Universe: Origin and Its Existence

The universe is ground to several or hundreds of thousands of species and objects. The learning of everything that exists on the planet or universe (the entire system of things) is called cosmology. This is a relatively new branch of physical science. Here we will be unable to answer some of the big questions such as “is the universe was spontaneously created out of nothing or created by an intelligent designer? Is the universe infinite? And how did it come into being? Will it ever come to an end?

Humans have begun to find some kind of conceptual framework for answering questions about the planet or universe or world and their relationship to it. Here we could get numerous theories on the origin of the universe like the Big Bang, Steady State theory, and theory or belief of creation by the intelligent designer. This study concentrates on finding definite and exact answers by logically agreeable and discovers the truth & explores the fact.

The universe, the entire system of things that encompasses the very large & the very small, and the astronomical scale of stars, galaxies, and the microscopic world of elementary particles. On the other hand, the universe can be defined as the totality of everything that exists which includes all matters, energy, planets, stars, galaxies, and all the content that is present in the intergalactic space.

It is surprising how we can rationally understand the physical universe and that it can be researched through the methods of physics and astronomy developed in scientific laboratories and observation centers. The perception of these scientific dimensions and capacity was revealed to us most clearly in the first, second, and third decades of the 20th Century.

Somewhat paradoxical there were several conceptual frameworks regarding the origin and the structure of the universe. The ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Chinese, Arabs, and such civilizations believed not only the visible face of the Earth and the above sky but also the realm of the dead, both the blessed and forsaken, and the domains of the gods and demons. They were having different viewpoints about the universe. For example, the universe of the ancient Egyptians was a flat island divided by a river and covered over by an arched roof supported on four pillars. In ancient India, the various cosmologies of the Hindus, Brahmans, Buddhists, etc. shared a notion of reincarnation that the physical conditions of the world had to accommodate in all the various levels of heavens and hells that demanded. For the Hindus, for example, the universe was an egg encased in seven concentric shells, each wrought of a different element.

The Babylonians, on the other hand, imagined a universe in two tiers joined by a cosmic staircase. The Mayan civilization was heavily dependent on corn and the often-sparse rains that fell from the sky. So, for the Mayas, in the beginning, the creator was alone with the sky and the sea, until, after various failed attempts, he finally managed to create people from corn and water. In the Judeo-Christian Old Testament, the Earth was canopied by a mysterious thing dividing the waters, the gates of the Abyss, Limbo, and the House of the Winds. The Book of Genesis also tells us that the world had a beginning: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth. The Earth, however, was shapeless and void; the darkness was upon the face of the deep and the Spirit of God hovered above the waters. God said, ‘Let there be light’. And there was light. God saw that the light was good and separated darkness from light. God called the light DAY and the darkness NIGHT. There was evening and there was morning, one day”^[1]The origin of the universe by J E Steiner.

According to the Boshongo people of central Africa, in the beginning, there was only darkness, water, and the great god Bumba. One day Bumba, in pain from a stomach ache, vomited up the sun. In time the sun dried up some of the water, leaving land. But Bumba was still in pain and vomited some more. Up came the moon, the stars, and then some animals: the leopard, the crocodile, the turtle, and finally man. The Mayans of Mexico and Central America tell of a similar time before creation when all that existed were the sea, the sky, and the Maker. In the Mayan legend the Maker, unhappy because there was no one to praise him, created the earth, mountains, trees, and most animals. But the animals could not speak, and so he decided to create humans. First, he made them of mud and earth, but they only spoke nonsense. He let them dissolve away and tried again, this time fashioning people from wood. Those people were dull. He decided to destroy them, but they escaped into the forest, sustaining damage along the way that altered them slightly, creating what we today know as monkeys. After that fiasco, the Maker finally came upon a formula that worked and constructed the first humans from white and yellow corn. Today we make ethanol from corn, but so far haven’t matched the Maker’s feat of constructing the people who drink it.

According to the Old Testament, God created Adam and Eve only six days into creation. Bishop Ussher, primate of all Ireland from 1625 to 1656, placed the origin of the world even more precisely, at nine in the morning on October 27, 4004 BC. We take a different view: that human is a recent creation but that the universe itself began much earlier, about 13.7 billion years ago. The first actual scientific evidence that the universe had a beginning came in the 1920s.

Now, let me encapsulate in brief the different scientifically proved theories with actual evidence of the origin and the creation and evolution of the universe one by one.

1. The Big bang theory

This theory was proposed by “Lee Matter and Gamma”. This theory says that the whole matter of the universe was once concentrated in an extremely dense and hot fireball at the beginning of the universe and then a very big explosion occurred nearly 20 billion years ago. This big explosion was named as “Big Bang”. The impact of the Big Bang believes that this small but incredibly dense point of primitive matter [energy] exploded. Within seconds the fireball ejected matter at velocities approaching the speed of light. At some later time maybe seconds later, maybe years later energy and matter began to split apart and become separate entities. All of the different elements in the universe today developed from what spewed out of this original explosion.

This Big explosion caused the matter to break into pieces. The highly concentrated was thrown out with a high speed in all the directions. That latterly formed stars and galaxies. Big Bang theorists claim that all of the galaxies, stars, and planets still retain the explosive motion of the moment of creation and are moving away from each other at great speed, at speeds of up to several thousand miles per second. This supposition came from an unusual finding of our neighboring galaxies. These stars and galaxies are still moving away from each other which means our universe is expanding. This was based upon the observations Edwin Hubble made with the 100-inch telescope on Mount Wilson, in the hills above Pasadena, California. By analyzing the spectrum of light, they emit, Hubble determined that nearly all galaxies are moving away from us, and the farther away they are, the faster they are moving. In 1929 he published a law relating their rate of recession to their distance from us and concluded that the universe is expanding.

The Big Bang model is not uniformly accepted, however. One problem with the theory is that it predicts that the universe occurred to a great explosion from a tiny right but if asked that what was there before that explosion. The science is unable to get a particular answer about what it was. If that is true, then the universe must have been smaller in the past. In fact, if we extrapolate to the distant past, all the matter and energy in the universe would have been concentrated in a very tiny region of unimaginable density and temperature, and if we go back far enough, there would be a time when it all began.

2.The steady-state theory

It was developed by “Bondy Thomas Gold German and Fred Hyle”. According to this theory, the number of galaxies in the observable universe is constant and new galaxies are being created continuously out of space which fills up the gaps caused by these galaxies which have crossed the boundary of the observable universe.

So by this theory, it can be concluded that the overall size of the mass of the observable universe is constant. Therefore, the steady-state of the universe is not disturbed at all. So it is named steady-state theory. This theory didn’t depend on a specific event like the Big Bang. Under the Steady State theory, stars and galaxies may change, but on the whole, the universe has always looked the way it does now, and it always will. Fred Hoyle and others argued that the universe was not the only uniform in space an idea called the cosmological principle but also unchanging in time, a concept called the Perfect Cosmological Principle.

Naturally, the continuous creation of matter from space has met with criticism. How can you get something from nothing? The idea violates a fundamental law of physics: the conservation of matter. According to this law, matter can neither be created nor destroyed, but only converted into other forms of matter, or energy. But skeptical astronomers have found it hard to directly disprove the continuous creation of matter because the amount of matter formed under the Steady State theory is so very tiny: about one atom every billion years for every several cubic feet of space. The Steady State theory fails, however, in one important way. If the matter is continuously created everywhere, then the average age of stars in any section of the universe should be the same. But astronomers have found that not to be true.

3. The pulsating theory.

This theory states that the universe is pulsating which means our universe is supposed to be expanding and contracting alternatively as nowhere the universe is expanding. But it will not keep on expanding all the time. According to this theory, the expansion of the universe or the process of expanding will be stopped for a certain time, and then it will start contracting due to the gravitational pull. This contraction will come to an end where the explosion of the universe again takes place and again the process of expanding will start. This will keep continuing pulsating universe.

4.Cyclic universe theory

The cyclic universe theory is a model of cosmic evolution according to which the universe undergoes endless cycles of expansion and cooling, each beginning with a “big bang” and ending in a “big crunch”.

5. Big Crunch theory

A more specific theory called “Big crunch” proposes that the universe could collapse to the state where it began and then initiate another Big Bang, so in this way, the universe would last forever but would pass through phases of expansion (Big Bang) and contraction (Big Crunch).

6. Big Bounce theory

The Big Bounce is a hypothetical cosmological model for the origin of the known universe. It was originally suggested as a phase of the cyclic model or oscillatory universe interpretation of the Big Bang, where the first cosmological event was the result of the collapse of a previous universe.

7. Big Freeze theory

Observations suggest that the expansion of the universe will continue forever. If so, then a popular theory is that the universe will cool as it expands, eventually becoming too cold to sustain life. For this reason, this future scenario once popularly called “Heat Death” is now known as the Big Chill or Big Freeze.

8. Plasma theory

It is a concept that challenges the big-bang model of the origin of the universe. Those who support the theory of plasma cosmology hold that the universe had no beginning (and has no foreseeable end) and that plasma with its electric and magnetic forces has done more.

9. Creation by an intelligent designer

This is the theory or belief that religious believers i.e., Islamic believers (Muslims) have faith in, even though the science having a different view about the intelligent design or spirit manifest or cosmic soul.

The Holy Quran contains many scientific signs in Cosmology about the origin of the universe.
Birth of the universe (Big Bang).

The Glorious Quran presents two phenomena that constituted the basic process of the formation of the universe.

“Do not the unbelievers see the heavens and the earth were joined together when we clove them asunder”^[2]Surah Al-Anbya 21:30.

In this verse, Quran says that Allah separated the heavens and earth (universe) which were joined. This looks like a Big Bang theory as the big bang says that the universe exploded or got asunder from a tiny and there is no answer about what was before the explosion.

The Qur’an says that “the heavens and the earth were joined together as one unit before We clove them asunder” (21:30). Following this big explosion, Allah “turned to the sky, and it had been (as) smoke. He said to it and the earth: ‘Come together, willingly or unwillingly.’ They said: ‘We come (together) in willing obedience'” (41:11). Thus, the elements and what were to become the planets and stars began to cool, come together, and form into shape, following the natural laws that Allah established in the universe.
Quran defines the creation strategy of intelligent design. The Qur’an states that

“Allah created the heavens and the earth, and all that is between them, in six days”^[3]Surah Al-A’raf 7:54.

While on the surface this might seem similar to the account related in the Bible, there are some important distinctions.

The verses that mention “six days” use the Arabic word “youm” (day). This word appears several other times in the Qur’an, each denoting a different measurement of time. In one case, the measure of a day is equated with 50,000 years (70:4), whereas another verse states that “a day in the sight of your Lord is like 1,000 years of your reckoning” (22:47). The word “youm” is as understood, within the Qur’an, to be a long period of time — an era or eon. Therefore, Muslims interpret the description of a “six-day” creation as six distinct periods or eons. The length of these periods is not precisely defined, nor are the specific developments that took place during each period.

After completing the Creation, the Qur’an describes that Allah

“settled Himself upon the Throne“^[4]Ibid., 3.

to oversee His work. A distinct point is made to counter the Biblical idea of a day of rest:

“We created the heavens and the earth and all that is between them in six days, nor did any sense of weariness touch Us“^[5]Surah Al-qahf 50:38.

Allah is never “done” with His work because the process of creation is ongoing. Each new child who is born, every seed that sprouts into a sapling, every new species that appears on earth, is part of the ongoing process of Allah’s creation.

“He is Who created the heavens and the earth in six days, then established Himself on the Throne. He knows what enters within the heart of the earth, and what comes forth out of it, what comes down from heaven, and what mounts up to it. And He is with you wherever you may be. And Allah sees well all that you do“^[6]Surah Al-Hadid 57:4.

The Quranic account of creation is in line with modern scientific thought about the development of the universe and life on earth. Muslims acknowledged that life developed over a long period of time, but see Allah’s power behind it all. Descriptions of creation in the Qur’an are set in context to remind the readers of Allah’s majesty and wisdom.

“What is the matter with you, that you are not conscious of Allah’s majesty, seeing that it is He Who has created you in diverse stages? See you not how Allah has created the seven heavens one above another, and made the moon a light in their midst, and made the sun as a (glorious) lamp? And Allah has produced you from the earth, growing (gradually)“^[7]Surah Al-Nuh 71:13.

The universe is ground to several or hundreds of thousands of species and objects. And this universe is inclusive of lots of mysteries. This is the study about the origin of the universe in different angles of scientific and religious aspects which gives a wide range of thoughts and ideas and it promotes to know more about it and get know the fact. There are several understandings, ideas, views, and beliefs about the creation of the universe. Science states that the universe had appeared from the explosion from a tiny thing which none can rectify what it is inexact though few of thinkers say that as a singularity where the belief go ahead on this view.

Mohmad Irfan

Mohmad Irfan, an independent research scholar in the field of commerce more particularly in Islamic finance. is currently doing research in 'A comprehensive study on the provisions of the loan according to the Shafi’i Madhab'. He has written a research paper on 'Scope of Ijtihad and Taqleed in the modern era' presented at the Conference held in Malaibar students association Al Azhar, Egypt.
He is pursuing M.com from Bengaluru North University.

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