There are lots of similarities between the two Christian cosmologies, for example, the world being created in six days, the creation of the heavens and the earth on the first day, the creation of fish and birds on the fifth day and the creation of trees and plants on the third day. However, there are also differences. For instance, as already mentioned, genesis 2 gives the idea that everything was created for man, with everything else being scenery or help for him. In genesis 1 on the other hand, humans are created on the last day fitting into the earth as apposed to the earth fitting round them. Another difference is that in genesis 1 god creates everything by using his voice, in genesis 2 however, there is no indication to what technique god used to create what it claims he created.
In the traditional Islamic cosmology, it says that” Lord is god, who created the heavens and the earth in six days” (Surah 7:54) although it does not describe the sequence of events that took place, it says that god created the sun, moon, stars and planets, separated night from day, sent water to the earth creating vegetation, created birds, fish and animals, created Adam out of clay, gave Adam free will and made him the Khalifer of the earth, threw Adam and his wife out of the garden of Eden and did all of this by speaking.
In the modern Islamic view, argued from ‘the Qur’an and modern science’, it says that the Arabic word for days translates more effectively as ‘ages’ implying that god created the world in six ages rather than six days. Also, using other references in the Qur’an, some of the sequence of events has been figured out such as the fact that the heavens were created first. Also, in the modern view, god formed Adam from an embryo made of seamen rather than out of clay. This modern version gives an idea of a gradual creation of the earth.
In both the traditional Islamic cosmology and the Christian cosmology found in genesis 1 god creates everything in six days, uses his voice to create everything, separates light and dark (referred to in the Islamic version as night and day) and creates a beautiful garden for human where they are tempted by Satan and thrown out of ‘the garden’ for this. Genesis 2 also has similarities to the traditional Islamic cosmology such as the belief that humans were made out of ‘the dust of the earth’ (referred to as clay in the Islamic cosmology). The other similarity between all of the cosmologies, Christian and Muslim, is that they all say the world was created in six stages, mostly these stages are supposedly days except for in the modern Islamic cosmology where they are ‘ages’.
