Black holes in the Quran
[Quran 81:1-3] When the sun is put out, and when the stars fall down (inkadarat).
In these two verses, notice how the distinction of the sun and other stars' death is made—indeed the sun will become a white dwarf and die a slow death turning off its light. The white dwarf will die slowly losing its light. But many stars will fall on their own gravity and become black holes.
The miracle of this verse goes deeper! There’s a reason why other translators define it as “when the stars fall, losing their luster”. So it’s not just that stars fall—which would be enough of a miracle itself—but stars fall and get dark! Indeed in a black hole—stars fall and the force of their gravity is so strong that not even light can escape.
Lanes lexicon—Published in 1863: far beyond the discovery of black holes shows this translation is correct. We will examine an in-depth approach of the classical Arabic meaning of "inkadarat" and we will see how absolutely precise, descriptive and accurate Allah's choice of words is.
So let's start with Lane Lexicon's definitions of 'inkadarat'. I color coded the different definitions of the word and we will examine them below: (download the file of the lexicon annotation for a clearer picture).
In these two verses, notice how the distinction of the sun and other stars' death is made—indeed the sun will become a white dwarf and die a slow death turning off its light. The white dwarf will die slowly losing its light. But many stars will fall on their own gravity and become black holes.
The miracle of this verse goes deeper! There’s a reason why other translators define it as “when the stars fall, losing their luster”. So it’s not just that stars fall—which would be enough of a miracle itself—but stars fall and get dark! Indeed in a black hole—stars fall and the force of their gravity is so strong that not even light can escape.
Lanes lexicon—Published in 1863: far beyond the discovery of black holes shows this translation is correct. We will examine an in-depth approach of the classical Arabic meaning of "inkadarat" and we will see how absolutely precise, descriptive and accurate Allah's choice of words is.
So let's start with Lane Lexicon's definitions of 'inkadarat'. I color coded the different definitions of the word and we will examine them below: (download the file of the lexicon annotation for a clearer picture).
| Lane's Lexicon (inkadarat).png |
(1) Fall down. (Underlined in blue color in the above lexicon screenshot). One of the meanings of this word is to fall down. Indeed, once the core of the star runs out of fuel--the star can no longer "push-against" the force of gravity. So the gravitational forces cause the core of the star to collapse/implode. After this a supernova occurs, and the core of the star collapse into a either a superdense neutron star or a black hole (extremely dense). A black hole gets extremely dense and gravity pushes the rest of the star into it. A black hole causes a depression into space time and indeed the star will fall down on the weight of its own gravity. As a side note, consider where "down" is? 'Down' is towards the center of mass following the direction of gravity--so in the context of black holes: 'down' is towards the black hole. Indeed, the rest of that star will fall down into the black hole. Think of black holes as a giant sphere--like the Earth except much larger and denser--things that get near it will fall down into that black hole sphere (just like how we fall down back to the Earth after skydiving).
(2) Poured out/Poured down. (Underlined in black color in the above lexicon screenshot). Pouring of water—indeed, when you pour out water, it pours down/falls down. This is the effect of gravity on water. A star is made of gases which pour down like water (gases are pourable—anything that can flow and experiences gravitational force gets poured down--you can watch youtube videos of gases being poured like water and these gases pour downwards into the blackhole’s gravitational pull). With respect to a star turning into a blackhole-- matter/gas falls/pours down into the blackhole. This also happens when stars implode on themselves before going supernova. This is an extremely fitting word for the description of gasses flowing towards the gravity (downward) of a blackhole--pouring; flowing downwards due to gravity. So when the Quran says that the stars will get poured down when they die--it is such a fitting description since stars are made of gases which pour down into the black hole.
(3) Turbid/Thick/Muddy. (Underlined in red color in the above lexicon screenshot). Indeed a blackhole is extremely dense with matter. Just as water being turbid is dense and thick with sedimentary material by definition—that’s what makes water Turbid/Thick—dense thick sediment. So when the Quran mentions that stars will get Thick/Turbid/Muddy when they die, it's not only alluding to the star turning black; it's alluding to the star turning black through being thickened/dense with material just as water does when it gets thickened/dense with sediment. Quite a fitting analogy! Indeed, a black hole is so dense with material that not even light could escape the gravitational forces. That is, as the star's core gets denser and collapses into a black hole, less and less light could escape making it turn black.
(4) Blackness. (Underlined in dark green color in the above lexicon screenshot). Black and inclining towards black is another meaning of the word 'inkadarat'. In fact, as the lexicon demonstrates entire species of birds and some donkeys are called 'inkadarat' because they are black. This further reinforces that 'inkadarat' refers to black/blackness. Indeed, a blackhole is named this way because it is black. The blackhole is so dense and with massive gravitational forces that not even light itself could escape. The usage of this word in the Quran is, again, a very fitting description.
(5) Perturb. (underlined in purple in the above lexicon screenshot). In reference to our minds, perturbed means a confusion, a disturbance or a disruption of thought. But in other contexts, perturbed means a distortion or disruption. Indeed, a black hole warps light around it. It makes the surroundings hazy and not clear (underlined in light blue in the above lexicon screenshot). A black hole warps/perturbates space-time around it. Black holes also perturbate and interfere with objects around them. They warp light and they interfere and disrupt its surroundings. The Quran describes a star getting perturbed when it dies--indeed when a star collapses into a blackhole, the light and space-time itself surrounding that baby black hole would get increasingly perturbed/warped as the blackhole increases in size.
(6) Attend with Trouble. (underlined in lime green color in the above lexicon screenshot). This one is self-explanatory. Trouble..chaos...disorder. At the end of a star's life, it explodes, its core collapses into a black hole, the rest of the star will be engulfed--it will fall into the black hole. In fact, the death of a star and the formation of a blackhole along with the sheer relative chaos of supernovas, black holes and its surroundings are well explained in following 3 minute video file:
| the_birth_of_a_black_hole.mp4 |
(7) Sully. (underlined in cyan color in the above lexicon screenshot). This one is also self-explanatory and mirrors what we mentioned above. Lane's lexicon mentions the word 'inktadarat' can refer to "sullied". Sully is defined as damage to the purity or integrity of; defile. Indeed, at the end of a star's life, exactly this will happen.
(8) A collection/unity. (underlined in yellow color in the above lexicon screenshot). A black hole is a conglomerate (collection/unity) of matter and energy densely packed and exerting severe gravitational forces as a result. Neutron stars are the same--a superdense collection of star matter. Again, remember, the matter the black hole engulfs (what was once part of the star) gets fused together (united) in the singularity of the black hole; they get united into a single hyperdense mass. This is yet another meaning of the word "inktadarat" and another demonstration of how fitting this word usage is.
(9) Hasten. (underlined in brown color in the above lexicon screenshot). This is yet another fitting word. Hasten means to move quickly. When a star runs out of elements to fuse, its core gets filled with iron and it no longer can release energy to counteract the force of gravity. As a result, the force of gravity is unchecked and the star's core collapses--within a fraction of a second, the star implodes moving at 1/4 the speed of light (hastening)--then the star explodes into a supernova (another hastening in which massive energy is released in a short burst/period of time). The following video explains this very well. So when the Quran says "and when the stars {inkadarat}", one of the meanings of that word is 'hasten"--indeed at the end of the star's life it hastens to its death in a rapid implosion and subsequent rapid burst of energy before the formation of a black hole.
| Hasten.mp4 |
(10) Continuing. (underlined in gray/silver color in the above lexicon screenshot). Lane's lexicon describes 'inkadarat" being used in the context of 'eyes continuing to stare' at something. Interestingly, long term persistence and continuation is yet another property of black holes! The blackholes will continue for years to come. They would evaporate very slowly--they'll persist or continue on for a very long period of time before they die. As you can see from the following picture, stars live for only billions of years whereas blackholes can persist longer than even the current age of the universe. Watch the following video for a sense of how black holes will persist for a lot longer even while the universe has reached a late-stage/point in its existence of being incompatible with life. Indeed 10^67+ years is several orders of magnitude higher than billions of years! Blackholes will continue and persist for quite a while which again makes the use of 'inkadarat' so fitting.
| blackholes_persist_continue.mp4 |
(11) Scattering. (underlined in pink color in the above lexicon screenshot). Notice how in Lane's Lexicon, it states the meaning of the word 'inkadarat' is "fall, scattering". Stunningly, this is indeed what happens. As you will recall from the above discussion/videos--when a star begins forming iron (Fe) and runs out of fuel for fusion, it no longer and push energy out counteracting the force of gravity. As a result, the star implodes ("falls"). Then the star explodes into a supernova ("scatter"). Recall as we mentioned above, 'falling' is quickly moving with the vector of gravity. When you fall on Earth, the vector of gravity is what we call 'downwards' towards the Earth and we fall towards that direction. Indeed, when a star implodes, the vector of gravity is 'downwards' to the center of the star, and the star implodes (falls) downwards in that direction. Additionally--what is meant by scattering? Something could scatter relative to itself or relative to other things. A star could scatter in relation to itself (to their individual self)--and multiple stars will be doing this at the end of their life. A star scattering in relation to itself would be a star exploding. Similar to the phrase "I will scatter your body around the Earth"--it refers to scattering of the body across different spaces. Multiple stars scattering in relation to their individual selves would be scattering. Also, don't assume "scattering" means to scatter to the furthest possible extent. You can partially scatter; you can scatter to some degree. Notice the stunning accuracy of the Quran when it refers to stars 'fall, scattering'. It is literally a perfect description. Here is a video clip of Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson (Astrophysicist) saying when referring to stars undergoing supernova as "..exploding, scattering themselves":
| the_origin_of_the_universe_with_neil_degrasse_tyson.mp4 |
And the Quranic description again remains extremely multi-dimensional. There's more to it! Recall that this verse in the Quran is talking about the end of the world--when everything ends and gets destroyed. It has been a recent discovery that the universe is expanding--entire galaxies are moving away from each other. In other words, stars are scattering in relation to each other (as opposed to what we mentioned above--the stars scattering in relation to each individual self). As the universe ages, stars scatter away from each other. And thus the scattering of stars is a sign for the end of the world. Additionally, distant black holes and neutron stars (what used to be stars) will themselves on average scatter from each other as the universe continues to expand. And as we talked about above--scattering (which means to move in various random directions) is also what happens during a super-nova explosion (which happens just before a star becomes a black hole). Indeed, the stars' contents scatter in a violent explosion. So when the Quran says the stars will scatter---indeed, the stars will not only scatter from each other as the universe is expanding, but after they scatter from each other, they will eventually explode and scatter their contents, then fall into black holes and even then the black holes will also themselves continue to scatter from each other as the universe expands--and even after that, blackholes themselves will evaporate scattering their contents overtime. Such a very fitting description. So when the Quran talks about the events toward end of the world, the universe would have continued to expand and the stars would've scattered from each other and the stars themselves would've also scattered their contents in supernovas. "Scattering" of stars is indeed an appropriate description of the late events of eschatology. Even when you put them together as lane's lexicon puts it: "when the stars fall and become scattered"--this alone would be a stunning description of the end of a star's life---stars will implode on their gravity and become scattered (in fact, both of these events {stars are falling and scattering from each other} are happening simultaneously now {stars are imploding/dying as they are scattering from each other} and the scattering/death of stars will only get exacerbated towards the end of the world as the world moves toward entropy)--moreover, scattering also refers to supernovas (stars implode on their gravity and then explode--scattering itself across space). But notice how I said this alone would be sufficient. But it is not alone, all 11 different meanings of this singular word (inkadarat) are remarkably specific to the many diverse aspects of the end of stars' life! What amazing word usage by Allah. This is a major sign from God.
One other thing to note about this verse is that “the stars” does not refer to all the stars or a majority of stars. For example, let’s say some news outlets continually do something absolutely detestable—I can say XYZ happened and “the media” said PQR. I can also do the same with “the government” or “the elites”—it doesn’t mean I’m talking about all of them or most of them—I’m talking about many of them. I say the media all the time but I’m not talking about all of them—rather I’m talking about a pattern of behavior the media engages in. Another example is I heard people say "people are beginning to wake up". That doesn't mean all people, or a majority of people, but it means many of them. In fact, I just realized I said "I heard people say" in that previous sentence--that doesn't mean I heard a majority of people say that. Likewise “the stars” does not necessarily refer to all of them—but it can refer to many of them. Additionally, notice how there are 11 different meanings to the word above in the Lexicon and notice how those meanings cover all that happen to each individual star: some stars turn into black holes, neutron stars, supernovas (scatter relative to itself), and the universe is expanding (scatter relative to other stars)--that is every star's action/behavior is covered by using that one word with 11 different and relevant meanings. Subhanallah!
One other thing to note about this verse is that “the stars” does not refer to all the stars or a majority of stars. For example, let’s say some news outlets continually do something absolutely detestable—I can say XYZ happened and “the media” said PQR. I can also do the same with “the government” or “the elites”—it doesn’t mean I’m talking about all of them or most of them—I’m talking about many of them. I say the media all the time but I’m not talking about all of them—rather I’m talking about a pattern of behavior the media engages in. Another example is I heard people say "people are beginning to wake up". That doesn't mean all people, or a majority of people, but it means many of them. In fact, I just realized I said "I heard people say" in that previous sentence--that doesn't mean I heard a majority of people say that. Likewise “the stars” does not necessarily refer to all of them—but it can refer to many of them. Additionally, notice how there are 11 different meanings to the word above in the Lexicon and notice how those meanings cover all that happen to each individual star: some stars turn into black holes, neutron stars, supernovas (scatter relative to itself), and the universe is expanding (scatter relative to other stars)--that is every star's action/behavior is covered by using that one word with 11 different and relevant meanings. Subhanallah!
