For millennia, the atheists have disagreed with the Bible and the Quran about how the universe came to be. They were of the opinion that the universe always existed, and it had no beginning, while the Bible and the Quran stated that the universe did have a beginning. Then in the 1920s, Alexander Friedman, Georges Lemaitre, Edwin Hubble, and other scientists, proved both theoretically and with astronomical evidence that the universe indeed had a beginning. It was finally proven scientifically that the Quran and the Bible were right all along that the universe had a beginning. But this same scientific evidence which proved the Bible and the Quran to be correct about this issue, introduced a new disagreement: When did the universe begin and how? The Bible and the Quran clearly say that the heavens and the earth were created in six days and nights (7:54), while the scientific evidence clearly shows that they were created in about 13.8 billion years. This looked like a major unresolved disagreement, until now. In this video, for the first time in history, we will resolve this issue. We will present to you the well-established scientific conclusions which prove that the heavens and the earth were indeed created in six nights and days. And we will only use the well-established scientific facts to prove it. No unproven or questionable scientific theories will be presented in this video – only well-established scientific fasts. We will go over them one by one, and then in the end you will see how indeed those facts mean that this universe was created in six nights and days.

But to do that, we first have to define what the Quran and the Bible mean when they mention the words “night” and “day”. In the book of Genesis, in the first page of the Bible, in verse 5, we read that, “God called the light Day, and He called the darkness Night”. The same definition is given in the Quran. In verse 17:12, and many other verses (28:71, 28:72, 27:86, 40:61, 10:67), we see that the definition of “night” is “a period of darkness” and the definition of “day” is “a period of light”. Nowhere in the Quran or the Bible can we find that the day is a period of time which is always the same length – 24 hours for example. That could not possibly be the definition, neither religiously (28:71, 28:72, 70:4), because clocks did not exist when the Bible and the Quran were revealed, and neither scientifically, because time is relative, moving at different speeds in different locations, depending on the circumstances (70:4, 22:47). So, the definition of the words “night” and “day” clearly can not be “a fixed period of time”, but instead they are “a period of darkness” and “a period of light”. So, “night” means “a period of darkness”, and “day” means “a period of light”.

So, now, having this definition in mind, let’s go over the story of how the universe and the earth came to be according to science, and while we do that, we will use this table here to keep track of when it was dark and when it was light, during each period, and by the end of this video, you will see that we switched between darkness and light six times – six days and six nights.

So, let’s go over it. Here is the well-established scientific account of how this universe and the earth came to be:

It all started 13.8 billion years ago, with what the scientists call “The Big Bang” and the “Inflation” (51:47, 21:30). A sudden explosion of pure energy from a single point happened (21:30). At that initial stage, the so-called “four forces of nature” were still indistinguishable from one another (55:7), and all the physical particles (including the photons) existed as one common energy field, they occupied the same space, and did not exist separately yet.

So, photons (light) and matter were not distinguishable yet from one another. And because of this, it was dark. And even after photons became distinguishable from electrons and protons eventually, as the pressure and temperature of the universe decreased, it was still dark for a while because the photons kept being absorbed by the free electrons. Basically, all the matter was in plasma form everywhere (41:11) and light could not penetrate through plasma, so the universe was fully opaque at this stage, and you wouldn’t be able to see anything, if you were there. To you, it would still look dark.

Then, about 380,000 after the beginning, after the Big Bang, as the universe expanded enough, the temperatures dropped, slowing down the particles, and this enabled the protons to capture the electrons and thus the universe transformed into a vast space of mainly hydrogen atoms (11:7). This enabled the light to travel freely for the first time, and this made the universe turn from opaque, into transparent, and you could see light for the first time. At this point, if you looked around, you would see a bright orange-white light on every direction you looked. So, at that point, it became light.

And then as the universe expanded more and more, after about two million years, the wavelength of this light stretched so much to the point that it crossed beyond red, and become infrared, and you wouldn’t see it anymore, and at that time the whole universe would look dark to you again. So, at about 2 million years after the beginning, the universe became dark again, and this lasted for about 500 million years. The cosmologists call this, “the cosmic dark ages”.

Then at the end of that time, the so-called “gravity” had enough time to gather the atoms in large enough clusters of matter, and in the more enormous clusters, the pressure was high enough to merge the hydrogen atoms together, creating helium, and in the process, light was released, and stars came into existence for the first time. But these stars were too far away to shed any significant light in our region, so it was still technically dark (6:97). And eventually, the material of these stars exploded and recombined, recycled into different generations of stars (30:27), and eventually the sun was also created about 4.6 billion years ago.

So, for the first time, in our region the material was illuminated with sunlight. However, there were still clouds of material left orbiting around the sun. So, we wouldn’t be able to see the shape of the sun clearly. We would just see light coming through the clouds of material. It looked like a cloudy day, where it is daylight, but you can’t see the sun. So, during this period, it was light again.

So, it was light for the second time, and this lasted about 100 million years, during which the  proto-earth gradually became larger and larger. From the dust in that same orbit, another slightly smaller planet had also formed, and eventually under “gravity” collided with the proto-earth, adding material to the earth and throwing some of the earth’s material into orbit which formed the moon. So, at the same time when earth became the size as we know it today, making it truly earth, that is also when the moon was created (9:36).

The collision which we mentioned, heated the earth, and for about 100 million years, the earth was very volcanic and hot, and this covered the sky with smoke everywhere, keeping earth under darkness. So, during this time the earth was dark again. This is the third darkness.

Then as the earth cooled down, the vapor which was released from volcanoes cooled down and fell as water and formed one global ocean. The whole earth was covered in water (11:7), and as the smoke dissipated, the sky became translucent, and it was daylight again. This is the third period of light. And because of the translucent sky, during this period, the sun and the moon were not visible on earth yet, but the sunlight scattered through the top layers of the atmosphere, which then scattered to the lower layers, reaching the earth, creating daylight, but without seeing the sun. It looked like a lightly foggy day (41:11).

During this time, due to volcanoes, a landmass (much smaller than today) gradually emerged from the sea. And also, the first living creatures formed in the sea (24:45). But they were all basically early version of sea plants, proto-plants – and they existed only in the sea. More specifically, the cyanobacteria dominated, and they are creatures which use light to produce oxygen.

So, during this period oxygen was produced, and initially it did not change the atmosphere, because any produced oxygen would attach to iron, and would create the iron oxides – the iron ores which we know today – and then eventually once all the exposed iron of the earth was combined with oxygen, that’s when the oxygen rapidly accumulated in the atmosphere. Scientists call this “the great oxygenation event”.

Now, the new oxygen in the atmosphere reacted with the already existing methane to produce carbon dioxide and water, and because the level of methane in the atmosphere fell, it didn’t hold the heat from the sun inside, and the earth cooled by a lot, and the first ice caps in the poles formed, which then meant that more sunlight would be reflected in space, which made the earth even cooler, which increasing the ice even more, and so on, in a vicious cycle, until the earth was fully covered in ice. The geologists call it “the snowball earth”.

Now, during this stage, as we said, only sea creatures, more specifically, the ancestors of the sea plants existed. So, had you been a creature at this time, you would have been in the sea, and the top of the sea above you would be fully covered with ice and snow, and practically no light would reach you, and for you, it was full darkness – night. So, this was the fourth darkness.

During this time, the volcanoes continued to release CO2, and unlike the other times when CO2 was captured by rocks to create carbonates, this time, because the rocks were covered with ice, the CO2 accumulated in the atmosphere creating a greenhouse effect, trapping the heat within the planet, and eventually melting the ice, and light reached the sea again, making it daylight for the very little sea creatures which had survived during this time. So, it was daylight again – The fourth period of light. And now, due to the new atmospheric composition, with more CO2, more oxygen, and less impurities, for the first time, the atmosphere became transparent like today, and for the first time you would be able to see the sun, and the moon, and the stars on earth.

Then, the tectonic movements for the first time pushed significantly more land above the sea, revealing new layers of rocks, which reacted with the CO2 in the atmosphere, reducing the CO2 from the atmosphere again which cooled the earth enough to kickstart that global cooling cycle again,

and a “snowball earth” happened for the second time. This happened during what is known as the Cryogenian period (which means “cold born”). A few other glaciation events happened in this period, but the other ones did not cover the earth fully to make it night under the sea. Only one of those events, the Sturtian glaciation covered the earth fully to make it fully dark for the creatures which lived in the sea, which were still technically all ancestors of plants, or early versions of plants. So, during this period it was darkness or night again for them. So, this was the fifth period of darkness.

Then again, CO2 levels increased again due to volcanoes, and the ice melted, revealing the daylight for the ocean creatures again, and now it was daylight again. This was the fifth period of light. Then, because of a much bigger land mass on earth which had gradually emerged from the sea, new evolutionary pressures and opportunities emerged and some of those sea plants gradually adapted to less and less water in certain regions, and we had for the first time land plants.

And also, for the first time, moving creatures, the animals which moved were created in the sea. Then one or more of them evolved into land animals and the land eventually was also populated with a large number of moving animals. And since for the first time we had moving creatures, which could go after their food instead of just waiting for the food to come to them, this meant that the so-called “evolutionary process” sped up, and a large number of moving animals species evolved.

Eventually after millions of years, the ancestors of birds also came into existence, and a subgroup of them became enormous in size – scientists call them “dinosaurs”. Now, as these creatures reached their peak evolution about 66 million years ago, a meteor hit the earth, and the earth was fully covered in darkness for about a couple of years. So, then the earth was in a period of darkness again. This was the sixth period of darkness. The darkness made it impossible for plants to grow, and the animals which ate the plants, especially the large animals which needed lots of food, went extinct. The dinosaurs went extinct.

Then, the smoke dissipated from the sky, and it was daylight again. This is the sixth period of light. And towards the end of this daylight period, hominids, the human shaped species came into existence, which include the Neanderthals, the Denisovans and their African counterparts.

So, these are the periods of darkness and light, which is what nights and days literarily are – periods of darkness, and periods of light. And if we count them, we realize that there are six nights and six days. So, scientifically, from the time when this universe began until the human shaped species were created, there were six nights and six days, or six periods of darkness and six periods of light. And these are the conclusions of the scientists themselves, the conclusions of the cosmologists, geologists, and archeologists. They discovered all of these periods, and whether these were periods of darkness or light. In this video, we are just guided to realize that if we put all of their discoveries together, we get six nights and six days – six periods of darkness and six periods of light. So, yes, the heavens and the earth were created in six days, and of course, six nights which divide those six days.

So, to conclude, there is absolutely no contradiction between science and the Quran about how and when the heavens and the earth (this universe) came to be. The Quran says that this universe and everything we see in it were formed in six days, and scientific evidence confirms that.

Now, let me point something out. We heard in this video that the human-shaped creatures came towards that later part of the sixth day, and then at the end of that Adam came into existence. This does not automatically mean that Adam was a descendant or a cousin of apes. We deal with that issue in another video clarification titled, “Evolution or Creation: The Final Explanation”.  In that video, you can see that unlike the animal species which descended from one another, Adam did not descend from other creatures. He was created directly from mud about 50,000 years ago.

And until Adam was created about 50,000 years ago, the days were counted from God’s perspective, since animals (including the human-shaped animals) didn’t know how to count, but when Adam was created, God made him a representative on earth (2:30), as the Quran says, and from than on, the days could be counted from Adam’s perspective, and this means that from that time the days from the human perspective have been about 12 hours long in the regions near the equator, as we know, and they have been shorter than that or longer than that in more northern or southern regions, even up to six months long in the polar regions, depending on how long the daylight lasts in that specific location, as we know.