Verse 54 of Surah Al-A'raf declares: "Indeed, your Lord is Allah, who created the heavens and earth in six days and then established Himself above the Throne." The Arabic term ayyam (أيام) is the plural of yawm (يوم), which means "day" but also "period" or "era."
In the Quran, the word yawm is used to denote very variable durations: "And indeed, a day with your Lord is like a thousand years of those which you count" (22:47) and "...fifty thousand years" (70:4). The term therefore denotes periods of time, not necessarily 24-hour days.
The historical context
In the 7th century, the dominant conception was that of a static and immutable universe, created in an instant or in a few terrestrial days. The idea that creation unfolded in six great cosmic periods was a claim that could not be verified or confirmed by the knowledge of the time.
The scientific confirmation
Modern cosmology, with the Big Bang theory (1927-1929) and the work of Edwin Hubble, has established that the universe experienced a history in several successive stages:
- The Planck era (10⁻⁴³ s): the laws of physics as we know them did not yet exist.
- Cosmic inflation: extremely rapid expansion of the primordial universe.
- Primordial nucleosynthesis: formation of the first atomic nuclei (hydrogen, helium, lithium).
- Recombination: formation of the first neutral atoms, emission of the cosmic microwave background (380,000 years after the Big Bang).
- Formation of the first stars and galaxies: about 200-400 million years after the Big Bang.
- Formation of the solar system and Earth: about 4.6 billion years ago.
This succession of stages, each corresponding to a distinct "period," is remarkably consistent with the Quranic description of six periods of creation.
Verse 12 of Surah Fussilat
The Quran specifies: "Then He directed Himself to the heaven while it was smoke... And He completed them as seven heavens within two days and inspired in each heaven its command." (41:11-12). The term dukhan (دخان) means "smoke." Modern cosmology confirms that the primordial universe was indeed composed of a hot, dense gas, comparable to a cosmic "smoke."
Professor Abdus Salam, Nobel Prize in Physics (1979), emphasized the coherence between the Quranic description of creation and the discoveries of modern cosmology.