprets the term “seven” as simply an indication of multiplicity. Finally, he points to the adoption of the present tense in the Qurʾānic verses of relevance as indicating the continued existence of the many universes, each (according to him) with “their own values of physical constants and nature of the physical laws.”

At the other end of the spectrum of positions, astrophysicist Jamal Mimouni vehemently rejects the idea of the multiverse, saying: “From an ontological point of view, it’s a catastrophe, because you’re proposing things you can never observe, universes that are causally disconnected from our universe” (El-Showk 2016).

Models positing a universe existing prior to the Big Bang and giving birth to ours are rooted in the rejection of the ex nihilo idea (science does not allow for matter and energy to emerge from “nothingness”) as well of as the singularity; as David Hilbert ([1926] 1984) put it, “The infinite is nowhere to be found in reality.” In fact, if the total internal mass-energy of the universe is larger than the critical value (Ω larger than 1), then the universe will, over hundreds of billions of years, reverse its expansion under gravitational forces and undergo a collapse, leading to a “Big Crunch.” Importantly, such a collapse does not entail a disappearance into “nothingness” (again unacceptable to science) but rather, it is postulated, would lead to the emergence of a new universe, possibly characterized by different laws and parameters. M. Basil Altaie has argued for a bouncing universe, which he views as consistent with the Qurʾān (El-Showk 2016).

The possibility of pre-Big Bang phases may be consistent or consonant with “quantum gravity,” a theoretical construct that remains elusive. Martin Bojowald (2007) underscores the formidable challenge in extrapolating to pre-Big Bang epochs, cautioning that such extrapolations “require exceedingly precise knowledge of the present state [of the universe] that cannot realistically be obtained.” Consequently, “scientific” discussions relating to before the Big Bang are currently largely speculative and will likely remain so for some time, considering the information required to lend the topic more scientific solidity.

Discussion and Conclusions

In the Islamic culture, where the Qurʾān is the paramount, über alles reference, new scientific results are quickly compared to the sacred texts to check for “consistency” and, in a more recent trend (I`jāz, “miraculous scientific content of the Qurʾān”; for a review and critique of this trend, see Guessoum 2010 and Bigliardi 2014), to see if the Qurʾān had already stated or hinted at any of the new results. However, from that, a rather amateuristic cosmology that freely mixes scientific information and religious texts started to appear and spread in the Islamic cultural landscape.

More generally, recent years have witnessed a proliferation of articles on Islam, the cosmos, and “creation,” rekindling the old debates on an eternal versus finite-age universe—a discourse that was highly contentious between classical Muslim theologians and philosophers (eliciting accusations of heresy).

But in the twenty-first century, now that science has come to dictate so many things in our lives and minds, can one still discuss subjects such as cosmology, which evidently owe so much to physical science, with a religious perspective and present Islamic or other faith-based views on contemporary cosmology?

Primack and Abrams (2006, 298) weigh in: “[S]cientists alone can never . . . create a visual and poetic language through which the universe as we scientifically understand it can speak accurately and meaningfully to a global, science-based culture.” They add: “Great imagery is an essential ingredient of cosmology. Cosmology is always based on symbolism” (Primack and Abrams 2006, 51).

I agree that an important way in which philosophers, theologians, educators, artists, and others can contribute to making sense of the cosmos is by providing ideas that speak to humans from their cultural backgrounds, from myths and scriptures to science fiction and other elements the human mind readily interacts with. Furthermore, another important reason scientists and other cultural influencers should collaborate on such an ambitious, albeit controversial, project (constructing a coherent and meaningful cosmology) is the inherent inability of modern science to provide meaning for many/most of its discoveries. Can one discuss the “big bang singularity” without discussing its philosophical meaning and its theological implications? Can one discuss the nature of the physical laws in the universe and not relate them to the existence of life, intelligence, and humanity? Can one discuss the existence of other causally disconnected universes and not explore the meaning of that? Clearly there are many issues on which science admits not to be in a position to say much (of cultural importance) and where paradoxically the interest and thirst of humans is heightened.

It is becoming increasing clear to many thinkers and scientists that a purely scientific approach to the cosmos is not satisfactory; in modern cosmology, the universe (which is totally material in science) is supposed to be self-consistent and thus not require a Creator. But then we may run into an infinite regression of causations, or at the very least get lost in a cosmos empty of meaning.

So, what could Islam today contribute to attempts at marrying rigorous scientific cosmology with culturally and philosophically rich and meaningful approaches to “the world”? Before I suggest a few ideas in that sense, I must ask what Islam can learn from modern, scientific cosmology; what it can or should integrate into its worldview.

The first important thing is for Islam to take on board the main findings of modern, scientific cosmology, findings outlined in the Scientific Cosmology section, most importantly, the fact that the universe is old, huge, made of matter that is mostly different from us and our environment, and ever evolving. I have explained that those findings are humbling (and to some, depressing; indeed, we are incredibly tiny in comparison to all cosmic objects and only came on the scene on the last evening of the “cosmic year”), but in some ways, they could not be otherwise; in fact, in some ways, we are special. But those findings need to be digested and integrated into Islam’s—and all other cultures’—conceptions of “the world,” God, humanity, and history.

Indeed, another important idea that has appeared in recent years is “big history,” a holistic and multidisciplinary view of the evolution of cosmos, the solar system, Earth, life, and humanity from the Big Bang to the present, including the emergence of religion, philosophy, and science. Islam (i.e., Muslim thinkers) need(s) to adopt and integrate such a holistic approach that can only prevent conflicting and schizophrenic viewpoints on humans and the cosmos.

Some steps have started to be taken in that direction, such as reinterpreting Qurʾānic passages in accordance with now-established cosmological, or more generally, scientific, knowledge. Haslin Hasan and Ab Hafiz Mat Tuah (2014) have shown that exegetical interpretations of various verses have evolved greatly under the influence of contemporary cosmology. For example:

• Qurʾān 21:30 (“Have the unbelievers not considered that the heavens and the earth were one piece and that We clove them asunder; and We have made of water everything living; will they then not believe?”) used to be interpreted as: “The earth and skies were once joined and then split or broken into separate entities. The act of separation is by the way of the skies being raised up. The separation allows for raining from the sky and vegetation production from the earth” (Hasan and Tuah 2014). Modern exegesis, however, takes this verse to refer to the moment of creation, i.e., either the Big Bang or the formation of our solar system from nebular matter.

• Qurʾān 25:59 (“He Who created the heavens and the earth and all that is in between, in six days, and is firmly established on the Throne”) used to be interpreted as: “The sky [being] everything above us. ‘Day’ is . . . either the earthbound period or God’s period . . . which . . . duration differs from ours . . . ‘heavens and earth and everything in between’ refers to all of His creation existing in this physical world” (Hasan and Tuah 2014). Modern exegesis, however, interprets this verse as “‘heavens and earth’ represent[ing] the entire physical universe. Heavens (al-samāwāt) therefore refers to the entire universe minus the earth. But heavens might also refer to celestial objects such as galaxies, stars, suns and planets . . . ‘Between heavens and earth’ refers to everything above the earth such as the atmosphere and the rest of celestial objects including space. More recent interpretation (e.g., [al-Najjar] 2006) refers to this as the interstellar medium (such as gas, dust and radiation) or even the vacuum energy throughout space. ‘Day’ refers to the relativity of time, phases of creation, the ‘cosmic day’, or an extended period of time such as an era, eon or epoch” (Hasan and Tuah 2014).

• Qurʾān 51:47 (“We have built the heaven with might, and it is We who expand it”). Classical exegesis interpreted this verse as “God’s most expansive power” and “the vastness of the heavens.” Modern exegesis reads in this “the expanding universe as understood by modern physics” (Hasan and Tuah 2014).

One important issue Muslim theologians—and thinkers, more generally—need to work on is the ultra-anthropic aspect of the traditional Islamic viewpoint. Indeed, Muslims need to take full stock of the fact that humans have only existed for the tiniest fraction of cosmic history. Conceiving of the cosmos, Earth, life, and humans as a “big history” would help remedy the ultra-anthropic perspective.

In reviewing Ibn Rushd’s position with regard to the teleological argument, Taneli Kukkonen (2002) notes that the argument from providence in Averroes’s Al-Kashf treatise “appears almost embarrassingly anthropocentric in character.” However, Kukkonen then argues that if one reviews all of Ibn Rushd’s works, including and especially his commentaries on Aristotle, one realizes that this argument occupies only a mid-level position, the highest one being reserved to the truly demonstrative ones, i.e., the logically deductive philosophical proofs. Indeed, Kukkonen reminds us that Averroes always stressed that mankind is inferior to the cosmos, and the superior cannot exist “in first intention” (Ibn Rushd’s words) for the sake of the inferior. But Averroes insists that the very fact that one can find in the heavens final causes that are of benefit to us down here is an indication that there is a higher intelligence at work.

Ibn Rushd attenuates the traditional Islamic anthropocentrism even more by noting that not everything that exists in nature is obviously of benefit to man. Clearly there are many animals that do not benefit us directly or indirectly. For this reason specifically, Barrow and Tipler (1988, 46–47) also cite Averroes as a prime example of a non-anthropic stand. Kukkonen (2002) explains that Ibn Rushd considers creatures to fulfill a principle of “great good . . . tainted by little evil,” and this secondarily turns out to benefit mankind; as Kukkonen puts it: “[M]an’s wellbeing itself comes as a corollary to the primary good of universal design.”

Finally, the argument from design needs to be both toned down a bit and updated with the fine-tuning discoveries (of the cosmic building blocks and of the discoverability idea). Muslims must properly digest the fine-tuning and anthropic principle developments and not read them as simplistic confirmation of the “subservience” of nature and the cosmos to humans. Likewise, the idea that we are in some way at the “center” of the universe needs to be reinterpreted, as Primack and Abrams have proposed. Indeed, one must always remember that the purpose of creation is a divine reason, which will remain largely outside of our understanding.

And what ideas could Islam then contribute to the above ambitious program of a multidisciplinary, multicultural understanding of the cosmos? In my view, what Islam brings first is this concept of unity and harmony in the cosmos/creation, with elegance and perfection in the phenomena and the (divine) laws that underlie them. Indeed, what underlies those simple yet powerful cosmic laws and principles is God, who is the perfect abstraction of all being and reality; He is the sustainer of everything that exists, entities, phenomena, and laws, leading to regularity and harmony. A similar but somewhat different view is the Sufi conception of the universe as an effusion from God and of creation as continuous, since God never ceases to disclose Himself (to Himself) without being directly apparent to us.

Even non-theists could benefit from the Islamic worldview of simplicity, unity, and elegance in the underlying principles and laws, and harmony in the phenomena that are then produced. Theists from different traditions may appreciate the Islamic conception of humans as having been created to worship God, and nature being here to facilitate this, physically, emotionally, and spiritually, by helping us at least reflect upon it and perhaps come to know God through it.

To conclude, I should stress the importance of humility in general, and on cosmological matters in particular. Mehdi Golshani ([2002] 2016, 245), prominent Iranian physicist-philosopher, advises: “I, personally, recommend the following strategy: we should explore our universe through science as much as we can, but we must avoid making claims about the absolute origination of the universe on physical grounds.”

In this he echoes John Bahcall, the late illustrious American astrophysicist, who had stated: “I personally feel it is presumptuous to believe that man can determine the whole temporal structure of the universe, its evolution, development and ultimate fate from the first nanosecond of creation to the last 10¹⁰ years on the basis of three or four [quantities] which are not very accurately known and are disputed among the experts. That I find, I would say, almost immodest” (Regis 1988, 210–11).