Science in the Glorious Quran: Dying of the Sun

“إِذَا الشَّمْسُ كُوِّرَتْ. وَإِذَا النُّجُومُ انكَدَرَتْ”(التكوير:1-2).

 “When the sun is rolled up and dimmed. When the stars are dimmed and scattered” (Qur’an, 81:1-2).

The first verses describes the sun as “ku-werrat“, which Muslim scholars explained as being rolled up, like a turban, and dimmed. The second verse describes the stars as “inkadarat“, which, according to the scholars, means to lose its light, explode and scatter away.

When a star like the Sun burns all of its hydrogen fuel, the core shrinks and it expands and turns to a red giant. Because the outer layers of the star are ejected layers, the star looks as if it is rolled up with layers like a turban (ku-werat). The star then collapses to form a very dense white dwarf star, which cools and becomes dim as described in the verse.

Stars which are eight times the mass of the Sun or more when run out of fuel, end their lives very suddenly. They swell into a red supergiant. Then they explode and scatter as described in the verse (inkadarat).

When the sun loses its fuel, it turns into a red giant surrounded by layers like a turban (left) and it loses its glister and becomes a white dwarf and then a dim invisible star (ku-werat)

Large and massive stars (left), when run out of fuel they turn into a supergiant dim star (middle) stars, which then explode (right). This phenomenon is described in the verse above as inkadarat