As we saw in chapter 2, both the Quran and modern science confirm that the heavens and the earth were created simultaneously, having been separated from a primary nebula. It is important to understand that the Bible, the most famous record of the creation prior to the Quran gives a sequence for the creation of the heavens and the earth that is today found unacceptable from a scientific standpoint. If the Quran was the work of human beings it is difficult to imagine how they could have avoided the human errors so firmly fixed in the minds of people from the previous records.

In the Bible, in Genesis, chapter 1, we read that Allah created light which He called day, and separated it from the darkness which He called night (see v. 3). Today we know that the alternation of day and night is caused by the earth's movement in relation to the sun. But, according to Genesis, the sun was not created until the fourth day (see v. 16). So how could day and night alternate before that?

A related problem is that vegetation is created on the third day (see vv. 11-12) whereas the sun which is necessary for sustaining vegetation does not appear until the fourth day.

"What is totally untenable" says Dr. Bucaille, "is that a highly organized vegetable kingdom with reproduction by seed could have appeared before the existence of the sun" (The Bible, the Quran and Science, p. 42).

We have already seen that the Quran states, and modern science confirms, that the heavens and the earth were formed together. Dr. Bucaille explains as follows: "Earth and moon emanated, as we know, from their original star, the sun. To place the creation of the sun and moon after the creation of the earth is contrary to the most firmly established ideas on the formation of the elements of the solar system" (p. 42). By giving a sequence in which the sun and moon are created after the creation of the earth, the Genesis account proves erroneous. On the other hand, the Quran, by speaking of the simultaneous creation of the heavens and the earth, has judiciously avoided the errors of the Genesis account.

Could the Quran have been authored by a human? No! Dr. Bucaille asks: "How could a man living fourteen hundred years ago have made corrections to the existing description to such an extent that he eliminated scientifically inaccurate material and, on his own initiative, made statements that science has only in the present day been able to verify?" (p.151).

Six Days of Creation or Six Periods?

Today we know that the creation process can be measured in billions of years. The priestly editors or the Bible could not have known this. In their eagerness to enjoin Sabbath observance on others they wrote that Allah rested on the very first Sabbath day after finishing up his work of creating the heavens and the earth. The six days of creation in the book of Genesis, then, are clearly like six days of any seven-day week. The Priestly editors have made it clear that a day is meant a period from one sunset to another. Six days meant from Sunday to Friday. They believed that the reason the Sabbath day became holy is that Allah Himself had rested on that day. Thus the editors tell us:

"By the seventh day Allah had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And Allah blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done" (Genesis 2:2).

If that is not far enough, the editors took the idea that Allah rested farther still when they wrote as follows: "In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed" (The Holy Bible, King James Version, Exodus 31: 17). The idea that Allah rests like humans and gets refreshed like humans had to be corrected by Jesus, on whom be peace, when, according to John, he declared that Allah never stops working, even on the Sabbath day (see John 5:16). Allah clarified the matter in His own words when he declared: "And verily we created the heavens and the earth and all that is between them in six days, and naught of weariness touched us" (Quran 50:38 see also v. 15). The above quranic verses clearly refute the idea that Allah rested. Allah, according to the Quran does not get tired. Neither slumber nor sleep overtakes him (Quran 2:255). But how about the period of creation? Was that six days in the Quran too? In the above quotation from the Quran the term translated 'days' could mean, according to Dr. Maurice Bucaille, "not just 'days', but also 'long periods of time', an indefinite period of time (but always long)" (The Bible, the Quran and Science, p. 139).

Dr. Bucaille notes that the Quran also speaks of "a day whereof the measure is a thousand years of your reckoning" (Quran 32:5). The Quran also speaks of a day whereof the measure is 50,000 years" (Quran 70:4). Dr. Bucaille also points out that long before our modern ideas of the length of time involved in the creation, commentators of the Quran understood that when the Quran speaks of six days of creation, it does not mean six days like ours, but rather six periods. Abu al Su'ud, for example, writing in the sixteenth century, understood it as six events (see The Bible, the Quran and Science, p.l39). Again, we see that the Quran has avoided repeating an error which was established in a previous book an error that will not be discovered until modern times. In view of this, can anyone insist that the Quran is the work of a man?