The Ruling on the Claim that the Earth Rotates

Question:
This questioner says: Your Eminence the Shaykh, may Allah forgive you, I am a geography teacher, and the rotation of the earth is included in the school curricula. We have heard that you have issued a response to those who claim the earth rotates. There are also books written in response to those who claim the earth rotates, such as the book by Mahmud al-Karri, *Al-Sawa'iq al-Shadidah: The Response to the Causes of the New Astronomy*, and also the book *Al-Fal al-Qawl* in response to the claim that the sun is stationary and the earth rotates, by the late one who was ignorant. So what is the correct position, Honorable Shaykh, regarding these matters?

Answer:
For example, the disagreement among the scholars of observation, between the al-Bayadhiyyah and the geographers. What we believe, and we declare our faith in Allah regarding it, is that the earth is fixed and stable; it does not rotate or waver. We have written many refutations on this matter in universities, and they have been printed and distributed, and other brothers have written as well. This is what we believe. Others take a different side, claiming that it rotates, and they assert that they have known this through airplanes and such. All of these are claims with no basis; it is an illusion to them—we believe it is an illusion to them—but there is no reality to it. So the earth is fixed and stable. As for rotation, it is the sun, the moon, and the stars that rotate around it. As for the earth, it is fixed in its place. Allah the Exalted said: "Allah, who has made the earth stable." Allah the Exalted said: "He has made it firm for them." So Allah made it firm with mountains so that it would not burn. Then, even if we said it rotates, what harm is there if one says the sun is moving and rotating, and the moon likewise? But some of them use the earth's rotation as an argument for the sun's stillness, and they contradict Allah in His statement that the sun has a fixed place for Allah. This would be disbelief; we seek refuge in Allah. Whoever says the sun is stationary and the earth is moving has become a disbeliever, because he is denying Allah and the Noble Qur'an. However, if he says it rotates in a specific, particular way, but the sun remains as it is, moving as Allah informed us and decreed that it moves as He informed us, then the matter is easier. But usually, those who claim the earth rotates use it as a means to assert that the sun is stationary and the moon is stationary, and this is disbelief and misguidance. We ask Allah for safety.