Islam Guidance

ROTATION OF THE EARTH ON ITS AXIS

Vasco de Gama, who discovered the route to India, Columbus who discovered America and Magellan, who tried to go around the world, had not undertaken their journeys to make discoveries. They had material benefits in mind. They knew that the earth is round, but there is nothing to show that they also knew that it rotates on its own axis.
When such a great scholar like Poincare (died 1912), who lived in the 20th century refused to believe that the earth rotates on its axis, how could the people who lived in he 1st and 2nd centuries of the Hijra believe in the theory of Ja’far as-Sadiq (a.s.) that the earth rotates on its own axis.
Tycho Brahe, who died in the year 1701, belonged to a noble family of Denmark. Unlike Kepler of Germany, who was a pauper, Tycho was very rich and used to throw big parties. He had a vast knowledge of astronomy. Without his help, Kepler could not have discovered his three famous Laws of Planetary Motion. Tycho had discovered that the earth rotates round the sun. He could publish his theory because no branch of the Organization of Inquisition existed in Denmark, a Protestant kingdom. In spite of his vast knowledge and extraordinary intelligence he was unable to discover the earth’s rotation on its own axis.
The rotation of the earth on its own axis could be proved by observation only. When astronauts landed on the surface of the moon, and directed their telescopes towards the earth they observed that it was rotating slowly on its axis. In the beginning even space travellers could not see with their own eyes rotation of the earth on its axis, since they had no fixed station. They were travelling in their spacecrafts and going round the earth every ninety minutes or so. At that high speed it was not possible to observe the motion of the earth.
There is no star in our galaxy which does not rotate around itself. All of them follow the laws of mechanics which govern the movement of heavenly bodies. Our own sun also rotates on its axis and completes one rotation in 25 days. The laws that govern the rotation of stars makes our spaceships also spin in space.
When Ja’far as-Sadiq (a.s.) made that discovery did he know the Laws of Mechanics of the stars and did he know that when two forces work on an object in such a way that one force pushes it away from the centre and the other force pulls it towards the centre it starts to spin? He definitely knew about these laws when he said that the earth rotates on its own axis, which produces day and night. Without the knowledge of these laws it would have been impossible for him to make that discovery.

Imam Reza (AS) Network

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