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The cosmology in the Quran and Hadith are evidence that the text reflects 7th-century myths rather than divine revelation.
While the Quran doesn't give a diameter in kilometers, the descriptions of the Sun’s behavior and its relationship to the Earth imply they are of comparable size and proximity.
The most direct evidence that the Sun is viewed as a small, localized object is found in the Sahih Hadiths describing where the Sun goes at night.
Sahih al-Bukhari 3199: Muhammad asked Abu Dharr, "Do you know where the sun goes (at sunset)?" I replied, "Allah and His Apostle know better." He said, "It goes and prostrates itself underneath the Throne and takes the permission to rise again..."
Tf the Sun is 1.3 million times the size of the Earth, the idea of it "going" somewhere to hide under a throne while the Earth remains still is scientifically impossible. This narrative treats the Sun like a traveling lamp that leaves the room, rather than a massive star around which the Earth orbits.
The Quran describes the travels of Dhul-Qarnayn (often associated with Alexander the Great) and his discovery of the Sun’s setting place.
"Until, when he reached the setting of the sun, he found it setting in a spring of murky water..."
For the Sun to set into a spring on Earth, it must be smaller than the spring itself. Muslims often claim this was "as it appeared to his eyes."
The Arabic word used is wajadaha ("he found it"), the same word used later in the verse to say he "found" a people nearby. If the people were real, the muddy spring is described as equally real. This reflects a "Tabernacle" cosmology where the Sun is a small disk that physically enters a hole or body of water at the edge of the flat Earth.
The Quran consistently groups the Sun and Moon together as "two signs" that behave in nearly identical ways.
"And He it is who created the night and the day, and the sun and the moon; each swimming in an orbit."
In ancient Greek and Arabian cosmology, the Sun and Moon were thought to be roughly the same size and at a similar distance, circling a stationary Earth. The Quran never distinguishes the Sun as a massive star and the Moon as a small satellite. By placing them in the same "swimming" category (falak), it reinforces the error that they are comparable celestial bodies.
The Bible speaks of the Sun as a "greater light" to rule the day (Genesis 1:16), but it never commits the scientific blunder of claiming the Sun physically sets into a pool of mud or hides under a furniture-like throne. The Quranic descriptions are "Phenomenological" taken to a literal extreme—the author described what a 7th-century man saw with his eyes, not what the Creator knows to be true about the universe.