S24
A smoke-like origin; heavens and earth joined then split
41:11 says God "directed Himself to the heaven while it was smoke", and 21:30 that "the heavens and the earth were a joined entity, and We separated them".
ثُمَّ ٱسْتَوَىٰٓ إِلَى ٱلسَّمَآءِ وَهِىَ دُخَانٌ فَقَالَ لَهَا وَلِلْأَرْضِ ٱئْتِيَا طَوْعًا أَوْ كَرْهًا قَالَتَآ أَتَيْنَا طَآئِعِينَ١١
Transliteration: thumma is'tawā ilā l-samāi wahiya dukhānun faqāla lahā walil'arḍi i'tiyā ṭawʿan aw karhan qālatā ataynā ṭāiʿīna
Then He directed Himself to the heaven while it was smoke and said to it and to the earth, "Come [into being], willingly or by compulsion." They said, "We have come willingly."
أَوَلَمْ يَرَ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوٓا۟ أَنَّ ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَٱلْأَرْضَ كَانَتَا رَتْقًا فَفَتَقْنَٰهُمَا ۖ وَجَعَلْنَا مِنَ ٱلْمَآءِ كُلَّ شَىْءٍ حَىٍّ ۖ أَفَلَا يُؤْمِنُونَ٣٠
Transliteration: awalam yara alladhīna kafarū anna l-samāwāti wal-arḍa kānatā ratqan fafataqnāhumā wajaʿalnā mina l-māi kulla shayin ḥayyin afalā yu'minūna
Have those who disbelieved not considered that the heavens and the earth were a joined entity, and We separated them and made from water every living thing? Then will they not believe?
Translation: Saheeh International
Meccan, in Sura Fuṣṣilat, after the creation of the earth in 41:9–10.
"Have those who disbelieved not considered that the heavens and the earth were a joined entity, and We separated them and made from water every living thing? Then will they not believe?" (21:30), Meccan.
Key words
Dukhān: smoke. Ratq: joined, sewn together. Fatq: split apart.
See also: 41:9–12 , 79:27–30
Classical tafsir
Ibn Kathir on 41:11. The smoke was "steam which arose from it when the earth was created". On the order of creation: "Allah says that He created the earth first, because it is the foundation." Reconciling this with 79:27–30 (where the earth's spreading comes after the heaven), Ibn Kathir himself says "the earth itself was created before the heavens according to some texts", and then reports Ibn ʿAbbas: "Allah created the earth in two days, then He created the heavens… Then He spread the earth."
Al-Jalālayn on 41:11. "Then He turned to the heaven when it was smoke consisting of rising vapours"; heaven and earth answer, "We come together with all those inhabiting us willingly!"
Ibn Kathir on 21:30. He reports Ibn ʿAbbas: "the heavens were joined together and it did not rain, and the earth was joined together and nothing grew", until rain and vegetation came forth; al-Hasan and Qatada: "They were joined together, then they were separated by this air"; and his own gloss: "in the beginning they were all one piece… piled up on top of one another" (as read for run 9).
Where they differ. On 21:30 there are three classical readings: rain and plants (Ibn ʿAbbas), separation by the air (al-Hasan, Qatada), and one original piece (Ibn Kathir's gloss). On 41:11, both commentaries read the "smoke" as vapour.
How it works
- Where our solar system came from. Established The Solar System formed about 4.6 billion years ago from the "gravitational collapse of a small part of a giant molecular cloud", mostly hydrogen and helium (about 98% of its mass), with about 2% heavier elements; the rest of the collapsing material "flattened into a protoplanetary disk", from which the planets formed (Wikipedia). The solar nebula was "the disc-shaped cloud of gas and dust left over from the Sun's formation".
Points of awe
Reflection
Two verses describe a beginning in very few words. In one, the heaven "was smoke", and God said to it and to the earth, "Come [into being], willingly or by compulsion." They answered: "We have come willingly" (41:11). In the other, heaven and earth "were a joined entity, and We separated them" (21:30).
The commentators read these in more than one way. The smoke was vapour rising as the earth was made. The joining was a sky that did not rain and an earth that did not grow, until God opened both; or heaven and earth pressed together until the air came between them; or one piece, later divided.
What strikes a reader first may be the answer of heaven and earth: "We have come willingly." Before anything else is said, creation is pictured as obedient. Al-Jalālayn adds that they answered "with all those inhabiting us". The whole cosmos says yes to its Maker.
Modern science describes our solar system forming from a vast cloud of gas and dust. A reader may notice a resonance with "smoke". But the verse's own question is not about physics. It ends: "Then will they not believe?" The beginning of everything is offered as a reason to trust the One who began it.
Questions readers ask next
What was the "smoke"?
Ibn Kathir: "steam which arose from it when the earth was created"; al-Jalālayn: "rising vapours".
Does 21:30 describe the Big Bang?
The classical readings do not; it can be read in harmony with modern cosmology, but that is a modern reflection (run 9, Q12).
Which came first, earth or heaven?
Ibn Kathir reports Ibn ʿAbbas: the earth was created first, and spread out after the heavens.
Sources
- Saheeh International — 41:11, 21:30.
- Ibn Kathir, Tafsir (abridged English), and Tafsīr al-Jalālayn (English), on 41:9–12, https://surahquran.com/tafsir-english-aya-11-sora-41.html, and on 21:30, https://surahquran.com/tafsir-english-aya-30-sora-21.html (as read for runs 9 and 10).
- "Formation and evolution of the Solar System", Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formation_and_evolution_of_the_Solar_System.
- Al-Ṭabarī and Ibn Kathīr on 21:30 and 41:11
- NASA, solar system formation overviews
- Guessoum, Islam's Quantum Question, chapter on cosmology and the Quran