Module 2F-01 Did you know – 2

In several places in the Qur’an, Allah says it is He who created the universe in sittah ayyam. This phrase has often been translated as ‘six days’, which has led to a lot of criticism.

These critics question how the Qur’an can be right when we know the universe is billions of years old, therefore it could not have been created in six days. What these critics fail to realise is that the word yawm (plural of which is ayyam) in Arabic has several meanings, including ‘a period of time’, and not simply 24 hours.

For example, in ayah 22:47, Allah mentions that the day can be ‘like a thousand years’. In ayah 70:4, He says that a day is like ‘fifty thousand years’ of our reckoning. Hence the term ‘six days’ cannot be taken literally to mean six days, but should be understood to mean six periods of time.