A1 " Christian and Muslim Cosmology

However in Genesis Chapter 2 there is a greater emphasis on the creation of humankind. In this account God created the Heavens and Earth, and on the 7th day he rested, so he blessed the seventh day and hallowed it. When no plant or herb had sprung up from the fields, because God had not caused it to rain upon the earth he caused a mist and it went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground. God then formed man of the dust from the ground and ‘breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being’ He then planted a garden in Eden and he put the man he formed into the garden. The second account also goes into more detail about the creation of the rivers that flowed out of Eden. The first one was called Pishon which flowed around the whole land of Havilah which there is gold. The name of the second river is Gihon, which flowed around the whole land of Cush. The third river was called Tigris which flows east of Assyria and the fourth was called Euphrates.  God then commanded the man saying that ‘you may freely eat of every tree in the garden; but the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.’ God then realised that it should not be good for man to be alone. So he created every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and whatever the man called the living creature that was its name. God saw that the creatures were not a fit helper for him. So he put Man to sleep and while he slept he took one of the ribs and closed up its place with flesh. From the rib he took God made a woman and brought her to the man. The man then said ‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman because she was taken out of Man’.

The Islamic cosmology is found in the Qur’an. In Islam there is no single story of creation like there is in Christianity. There are many references to creation in the Qur’an which has led to two different cosmologies being formed amongst Muslims – one being the traditional view and the other being the modern view.  In the Qur’an surah 7:54 says that ‘Your Guardian-Lord is God, who created the heavens and the earth in six days.’ Although there are no clear statements about the order of creation, there are statements in the Qur’an which state that God created the sun, moon, earth and stars. (7:54) he also separated night from day (7:54), sent water to the Earth and created vegetation (20:53), Created birds, fish and animals (16:5-8) , Created Adam as the first human being out of clay and into which God breathed life (23:12-16)

This gives the idea of God creating everything directly in six days and that all humans have descended from God’s direct creation, Adam and his wife.

To support the modern Islamic cosmology, many Muslims argue that the Arabic word translated as ‘days’ is more correctly translated as ‘ages’. They use evidence from the Qur’an to support this view. The modern view is argued in the Bible, The Qur’an and Modern Science by M.Bucaille. There is no sequence of creation in the Qur’an, but the first creation appears to be the heavens (22:33). Then God created life from the water – ‘We made from water every living thing’ (21:30) Then from water came vegetation – ‘Sent down water from the sky with it we have produced diver pairs of plants’ (20:53) and finally God created man from an embryo formed from semen (22:5). This gives the idea of a gradual creation with a more evolutionary character.