Home > Surah 32 - The Prostration
1. Direct Numerical Conflict:
Surah 32:5 states the ascent to God takes 1,000 years, while Surah 70:4 states the ascent of angels takes 50,000 years. The nearly identical phrasing creates a stark 50-to-1 numerical contradiction.
2. Hyperbole Over Precision:
Attempts to explain this as "different days" or an idiom for "eternity" point to human authorship. Rather than a consistent divine standard, the text uses fluid hyperbolic numbers to vaguely express a "very long time."
The Quran Verse
Surah 32:5:
He conducts every affair from the heavens to the earth; then it all ascends to Him on a Day whose length is a thousand years of those which you count.
The Contradiction
Surah 70:4:
The angels and the Spirit will ascend to Him during a Day the extent of which is fifty thousand years."
To the critic, an omniscient deity would not use contradictory scales for the same divine event (the ascent of affairs/angels).
Is a "Day with the Lord" 1,000 years or 50,000 years? Apologists argue these refer to "different days" or that 50,000 is an idiom for "eternity," but the linguistic structure is nearly identical in both verses. This suggests a human author using large, poetic numbers to convey "a long time" rather than a consistent divine standard.