Key takeaway
Surah Adh-Dhariyat 51:47 describes Allah building the heaven "with strength" and adds wa innā la-mūsiʿūn, which Saheeh International translates "indeed, We are [its] expander." Modern cosmology established in the 1920s that the universe is expanding. Many Muslim writers see a striking correspondence. The Arabic word can also mean "vast in power or means," so the expansion reading is a legitimate one but not the only one.
The verse
وَٱلسَّمَآءَ بَنَيْنَـٰهَا بِأَيْي۟دٍ وَإِنَّا لَمُوسِعُونَ ٤٧
And the heaven We constructed with strength, and indeed, We are [its] expander.
Key Arabic terms
| Arabic | Transliteration | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| بِأَيْي۟دٍ | bi-aydin | with strength or might (from ayd, power). It is not the plural of "hand" here. |
| لَمُوسِعُونَ | la-mūsiʿūn | active participle of awsaʿa (root w-s-ʿ, width or vastness). It means "those who make wide or expand," and also "those who are rich or able." |
What the verse says
The verse is a nominal sentence stressed twice, with inna and the emphatic la-. Arabic grammarians note that an active participle (ism fāʿil) in such a sentence can express a continuing state, not a single event in the past. Read that way, the clause speaks of an ongoing quality: Allah is continually the One who widens the heaven.
The same root appears elsewhere with the sense of wealth or capacity. In Quran 2:236 al-mūsiʿ means "the wealthy," who gives "according to his capability." Classical commentators therefore gave the phrase in 51:47 more than one meaning: that Allah expanded the sky, that He made it vast, or that He is limitless in power and provision.
What modern science found
In the early twentieth century the dominant scientific picture was a static, eternal universe. Einstein added a "cosmological constant" to his 1917 equations to keep the universe static. In 1927 the Belgian physicist and priest Georges Lemaître proposed that the universe is expanding. In 1929 Edwin Hubble published observations showing that distant galaxies recede faster the farther away they are. The relationship is now called the Hubble–Lemaître law.
In 1998 two teams studying distant supernovae found that the expansion is accelerating. The discovery earned the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics for Saul Perlmutter, Brian Schmidt and Adam Riess. Expansion of space is now a cornerstone of standard cosmology.
Why many find this significant
A seventh-century text revealed in the Arabian desert uses a word whose plain lexical meaning includes "expanding" for the heaven, in a grammatical form suggesting continuity. Nothing in the astronomy of the time, Ptolemaic or otherwise, described a growing cosmos. For many readers the fit between the wording and a twentieth-century discovery is a sign worth reflecting on, in the spirit of Quran 41:53.
Balanced assessment
Strong The Arabic wording directly supports the correspondence, and the fact is well established.
This is one of the more linguistically defensible correspondences. The root w-s-ʿ really does mean widening, and the participle form allows a continuous sense. A fair presentation should still say that mūsiʿūn was traditionally read by many exegetes as "vast in power or means," and that the verse does not describe the mechanism, rate or acceleration of expansion. The verse is consistent with an expanding universe and naturally invites that reading. It does not spell out modern cosmology.
Frequently asked questions
Does the Quran say the universe is expanding?
Quran 51:47 says "indeed, We are [its] expander" (la-mūsiʿūn) about the heaven. The word comes from a root meaning width or expansion, so it can be read as describing ongoing expansion. Some classical scholars read it as "vast in power."
When was the expansion of the universe discovered?
Georges Lemaître proposed it in 1927 and Edwin Hubble's observations supported it in 1929. Accelerating expansion was discovered in 1998.
References
Quran
- Quran 51:47, Saheeh International translation (Quran.com)
Science & history
- Expansion of the universe (Wikipedia)
- Hubble–Lemaître law (Wikipedia)
- The Nobel Prize in Physics 2011: accelerating expansion
Classical exegesis is summarized from the standard commentaries (e.g. al-Ṭabarī, Ibn Kathīr, al-Qurṭubī). See our methodology.
Cite this page
Quran Scientific Miracles. “The Expanding Universe.” https://quranscientificmiracles.com/topics/expanding-universe/ (reviewed 2026-10-20).