In Surah Fussilat (41:11), the Quran declares: "Then He directed Himself to the heaven while it was smoke and said to it and to the earth, 'Come [into being], willingly or by compulsion.'"
"ثُمَّ اسْتَوَىٰ إِلَى السَّمَاءِ وَهِيَ دُخَانٌ فَقَالَ لَهَا وَلِلْأَرْضِ ائْتِيَا طَوْعًا أَوْ كَرْهًا" — "Then He directed Himself to the heaven while it was smoke and said to it and to the earth, 'Come [into being], willingly or by compulsion.'" (41:11)
The Arabic term "dukhan" (دخان) literally means "smoke." This description of the primordial heaven as smoke is remarkably consistent with modern cosmology.
According to the Big Bang theory, the universe began about 13.8 billion years ago in an extremely hot and dense state. After the initial expansion and cooling, the universe was filled with a hot, opaque gas of elementary particles and radiation, before the formation of stars and galaxies.
The discovery of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) by Penzias and Wilson in 1965 confirmed that the universe went through an early hot and dense phase. Observations by the COBE satellite (1989), then WMAP (2003) and Planck (2013), have mapped this fossil radiation with remarkable precision.
In the early stages of the universe, before the formation of stars, the universe was filled with a hot, opaque gas — a kind of cosmic "smoke" — which later condensed to form stars and galaxies. This Quranic description, revealed more than 1400 years ago, strikingly evokes the state of the early universe described by modern cosmology.