Cosmology and God

Cosmology is a grand science; it takes our imagination into the vast depths of the Universe. The Universe is so big that we cannot, in principle, see the whole of it. The universe, observable to earth-dwellers, is only 46.5 billion lightyears in every direction from our Earth, where each lightyear is a length of 9.46 trillion km.

The awe is stretched to its limit when we come to know of galaxies that are huge bunches of maybe a thousand or a 100 million or even a hundred trillion stars. The stars in each of these galaxies, though millions of miles apart, co-travel as if fastened with perpetual glue. These stars altogether hover around the centres of their galaxies, which are commonly homed by supermassive blackholes.

The universe doesn't have these galaxies in the hundreds or thousands, rather cosmologists estimate them to be 200 billion to 2 trillion, in the observable universe alone. These galaxies, again, travel together forming humongous galaxy 'filaments', many of whom, when put together, make galactic walls and sheets. These walls and filaments make the universe look like a three-dimensional woven mesh of long threads dangling in space-time. If one, someone like God, could look from outside, He would say, 'And the heavens made of woven strips, firmly tied together', Ad-Dhariaat (6).

Then, the Universe is also not static; it is constantly changing, moving and expanding. Stars and galaxies are moving away from each other at high speeds. In fact, the expansion rate accelerates by 73km/sec after every megaparsec (3.26 million lightyears) – meaning that in a year's time, every 3.26 million lightyears of distance of the universe, at any direction, expands by a multiple of 2.3 billion kilometers for every successive megaparsec. And all the stars and galaxies that have gone further than 46.5 billion lightyears from us have permanently slipped into the realm of the unknowable. And God would say, 'And the heavens, we constructed it a supported structure, and We indeed are whom expands it', Ad Dhariaat (47).

Obviously, all the stars and galaxies are made up of a lot of matter and energy. This matter and energy that we can observe in different ways is called ordinary baryonic matter and is only 4.9% of the total matter and energy. Gravitational effects observed in cosmology imply the existence of more matter which is unknowable to us because it is invisible and has no interaction with ordinary matter. There is also more energy that is needed to explain the accelerating expansion of the universe and the rate of structure formation observed by cosmologists. Dark Matter makes 26.8% of the matter of the universe, and Dark Energy makes the remaining 68.3% of the equation.

Though Dark Energy and Dark Matter barely interact with normal matter, astrophysicists are of the idea that vast amounts of Dark Matter particles, with negligible weights, are continuously passing through ordinary matter, undetected. Billions of these almost-weightless particles are 'free-streaming' through our bodies and through everything in the Universe every second. Perhaps these particles and their energies are the ultimate and most elementary movers of the universe. And God would say, ''Those that scatter the scattering. And those that carry the weight. And those free-streaming with ease. And those that apportion the 'command' to their right places', Ad Dhariaat (1-4).

Cosmologists are also interested in the overall shape of the Universe, which is honestly not possible to know, as a large part of the universe may have exited the 'observable universe'. But considering the geometry of the observable universe only, it has been found that the universe neither has a positive curvature as of a sphere, nor a negative curvature as of a hyperbola, rather it has zero curvature and is flat, like a sheet of paper; ready to be rolled away. And God would say, 'The Day when We will fold the heaven like the folding of a scroll used for writing records...', Al Ambiya (104). And because the curvature of the universe is close to zero, it means that the sheet has been stretched to its maximum, and that even a slightest increase in the stretch may force it to collapse like an overstretched elastic band. If the point of overstretching is so close, God would say, 'Almost is it, that the heavens break up from above them...', As Shuara (5). Because at that time of event, the physics of the universe will be altered via its chemistry. Each particle, each star, each galaxy will experience the same amount of stress and change, from the edge of the universe to our very own visible skies. We, on earth, will have the complete local experience, and God would say, 'When the sun will be wound up and covered. And when the stars will lose their lusters and become muddied', At-Takweer (1,2).

So how would such a humungous sheet, billions of galaxies wide and millions of galaxies deep be forced to roll back to the immensely dense state like it was in the beginning of creation, as if speeding into singularity? Will it be a reverse-mitosis leading to reveres-meiosis? Will the seeds of creation spread throughout the universe, perhaps as Dark Energy and Matter, reach their natural term and reverse-engineer the whole system as pre-written in their very design. Will the weight of each almost-weightless particle be altered in a way that the combined weight becomes too heavy on the sheet and forces it to roll in? And God would say, 'And in the heavens is your provision and what you are promised (the doomsday)', Ad Dhariaat (22). And will that be the end of the universe, or perhaps, will it be its new beginning? As God would say, 'The Day when We will fold the heaven like the folding of a scroll used for writing records, as We began the first creation, We will repeat it, a promise binding upon Us, indeed, We will do it', Al Ambiya (104).

And on that day, will we be facing an angry God ready to punish us for so many wrongs we have committed? Or will we be look forward onto a loving forgiving God – a God who wants to return to us a new universe, unbound, bountiful and improvised?

'Race toward forgiveness from your Lord and a Garden whose width is like the width of the heavens and earth...', Al Hadeed (21).