Epigraph:
We have not created the heavens and the earth, and all that is between them, but with truth and a real purpose, and for an appointed term; but those who disbelieve turn away from that of which they have been warned. (Al Qur’an 46:4)
Written and collected by Zia H Shah MD, Chief Editor of the Muslim Times
The students and the commentators of the Quran argue as to how the Quran should be understood and interpreted. These debates have existed for centuries in all Muslim societies. Nevertheless, most of the readers of the Quran agree that there are numerous verses in the holy Quran, possibly more than 700 that invite us to study nature and meditate over it and that we will find Signs or miracles of Allah, the Creator of our universe, in thinking about the phenomena of nature. So, to me the conclusion is inescapable that the Quran should be understood and interpreted in light of the best science. This has been my life’s journey for the last four decades.
When I came across the above video, it became self evident to me that this video that has been watched more than 13 million times in less than a year and has more than 20,000 comments is a godsend for me to understand the Quranic verses that talk about the ultimate demise of our universe. One of which has been quoted as epigraph to this article.
This ultimate death of the universe in scientific terms is called the Big Freeze or the Big Chill.
The ultimate result of constant expansion of the universe will be a “Big chill.” In this scenario, the universe would continue to expand, but its density would decrease. While old stars would burn out, new stars would no longer form. The universe would become cold and dark.
Decades of observations have only confirmed researchers’ findings. All signs now point to a long and lonely death that peters out toward infinity. The scientific term for this fate is also “heat death.”
But things will be rather desolate long before that happens.
“Just” a couple trillion years from now, the universe will have expanded so much that no distant galaxies will be visible from our own Milky Way, which will have long since merged with its neighbors. Eventually, 100 trillion years from now, all star formation will cease, ending the Stelliferous Era that’s be running since not long after our universe first formed.
Much later, in the so-called Degenerate Era, galaxies will be gone, too. Stellar remnants will fall apart. And all remaining matter will be locked up inside black holes.
In fact, black holes will be the last surviving sentinels of the universe as we know it. In the Black Hole Era, they’ll be the only “normal” matter left. But eventually, even these titans will disappear, too.
Stephen Hawking predicted that black holes slowly evaporate by releasing their particles into the universe. First, the smaller, solar-mass black holes will vanish. And by a googol years into the future (a 1 followed by 100 zeroes), Hawking radiation will have killed off even the supermassive black holes.
No normal matter will remain in this final “Dark Era” of the universe, which will last far longer than everything that came before it. And the second law of thermodynamics tells us that in this time frame, all energy will ultimately be evenly distributed. The cosmos will settle at its final resting temperature, just above absolute zero, the coldest temperature possible.[1]
The holy Quran talks on several occasions of eventual death of this universe. An important thing to realize is that it did not have to do that for the first addressees’ of the Quran, the seventh century Arabs, had little concern with this and the prevalent philosophy among the world elite at that time was of an eternal universe. Nevertheless, the Quran talks about death of our solar system or the universe in several verses. These include the verse quoted as epigraph and also 6:2-3, 13:3, 30:9, 31:30, 39:6 and 55:27-29.
To repeat the epigraph, one more time here: “We have not created the heavens and the earth, and all that is between them, but with truth and a real purpose, and for an appointed term; but those who disbelieve turn away from that of which they have been warned.” (Al Qur’an 46:4)
The holy Quran presents Al Musawir, Al Baare and Al Khaliq or the Creator God of the Abrahamic faiths. Many other attributes of Allah emanate from these attributes. For example, His attributes of Omnipotence or Almighty and Omniscience or All Knowing, as in Surah Hadeed: 57:1-7. And His attribute of Omnipotence in Surah Mulk: 67:1-5. His attribute of Al Samee in Surah Raad: 13:15-17 and also in 16:21-22. In the following verse of Surah Anaam, several attributes are linked to Him being the Creator: “And He it is Who created the heavens and the earth in accordance with the requirements of wisdom; and the day He says, ‘Be!’, it will be. His word is the truth, and His will be the kingdom on the day when the trumpet will be blown. He is the Knower of the unseen and the seen. And He is the Wise, the All-Aware.” (Al Qur’an 6:74) Again we read in Surah Anaam, how several of Allah’s attributes emanate from Him being the Creator: “Originator of the heavens and the earth! How can He have a son when He has no consort, and He has created everything and has full knowledge of all things? That is Allah, your Lord; there is no god but He, the Creator of all things; so worship Him alone. He is Guardian over everything. Eyes cannot reach Him, but He manifests Himself before the eyes. He is the Imperceptible, the All-Aware.” (Al Qur’an 102-104)
The holy Quran says on several occasions that Allah has created this universe with truth and laws of nature and for a purpose, for example: 6:74, 13:3, 14:20,15:86 and 16:4.
And finally Allah offers his creativity as a leap of faith for our accountability, in Afterlife, as in 13:3 and several other verses: Surah Yasin’s Lucid Argument About the Afterlife.
Additional reading
The Big Freeze and the Holy Qur’an
The Glorious Quran and Science 
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