By: Moulana Aneesur Rahman Nadvi

Rain of Stones from Heavens
The Holy Qur’an and Hadith have mentioned another major astronomical phenomenon as a sign of doomsday. This astronomical phenomenon is the raining of stones from the heavens which is termed as impact events in the modern scientific terminology. One of the verses in this regard is as follows:

Then do you feel safe that He will not cause you to sink with the part of the land or pour upon you stones? Then you would not find any protector for yourselves. (Qur’an: 17:68)

In the above verse, commentators of Qur’an have two opinions regarding “hasiba” (stones): First, it refers to the heavenly stones. This is the view of Qatada, Ibn Juraij and Ibn Abbas.

Al-Tabari narrated from Qatada he says: “Stones from heaven.”1

Al-Tabari narrated from Ibn Juraij that he said: “The rain of stones.”2

According to Abu Jafar Nuhhas it means “pelting of stones from above.”3

Ibn al Munzir narrates from Ibn Abbas, he said, “Stony rain.”4

The second view in this regard is that hasiba refers to strong wind. After narrating this second view, Tabari has also stated that the reason for terming the strong wind as hasib is that the strong wind contains grains and small rocks which it throws them on every side.5

Although the above-mentioned two views of the companions in the interpretation of hasiba indicate that they mean stones, nevertheless, the difference is that according to the first view, the origin of these stones is heaven, i.e., they will fall from the sky. Whereas, according to the second view, these will be wind stones, so their source will be earth. But most commentators have preferred the first view.

An important point to note here is that the above mentioned verses do not mention the pelting of stones from the sky as a doomsday sign, rather, the human beings have merely been threatened by the fact that if Allah wills, He could send down stones from heaven on human beings and destroy them, which comes under the context of Qur’anic threats. We have already discussed on the subject of the Qur’anic threats that most of the threats of the Qur’an are related to events pertaining to the doomsday, which are occurring on Earth in the wake of climate change. As we will discuss, this Qur’anic threat is also a dangerous natural phenomenon occurring in the wake of planet’s current climate change. Before we discuss the details of this, we would like to examine some other hadiths mentioned in this regard, which can help in understanding some other aspects of this phenomenon.

Contrary to the Qur’an, this phenomenon (rain of heavenly stones) has been described as a sign of the doomsday in some hadiths. The hadiths narrated in this regard are as follow:

It was narrated from ‘Abdullah that the Prophet peace be upon him said: “Just before the Hour comes there will be transformations, events of subsidence, and pelting of stones from sky.”6

Hakim has narrated a hadith in Mustadark that someone asked the prophet Mohammed peace be upon him about the signs of the doomsday, he replied: “Stone pelting, events of subsidence and earthquakes.”7

Some other hadiths with regard to the heavenly rain of stones on earth are as follow:

Sahl bin Abdullah narrates that prophet Mohammed peace be upon him said: “There will be events of subsidence, stone pelting and transformations in the end times. He was asked when it will happen O Prophet peace be upon him? He said, when the musical instruments and the guitars appear and the wine has been permitted.”8

Anas narrates that The Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, said: “There will be events of subsidence, stone pelting, earthquakes and transformations on my people.”9

In these hadiths, the “transformations” (the distortion of shapes) is self-evident. Discussion on events of subsidence and increasing frequency of earthquakes has been put forward earlier. We will deal here with ‘Pelting of stones’ here. The literal meaning of the Arabic word ‘qazaf’ used to denote stone pelting here means ‘to throw with full force.’ 10

Another hadith in this regard is as follows:

Abu Tufail narrates that I heard Hujaifa say that the trials will be three and that the fourth would drag them to the Dajjal (Antichrist). The (first) pouring of hot stones, (second) the sucking of the water by the earth, and the (third) prevalence of darkness like the waves of the sea.11

In this hadith, three signs have been mentioned:
1- Pouring of hot stones from the sky.
2- Sucking of fresh water by the earth.
3- Prevalence of terrifying darkness.

Out of these three sings, the second one has been discussed earlier; the third will be discussed later. Here we will shed light on the first one. The Arabic word ‘razaf’ has been used to denote ‘stone’ here. It has the following literal meaning:

Razaf: The stone that is heated in the sun or fire.
Razaf: The stones that are heated on fire.

A summary of the hadiths mentioned in the verse 68 of Surah Isra regarding the pouring down of the heavenly stones can be summarized in the following points:

1- At the end times, Earth will suffer heavily from heavenly collisions.
2- These collisions will be in the form of stones.
3- These heavenly stones will be extremely hot.
4- These heavenly stones will collide with our planet with enormously high speeds.
5- These rocks will hit the earth so often as if it is raining stones on the planet from the sky.

Impact Events In the light of Modern Science
After the detailed analysis of the hadiths with regard to heavenly stones, we now turn towards modern science and try to find out what modern scientific researches has to say about this phenomenon? Do there exist any such threats to our Planet from outer space in future, which could prove to be devastating for Earth and its inhabitants? Before we proceed this discussion, we must understand the history of study of impact events on Earth, which will help us in evaluating the grave threat about which the Qur’an and hadith had warned about 14 centuries ago, and the man had completely unaware about it until a few decades ago!

It was a common perception in scientific circles till about three decades ago that the Earth is safe and protected from impact events. But an incident took place in the last decade of the previous century that changed the human perception in this regard. Later astronomical investigations in this regard have proved that Earth is not only at the risk of these celestial collisions or impact events, but it also poses serious threats to the survival of all species on Earth including human beings. The details are as follows:

On July 22 1994, an unprecedented impact event occurred on Jupiter, the largest planet of our solar system. A comet spinning in our solar system suddenly come close to Jupiter started orbiting it. Later it broke apart and its various fragments collided with Jupiter one by one. On 16 July 1994, its first fragment struck Jupiter, sending up gigantic plume of gas and debris. Later fragment after fragment smashed into Jupiter’s surface and razed which was viewed through large telescopes from space and earth.

Two days later, a 4 kilometer wide rock (named fragment G) struck the planet with enormous speed. It was estimated to have released an energy equivalent to 6,000,000 mega tons of TNT (600 times the world’s nuclear arsenal and roughly the equivalent of 8 billion Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs). The flash generated by the collision was so brilliant that many infra-red telescopes trained on the event were temporarily blinded. When the glare faded, it revealed an enormous dark impact scar wider than the size of Earth. This event created panic in scientific, political and public circles. Everyone wanted to know what would have happened if fragment G had struck the Earth instead of Jupiter?14

The Earth, which has so far been considered to be the safest place, almost overnight seemed a much more vulnerable place. Panic prevailed in scientific, political and public circles and they all took it very seriously; Numerous books have been written on the subject; a plethora of papers and articles have been presented; several Hollywood films have been produced; documentary films have been produced. Everyone wanted to know what are the chances of such impact events on Earth? Several commissions and institutions have been set up internationally to investigate its possibilities. There were two questions in everyone’s mind. First, what are the chances of Earth being struck at some point in future? Second, if this were to happen, what effect such a collision would have on earth and its inhabitants? The results presented by scientists after lengthy research In this regard are surprising and shocking. According to them the chances of collisions are 100 percent. And more importantly, the Earth has been bombarded by celestial objects throughout its past history. So there is a definite possibility that it will face such threats in the future too. As to the second question that what affects will it have on humankind? The answer was that it would depend on the magnitude of space debris that will hit us. Here are its details.

Celestial Bodies in the space
Now it was considered necessary to find out the number of interstellar bodies that can hit the earth during their rotation around the sun? The scientific researches that have come out in this regard are shocking and horrible. Some of these statistics are given below:

Like someone battling through a sandstorm, the Earth is constantly bombarded in the course of its journey through the solar system. Billions of these tiny interstellar fragments get destroyed as soon as they come into contact with our planet’s atmospheric shield as they are tiny and small. Every five minutes, an interstellar fragment of pea size burns in Earth’s atmosphere. A fragment with the size of a football hits and burns in the Earth’s atmosphere once a month. It is often seen in the sky at night. Every few centuries, a rock in 40-50 meter size range collides with Earth. If such a collision happened indirectly it can obliterate an entire city. Russia had witnessed most recent impact of this size in 1908.15

Scientists say that the real threat to the planet is not from these tiny fragments scattered throughout our solar system, rather the actual danger is from the asteroids and comets that have the potential to hit the Earth.

Nearby Earth Asteroids
Although, our solar system is full of this sort of debris, but the earth is at risk only from those fragments that may end up colliding with our Planet. These objects are also called as “Near-Earth Asteroids” [NEAs]. According to scientists, estimating the exact number of these objects is almost impossible, but current estimates are frightening and terrifying. Some of the details are as follows.

Approximately 20 million Asteroids with a diameter of 5 meters pass through or close to our planet’s path during its orbit around the sun. About one lakh of these are about 100 meters in diameter, which can destroy a major city like New York, London, Delhi, etc., if it directly collides with the earth. Of these, about 20,000 have a diameter of half a kilometer, which may annihilate a small county. If they struck the oceans, this collision could cause great and devastating tsunamis. Some of these asteroids are about one kilometer in diameter which can destroy a large country like England given a direct hit. Asteroids with two kilometers in diameter can destroy the entire planet. There are an estimated 1,000 NEAs with a diameter of 1 km that are capable of hitting the Earth.16 Scientific researches are underway on whether these endemic asteroids can hit the Earth. And if they, when do they hit? (to be cont.)

References:
1 – Jamiul Bayan Fi Tafsir Al Bayan, Tabari, V. 17, P. 498.
2 – Ibid.
3 – Irabul Qur’an, Nuhhas, V. 2, P. 279.
4 – Al Durr Al Mansour, Jalaluddin Siyuti, V. 5, P. 314.
5 – Jamiul Bayan Fi Tafsir Al Bayan, Tabari, V. 17, P. 498.
6 – Sunan Ibn Majah, Hadith: 4059.
7 – Mustadrak Hakim, V. 4, P. 465, Hadith: 8293.
8 – Al-Mu’jam al-Kabir, Tabarani, V. 6, P. 150, hadith no. 5810; Kitab Zam al Malahi, Ibn Abi Al-Duniya.
9 – Al-Sunan al-Warida fil-Fitan, V. 1, P. 397, hadith no. 340.
10 – Sunan Ibn Majah with the Notes of Al-Sindi, V. 4, P. 390.
11 – Al-Fitan, Nu’aym bin Hammad, hadith no. 92.
12 – Lisan al-Arab, Ibn Manzoor, V. 9, P. 121; Tajul Aroos, Murtaza al-Zabidi, 1/5870.
13 – Al-Nihaya fi Ghareeb il-Asar, Ibn Aseer Jazri, V. 2, P. 560.
14 – Holy Qur’an and the Natural World, Mohammed Shihabuddin Nadvi, p. 36, Furqania Academy Trust, Bangalore, 1997
15 – Global Catastrophes, A Very Short Introduction, Bill McGuire, p. 92, Oxford University Press, 2002.
16 – Ibid.