Lesson video

- Hello, and welcome to this lesson on beliefs about the origins of the universe in Islam.

I'm Miss Kendrick, and in this lesson we're going to be looking at creation in the Qur'an.

We're gonna look at some understandings of the creation story and how it might link to science as well.

So some interpretations here too.

We're also going to be doing an examination-style practise question towards the end of the lesson as well.

You are going to need a pen or a pencil, a different coloured pen or pencil, and some paper to get down your answers as well.

So Muslims do share many of the beliefs that Christians have about the origins of the universe, but we must make sure that we do not make any assumptions and think that their beliefs are the same.

So for example, Muslims believe that Allah created the universe out of nothing.

They believe in creation in six days, but there is not a creation story in the Qur'an in the same way that there is in the Bible.

Instead, verses about creation are sort of scattered through the Qur'an.

And it's from these different verses that we get an overall picture of Islamic views about creation.

So we are actually going to start by looking at one of these quotations, which says, "Indeed, your Lord is Allah, who created the heavens and the earth and He created the sun, the moon, and the stars, subjected by His command." So this quotation is gonna be really useful for you as evidence of the Islamic belief that Allah created the universe.

So you are going to pause the video and you are going to write down this quotation.

Okay, so now you've got that down.

Like I've already said, there is not a single creation story in the Qur'an like there is in the Bible.

Instead, verses referring to creation are spread throughout the Qur'an.

And we are going to look at some different interpretations of this.

But one thing you need to be aware of is that creation is not a single act in history for Muslims, but Allah continues to be involved in creation as well.

And that is another thing that doesn't fit with Christian belief.

Christians also believe that God is the sustainer of the university.

He didn't just make it and then wander off and leave it ticking.

So in the Qur'an, the word ayyam, which is the word used for day, can also be translated into period of time.

So Muslims would often say that it was not necessarily six literal days of creation, but perhaps six periods of time.

And in Islam, Allah creates from nothing by his word.

And so again, we've got this sense of Allah's omnipotence, his power that he can create just from his word.

And again, we've got a link to Christianity here, but a difference, because Christians would also believe that God created with his word, but Christians interpret that word as being Jesus.

But Muslims would definitely be against that view because they would say Allah is one, that he cannot be divided.

And so his word is simply his reasoning and ordering power, not another person.

And they would say Allah's reasoning and ordering power is ultimately expressed in the Qur'an, his revelation to Mohamed.

We've also got the view in the Qur'an that humans are given the roles of khalifa or stewards over creation, that Muslims have a responsibility to care for God's world because the world belongs to Allah and so they can't just do anything they want with it.

For example, if you were house sitting for somebody, you wouldn't go around and paint their walls a different colour and completely trash the kitchen or anything like that.

You would care for it really, really carefully.

Whereas if you bought your own house, you could paint all the walls black if you wanted to.

And so that shows the belief that Muslims believe that the world belongs to Allah and they have a responsibility to care for it.

And the belief in khalifa is not just about caring for the creation because it belongs to God, but also because they believe that they need to pass the world on to future generations of the ummah.

So ummah means the Muslim brotherhood, the community of Muslims, and that includes past, present, and future Muslims. So many Muslims would say that we should care for the environment so that a good world could be passed on to future Muslims. So I've talked a lot about similarities and differences in the Qur'an and the biblical creation narratives.

Well, I say narratives because I've already said the Qur'an doesn't have a creation narrative, but those verses are scattered throughout the Qur'an.

And it's really helpful when we are talking about both religions in the theme's units, then we need to make sure we're not getting them mixed up and that we have a good sense of which beliefs are authentic to which religion.

So, the similarities.

The world is created in six days and the word for day, which is ayyam in Arabic and yom in Hebrew, can be translated as period of time.

So in both religions, we've got this idea that it was not necessarily six literal days.

We've got this belief that humans are stewards over creation.

In Islam, the word for steward is khalifa.

And in Christianity, we've got this belief as well that God said to rule over every living creature and the idea that God or Allah creates with his word.

And remember, when I'm saying God or Allah, the name Allah just means the God, but it's just in Arabic.

So this is why I'm using it interchangeably sometimes.

But making sure that you understand that they're both referring to God, an Abrahamic God as well.

Differences.

There is no specified order of creation in Islam.

So when we looked at the Christian story and it said on the first day light was created, on the fourth day, sun, moon, and stars were created.

We do not have that sequence in Islam.

And we do not have any reference to God resting on the seventh day.

And in Christianity, the word is interpreted as Jesus.

So Christians believe all three members of the Trinity took part in creation, but Muslims do not believe in the Trinity because they believe it goes against the oneness of God, which is Tawhid.

So that is gonna be a very important difference between these two religions.

So what I'm going to get you to do now is have a look at these true or false statements.

And I want you to either decide if they're true or false, and write out why, because we want this to be written in full sentences so that when you finish the task, you have several statements that are going to help to explain Islamic beliefs about creation.

So we're going to look at Islamic responses to science and compatibility between scientific theories and the Qur'an.

And to do this, we just need to recap the Big Bang theory so that we know what we're talking about.

So as a reminder, the Big Bang theory is the scientific theory that the universe began 13.

8 billion years ago.

Everything in the universe was once condensed into an incredibly small point, which then expanded rapidly.

The theory is based on mathematical formulas and models.

So scientists would say there is evidence that the universe is currently expanding.

And if you were to turn back the clock, then you would see it shrinking into a tiny point.

And so this is what it's based on.

And our evidence for the Big Bang theory includes red shift.

So this is where scientists can see that all the stars and galaxies are moving away and they're expanding outward, because the light coming from them moves towards the red spectrum.

And this is how we can see that an object is moving away.

And we've also got background radiation, so scientists can observe in the universe there's all this radiation that they believe is left over in a way from the Big Bang.

So that's the Big Bang theory.

So what do Muslims think about it? So that's the Big Bang theory.

I'm gonna get you to pause for a moment and just answer a couple of questions on it so that you've got it fresh in your memory.

So what are Muslims going to say about the Big Bang? Well, Islam is famous for valuing science and Muslim scholars have made a huge contribution to the science of maths, biology, chemistry, and maths.

Some say that it was Muslim scholars who invented the number zero and came up with the idea of using the letter X to stand for an unknown in maths.

And the magnifying glass and the compass came to Europe from the Islamic world.

So there's this huge history of Islamic scholars contributing to science.

Now, Muslims believe there is nothing in the Qur'an which is incompatible with the best of reason.

So that means that good science should fit with the Qur'an.

An example of this fit is the way that the Qur'an speaks of the heavens, including the stars, being in smoke at one time.

And this sounds like a really poetic way of describing the Big Bang.

When you look at pictures of places in space where scientists would say that stars are forming, they do look very smokey, very beautiful.

So we could argue that these descriptions in the Qur'an fit with science.

Muslims would say, however, that there is a limitation to science.

They would say that science could not prove something un-Islamic, for example, it could not prove that Allah does not exist or that Allah didn't create the universe out of nothing.

So on the whole Islam is gonna work very well with science, but it will argue that there are limitations to science and that the Qur'an is gonna have ultimate authority.

So what I'm going to get you to do now is show how much you think Islamic views fit with scientific theories about the origins of the universe.

So before we go onto our next part of the lesson, we're just gonna do some quick fire questions to see what you have picked up.

So which word in Arabic means a period of time or could also be translated as day? The answer is ayyam.

Which word can mean a period of time in Hebrew? Got yom.

All Muslims reject the Big Bang theory, true or false? This is false.

Many Muslims would argue that the Big Bang theory can fit very well with the Qur'an.

All Christians reject the Big Bang theory, true or false? This is also false.

So fundamentalist Christians will reject the Big Bang theory, but conservatives and liberal Christians may well accept it.

Which view below cannot be found in Christianity? So it's that the creation story has no meaning or value.

So even liberal Christians who believe it's symbolic and not literally true in any way will still say it has value in terms of what it can teach humanity about the world.

What will ultimately have the most authority for Muslims? The answer is the Qur'an.

So this is because Muslims believe that the Qur'an is the inherent word of Allah, but they believe that good science will be compatible with the Qur'an.

This does mean the Qur'an has more authority, but they don't see there being a conflict between the Qur'an and science.

Which of the answers below is the best description of the Big Bang theory? It is the theory that the universe was created when it expanded from a single point.

The other ones are all answers I regularly get.

It is a TV show, but that is not very relevant to our GCSE.

It was not created when two rocks collided, because rocks wouldn't have existed yet.

And it was not that the earth was created when two planets collided.

There is a scientific theory that says that the earth was created when two planets collided, but that is not called the Big Bang theory.

So what we're going to do now is we're going to practise and explain question.

And this question is gonna ask for two contrasting religious beliefs about the universe.

Now, this means that they've got to be different.

So I would advise to use views from two different religions, if you can.

For some examples, you can use different approaches from within a religion.

Some exam boards will ask you to specifically refer to the main religious tradition of Great Britain, which is Christianity.

And then it will say, and another religious tradition.

And in this case, we're studying Islam, so that will be your second one.

It is specifically asking for religious beliefs.

And that means that you will not be able to refer to humanism in this question, because humanism is not a religion.

And actually, humanism is probably gonna be relevant more often to evaluate questions, but just always watch for that wording.

And we're talking about the origins of the universe, not the origins of humanity or life as such.

You will need to answer in full sentences.

You will need to make a clear point and explain it.

So let's start by just bullet pointing some ideas from this lesson that we could include in our answer.

Here, I've got lots of ideas that we've looked at in this lesson and I've divided them into things that are similar and things that are contrasting.

And this is because the question asks for contrasting beliefs.

So I just want you to have a read through and think about what you've got in your bullet points, whether you've got similar things, whether you've got something different, and whether your views are contrasting enough or whether you think they're gonna be too similar.

So pause the video now so you can do that.

And before we answer our question, two reminders.

Firstly, I cannot say this enough.

I know I've already said it several times, but students always leave it out.

This question specifically asks for religious beliefs.

This means you cannot use humanism to answer this question.

And always name your religion.

Do not just say, some people believe this or some people believe that or one view is that in the Qur'an, the beliefs about creation are spread through the Qur'an and in the Bible, it's all one story.

Just because you're referring to the holy book of a religion, it doesn't mean that it's clear that you know what religion you're talking about.

When an examiner is reading your answer, they don't know whether you genuinely think Muslims believe in the Bible and that Christians believe in the Qur'an unless you specify what religion you are talking about.

So just in case I just confused you, that was a mistake.

I was showing you an example of a mistake.

So it would be wrong to say Christians believe in the Qur'an, but you need to show that you know that by naming your religion.

So if you were to just write, some people believe in the Qur'an, well, who believes in the Qur'an? Because you might be thinking of Christians when the answer is Islam or Muslims. So you need to always name your religion when it comes to talking about your views so that it's really clear that you know where these beliefs come from.

I hope I've made that clear enough.

So let's give a go at writing these questions.

So that means that your sentence should start with Christians believe or Muslims believe or some Christians believe or liberal Christians believe, fundamentalist Christians believe, et cetera, et cetera.

Just name your religion.

Thank you so much for all of your hard work in this lesson.

I hope that you've learned a lot.

Make sure you know those different views.

There's a lot of content now for these themes questions and things like that.

So make sure you're not getting different religions muddled up.

Make sure you know what quotations come from what religion.

Make sure you are practising all those keywords and that key knowledge.

The next lesson in this unit is looking at Christian and Islamic responses to environmental issues.

So hopefully I will see you for that lesson.

So now you've done the work for today, you can go and do the exit quiz.