Asteroids and Comets

At the time when the proof that such an occurrence had already taken place on Earth was first discovered in the early 1980’s, there was a threat of a similar crash. The American physicist Luis Alvarez and his son William proposed the hypothesis that about 65 million years ago (at the end of the Cretaceous period), as a result of a meteorite hitting the Earth, the climates had changed altogether and that this had led to the extinction of many land and marine species. According to this theory, which is supported by fossils found throughout the world, approximately 65 million years ago, when a meteorite almost 10 kilometers in diameter hit the Earth, a cloud of dust formed, leaving the Earth in darkness for years; the result of this was that rays of the Sun could not reach the Earth, thereby preventing photosynthesis, and consequently the possibility of plant life. This in turn led to a chain reaction, eventually leading to the extinction of some animal species (including dinosaurs) that fed on plants and other animals. The cooling of the air, the poisonous gases that filled up the atmosphere as a result of forest fires, and the rising of the acidity of the subsequent rain might all have played their roles in the extinction of land and marine animals. It seems that 8 out of 10 species disappeared from the face of the Earth in a few thousand years, or even less. The traces of the meteorite crash can also be seen in the iridium levels found in sediments from the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary (This metal from the platinum group is found in small amounts on Earth, whereas in meteorites it is in abundance). In the quartz crystals that had undergone shock it was visible that they had been subjected to high pressure due to a crash; the nickel minerals showed that a nickel-rich meteorite had been oxidized in the atmosphere. The location of the meteorite crash was found in 1991. On the shores of the Mexican peninsula of Yucatan, under a one kilometer stratum of sedimentation, a crash crater with a diameter of 260 kilometers was discovered through gravimetric methods. Its age was found to be 65 million years. Another factor that could have led to great amounts of carbonic gas and sulfur oxide being introduced into the atmosphere would have been intense volcanic activity, which it is understood took place at the end of the Cretaceous period; this too could have contributed to the degeneration of the climate.

This was not a one-off incident. Approximately 445 million years ago (at the end of the Ordovician period) gamma rays from space could easily have been the cause of a mass extinction of two-thirds of all species on Earth. Gamma-ray explosions are the strongest explosions known. When huge stars implode into black holes at the end of their lives, they emanate very strong gamma rays as pulses at a particular frequency from their poles. If such an explosion should happen in our galaxy and should the rays head toward us, it would be very destructive indeed. It has been understood that species like “trilobites,” which continued to live very close to the ocean surface suffered great losses during this period. This could be explained only by the occurrence of a gamma ray explosion, which would affect the creatures on land and the ocean surface, but would not greatly trouble the deep-water creatures (Hecht, 2003).

Around 250 million years ago (the Permian-Triassic boundary), as a result of another mass extinction, probably 90% of marine species and 705 land species disappeared from the face of the Earth. These extinctions were attributed to the rapid changes in the climate and sudden changes in sea-levels or intense volcanic activity. To these factors was added the “cosmic cause.” In the rock sediment specimens of this period, the isotope distribution of helium and argon gases was more similar to the distribution in meteorites than to that of the rocks on Earth. In 2001 American geochemists and Australian geologists found new evidence concerning the meteorite crash.

In the 1990’s, astrophysicists understood that the balance in the solar system was very sensitive, and that it was impossible to predict the long term orbit of a heavenly body. Apart from the regular movements of planets and their satellites, innumerable comets and asteroids, at various angles to the system, are engaged in rotating motions which are impossible to pre-calculate. In 1996, the Shoemaker-Levy star fell onto Jupiter bit by bit, tearing away balls of fire as big as the Earth. So, what sort of objects can hit the Earth?

Andromeda, the closest galaxy to ours, is coming toward us at a speed of 400,000 kilometers per hour. But because it is two million light years away it is set to collide with our galaxy only five billion years later (if Doomsday does not arrive before then!) According to the information we have today, since the neighboring stars change their positions along with the Sun within the great circular movement of the Milky Way, the possibility of crashing into one of these is nearly non-existent. The planets in the solar system give us no reason for concern either. Their orbits, in which they have been excellently placed, do not intersect with that of the Earth. The Moon does not present a threat either. It is also not anticipated that any machine parts from satellites will reach an acceleration that could be disastrous as they enter the atmosphere. What threats remain are asteroids and comets that have a tendency to hit the Earth.

Asteroids are large objects that have a rock-like structure, yet are not big enough to be considered planets. Their diameters range from a couple of meters to 30 kilometers. Many asteroids that are close to us move in orbits that intersect those of the Earth. Asteroid 3753 (1986 TO), which has an orbit that has a dynamic relationship to ours, seems to be another satellite to the Earth, along with the Moon. (Wiegert et al., 1997). Comets, on the other hand, are balls of dust that have heated up as they pass close to the Sun and are adorned with bright tails. The possibility of a crash stems from these two groups. These comets revolve around the Sun in specific orbits, and it is without a doubt that they have a great significance for the system; these objects are concentrated in three major areas. The first area is a large belt between Mars and Jupiter (The Asteroid Belt). Here there are approximately a million asteroids of diameters greater than a kilometer. Further away, beyond Neptune, in the Kuiper belt, whose size is 30-100 times greater than the distance between the Earth and the Sun, it is believed that there are more than a trillion comets. Another source of meteorites is the border area of the solar system, which opens up to wider space, the sphere shaped Oort Cloud, whose diameter is 40 thousand times greater than the distance between the Earth and the Sun. (Poirier & Greffoz, 2001)

When we consider an asteroid of a kilometer in diameter and which is further away than Mars, it hardly seems bigger than a grain of sand 100 kilometers away from Earth. In 1998, NASA started a project which aims to use telescopes to identify (within 10 years) 90% of the asteroids of more than a kilometer in diameter which are moving toward Earth.

Unity in Abundance

The solar orbits of those distant bodies that cannot be identified can be disturbed by even the slightest intervention. It is enough that the orbit of an asteroid should be ever so slightly disturbed as it passes near one of the satellites of Jupiter for it to leave its orbit and start heading toward us. Our existence is bound to such vast Compassion, manifesting itself in such a fine equilibrium; this only goes to demonstrate to us that it is only He Who protects us to Whom we should be grateful, not only for our Creation, but also for every step of our life and every breath; it is He Who is Alive and Who is the Source. On the other hand, our condition of being human and our responsibility to look after what has been given into our keeping spurs us to search for apparent causes in this world. Since we do not know when or why our deaths will come upon us, we take precautions against situations that may be dangerous and try to stay alive; in the same way, as we do not know when Doomsday will come nor what its apparent cause will be, we must take precautions against risks like meteorites (without forgetting that the real affect and the final will lies always with God) in order to protect life on Earth. But we do not know what the scientists (and authorities with executive powers) who have the means to monitor the Universe with well-developed equipment feel; and with what feelings they inquire into the nature of these meteorites. We wonder if they are aware of the fact that the meteorites are in the Command of the One and Only, as are the Sun and the Earth and, indeed, the whole Universe. Can they acknowledge this fact openly, without feeling the psychological terror that the science of the “denying school” imposes? Can they see the falsity of using the word “threat” for meteorites?

What Sort of Measures for What Sort of Life?

Asteroids can reach a speed of 100,000 kph, while comets can get up to 150,000 kph. Even if the mass may be small, at such speeds a great amount of energy is produced. According to Brian Toon of Colorado University, if a meteorite crashes on to the Earth, the surface of the Earth will catch fire and the sky will be filled with very hot particles that are lifted from the ground (Hecht, 2002). The amount of damage that the crash will cause to humanity is dependent on whether the meteorite crashes into the middle of the ocean or into a city. According to researchers, if the diameter of the meteorite is less than 300 meters, then the people living in the probable crash site should be evacuated. If the meteorite is quite large, then one should send a rocket with a nuclear head toward it in order to blow it up and try to diverge it from its orbit. But this intervention could be risky; the energy of the rocket could be less than needed, and the radioactive shower could fall back down to Earth. Other options, like using rockets without nuclear heads or other asteroids, exploding the meteorite with lasers or trying to decrease its size through piercing it with drills could be attempted. But all these are technologically impossible today. It is not even known whether the time between the determination of the body”s approach toward the Earth and its probable crash time will be enough for us to determine what to do. In the worst case scenario, a great crash and massive deaths could be the result. The probable destructive force of these objects can be inferred from nuclear tests that have been carried out. But the determination and analysis of occurrences in the past has proven to be difficult. Since three-quarters of the world has been covered with water for billions of years, the traces of crashes under the seas and the oceans do not remain, and the crash sites on land are eroded away, sometimes even as quickly as in a couple thousand years.

Other Possibilities

So is there nothing else that can fall upon our heads? For instance, anti-matter. Anti-matter is composed of antiparticles, which are just like ordinary protons, electrons, and neutrons except they have opposite electrical charges and magnetic moments. When antimatter and matter collide, both are annihilated. The existence of anti-matter in the universe has been demonstrated by particle accelerators. The entry of anti-matter the size of a pebble into the atmosphere could be enough for matter and anti-matter to disappear in a great whirl of energy, greater than the one caused by the Hiroshima bomb. We cannot even imagine what would happen if an anti-meteorite with a diameter of a kilometer should hit the Earth. Nevertheless, the French astrophysicist Marc Lachièze-Rey said: ‘Had there been an anti-matter asteroid in our galaxy, it would emanate x-rays when it disappeared with the material it had around it.’ Now let us get back to usual asteroids. There was the greatest crash of the 20th century, which took place in June 1908 in Tunguska (Russia). It is believed that there a small asteroid cleared 2,000 km2 of Siberian forest. A similar incident was the strange explosion that lit up the Jordanian sky, shattering the rocks in the area on 18 April 2001. It is believed that the 100 km2 diameter of the Popigay crater in Siberia was caused by a meteorite (Bottomley et al., 1997). In the last eight years US satellites that look for nuclear explosions have determined nearly 300 optic blazes were caused by small meteorites (diameters of 50-100 meters). According to Bill Napier from the Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland, comets present a greater danger. Comets with tails composed of gas and dust and with structures of ice are much rarer than those with a rock-like structure, and they may damage the Earth in different ways. A comet that evaporates under the rays of the Sun would leave billions of particles of dust in the orbit of the Earth. If the dust were to shower down onto the Earth, it could block the rays of the Sun from reaching the Earth, thus triggering the start of a new ice age. There are still four known objects in space with diameters of more than a hundred kilometers that are believed to be comets. There may be 2,000 more in the Oort Cloud, beyond Pluto (Samuel, 2001) In short, there are many objects moving around our planet that could end our life, and yet, life on Earth has continued for billions of years.

He Makes Us Live and Die

On the other hand, after a crater caused by a meteorite cools down, life can regenerate. Devon Island in Canada is a polar desert on which there are no plants and animals. There, the Haughton crater, with a diameter of nearly 24 kilometres, is believed to have been caused by a meteorite crash that happened 23 million years ago. As far as we can gather from fossils and other traces, there were probably thick forests in this area; the forest was lost and the shock wave that took place here destroyed most of the other living things with an explosion and the subsequent heat. About a thousand years later, life came back to Haughton. The subterranean waters were heated as a result of the crash, thus presenting a perfect living environment of hydrothermal systems for organisms that live in colonies, such as bacteria and algae. This activity has been observed in 70 of 170 crash craters. It is not know when life was created, but the first traces go back nearly 3.8 billion years. That is to say, the Earth might have been full of these hydrothermal systems at the beginning of its creation. The craters on the Moon, on the other hand, show us that meteorite crashes in the past were 15 times more common (Osinski, 2003). Thus it is impossible to explain, through reason, how life could have been created in a period of our world when it was—apparently—extremely unfavorable for life. There are other influences that reach the Earth from space. About a thousand years ago the Earth was going through its last ice-age. The Aquila star constellation, which can be observed from the Northern Hemisphere, probably went through an intense upheaval and emanated radiation in great amounts in all directions. This wave of high energy traveled through space for 20,000 years, hitting the Pacific Ocean on the evening of 27th August 1998. As far as it could be recorded with terrestrial and orbital observation, on that summer night the Earth was bombarded with gamma and X-rays for five minutes. The radiation scattered as it reached the lower strata of the atmosphere. A greater energy could have reached the Earth from interstellar space and caused destruction of matter. It is believed that this incident that took place in 1998 was caused due to the tearing up of the surface of a ‘magnetar’; this is a sort of a neutron star. It is believed that that magnetar was of a diameter measuring 35 kilometer, but denser than the Sun; a thimble-size portion of it would have weighed as much as 100 million tons. This star revolved around itself like all neutron stars and as a result created a great magnetic field. If this magnetar had been only 10 thousand light years away then the energy that reached the Earth would have been four times greater; it may have been strong enough to damage the ozone layer (Ward & Brownlee, 2000).

Conclusion

At the start of the 19th century, Georges Cuvier, a French palaeontologist and a practicing Christian, stated that disasters played a determining role in the life story of the Earth, basing this view on what befell the people the Prophet Noah. In Darwin”s model there was no space for disasters. The speculation of ‘The course of evolution’ became a dogmatic model which was taught under the name of scientific theory. Today, Cuvier”s concept of ‘disaster’ is being accepted once again in the West. Life has, now and then, been faced with sudden disasters which have affected its natural course. For 200 million years, the dinosaurs were the sovereigns of the Earth; the mammals were few. But a stone fell out of the sky and suddenly the dynasty of the dinosaurs ended. Could the same thing not happen to the false dynasty of humanity? All these possibilities of termination should lead us (and the experts) to think more carefully about our existence, life, Earth and humanity as a whole. But, unfortunately, this is not what happens, and countries which worry about meteorites only in relation to themselves have destroyed certain regions in the world with bombs, creating the effect of meteorites long before the meteorites themselves reach us; such people see nothing wrong in causing the deaths of many people. The existence of meteorites (and other cosmic phenomena) carries many divine truths. We are not alone in the time-space dimension; all these planets and their satellites, innumerable comets and asteroids move around and among us and yet they do not effect the accurate and sensitive functioning of the system; in truth, they constitute a vital part of its accuracy. They have submitted to the great Will that has created them: Do they not then look up to heaven above them how We have made it and adorned it and how it has no gaps?(Qaf 50:6) The atmosphere and the magnetosphere that surround our Earth as a token of compassion and protection serves, under Divine orders, as the shield against solar explosions that regularly take place every 11 years, against harmful cosmic radiation and particles. Otherwise, conditions that are very unfavorable to life would have been the reality, with craters pitting the surface of the Earth, just as we see on the surface of the Moon, which has no atmospheric or magnetic shields. On the other hand, the possibility of a meteorite colliding with the Earth makes us think of other things as well: How will the end of the Earth come about; through collision with a meteorite, or through more complex phenomena? This is something we cannot, and maybe do not, need to know for sure: what is more important is that the Earth will end, that the day that has been promised will come, that the day described in the Qur’an will make us shudder, and that we have to tread accordingly on this Earth. On this issue Said Nursi points to an important truth concerning faith: ‘If Earth were to explode, those servants of God with truly illuminated hearts would not be frightened—they might even consider it a marvel of the Eternally Besought”s Power. A rationalist but unbelieving philosopher might tremble at the sight of a comet, lest it should strike Earth. (This was how some Americans reacted to the recent sighting of Haley”s comet.)’ Another lesson for contemplation that the comets offers us could be the following: ‘The movements of heavenly bodies in the sky (the world”s roof), the appearance of comets and new stars while some others are extinguished, as well as solar and lunar eclipses, demonstrate that it is not stable and therefore is making its way toward a final ruin. However slow its changes are, they also show that the world is mortal and moves to its inevitable end.’ Our life has been given into our safe keeping by our Lord; and so we must try to protect it to the best of our ability. In that spirit, we can take precautions against a comet that comes toward our Earth in order to protect life; we may be able to smash it into pieces using the technology that we have. But if not today, tomorrow, or soon Doomsday will arrive; we should not forget that, just as we should not forget that rendering meteors ineffective is a gift from God Who is the true holder of knowledge and power. But will such a success lead humanity to assume a more ungrateful and arrogant position toward God, or will it end in our praising God and giving Him thanks, as did the Prophet Solomon? The last position is the following: And call not God with any other god; there is no god but He, every thing is perishable but He; His is the judgment, and to Him you shall be brought back (Qasas 28:88).

References

• Bottomley, R., Grieve, R., York, D. & Masaitis, V., The age of the Popigai impact event and its relation to events at the Eocene/Oligocene boundary, Nature, Vol 388, pp.365-368.
• Hecht, J., The End of the World, New Scientist, 2 February 2002.
• Hecht, J., Did a Gamma-Ray Burst Devastate Life on Earth? New Scientist, 27 September 2003.
• Osinski, G., Shocked into Life, New Scientist, 13 September 2003.
• Poirier, H. & Greffoz, V., Asterodes: La Menace se Precise, Science & Vie, no 1006, Juillet, Paris.
• Samuel, E., Sting in the Tail, New Scientist, 24 March 2001.
• Ward, P.D. & Brownlee, D., Rare Earth, Copernicus Books, New York: 2000
• Wiegert, P.A., Innane, K.A. & Mikkola, S., An Asteroidal Companion to the Earth, Nature, Vol. 387, pp. 685 – 686.
• Nursi, S., The Words, the Third Word, the Twenty-Fifth Word, Kaynak, Izmir: 1997.

This universalistic spirit is explicit in Article I/l of the 1967 Space Treaty: ‘The exploration and use of outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries… and [outer space] shall be the province of all mankind’. Two years after the Treaty was formally signed, the American astronauts broadcast the same message from the moon. When Neil A. Armstrong landed on the moon, he saw the new frontier as open not only to space-faring states, but to all mankind: ‘one small step for man, leap for mankind.’

In the quarter century since then, the rapid growth of aerospace technology, thanks to the Cold War between the then two super powers, has led to remarkable achievements and technological spin-offs. However, for most of that period space technology and science were largely focused or directed to the production of weapons of mass destruction. The end of the Cold War should herald a new era in which existing aerospace technology will only be used for ‘the benefit of all mankind’ and only ‘for peaceful purposes’ (Walter, 1985, pp.l20).

In the new post Cold War the Russians and the Americans, once rivals, have begun to pool their brain power and hardware with the aim of building space stations in orbit around the earth, then on the moon, finally on Mars (Time, 19 April 1993, pp.62-3). The European Space Agency (ESA) has already laid down its long-term space programmes that are to lead Europe’s space efforts into the 21st century (Von der Dunk, 1989, p.426). Japan, China, Brazil, India, Israel and even Australia have achieved significant satellite technology and launching capability through independent efforts (for an account of those programmes, see Gatland, 1989). They all aim to explore and exploit the natural resources and potential usage of space.

Within ‘peaceful’ uses and exploration of outer space, there are a wide range of possible activities related to scientific research and experimentation, remote sensing, telecommunications and commercial aerospace manufacturing (Tennen, 1979). It is worth considering the benefits that God, the All-Mighty, has made available to man in space.

A) Satellites

The first major benefit is satellite communication. Telecommunication and especially direct broadcasting satellites can only be located in an exceptional orbit known as the geostationary satellite orbit (the GSO). This orbit is a three-dimensional corridor lying on the equatorial plane, at a distance 36,000 km (22,300 miles) above the surface of the earth. The importance of this orbit is that satellites rotate in the same direction as the earth does every 24 hours. That is to say, if satellites follow an equatorial path in the direction of the earth’s rotation, they will appear to remain fixed at the same spot above the equator.

The GSO facilities those services such as direct broadcasting satellites, navigational aids and solar energy stations which require round-the-clock coverage of a given area of earth (Wihlborg and Wijkman, 1979, pp.2S-6). The great advantage of the GSO for communication purposes is that one satellite can observe approximately 40 per cent of the surface of the planet, which means that three satellites are enough for global coverage.

However, the GSO is a physically limited natural resource. Satellites located in orbital slots wander around 100 miles horizontally. Hence, once a satellite occupies a spot in the orbit, it precludes the use of the same slot by any other since slots are located in a three-dimensional tube with a total length of 150,000 miles, the GSO only has room for 1,500 such slots with a zero probability of collision.

However, no one knows exactly how many satellites can occupy the GSO. The orbit is expected, in the very near future, to be used for the gathering and transmission of solar energy from very large space objects to earth by microwave or laser beams (Christol, 1980-81). This will increase the problem of orbital slot scarcity and bring about contentious debates about use of the GSO. There are at present around some three hundred satellites in orbit so the congestion does not present a problem for the time being. However, in the decades to come the GSO will be saturated and there will be no ‘slot’ to locate a new satellite.

Since few states have satellites in the GSO, telecommunication via satellites is a very lucrative business. The overwhelming number of satellites are owned and run by the handful of technologically advanced states. Hence, they earn very significant amounts of money out of these activities. The full-time use of one single channel is around US$ 200,000 per month. A satellite transmitting 100 million message units, for example, earns $1 million each day.

Apart from broadcasting and communication satellites, there are observation satellites rotating vertically and horizontally around the world keeping their owners informed about weather, ocean conditions, catastrophes, pollution levels, atmospheric changes, the kinds and conditions of agricultural crops, the position of hidden minerals and fossil fuels (Schneider, 1986).

B) Mining

The samples collected by the Apollo showed that lunar soil contains, as percentages, 41.3 oxygen, 21.6 silicon, 15.3 iron, 5.4 aluminium, 6.8 magnesium, 0.1 potassium. There are also traceable amounts of sodium, sulphur, hydrogen, nitrogen, copper, zinc and lead in the samples collected (Bille, 1990, p.109). Out of these lunar materials, various minerals and metals, alloys, cement, electrical conductors, glass, silicone resins, rocket propellants and numerous industrial chemicals could be produced. One study concluded that hydrogen and oxygen, stored in lunar rocks, could be used to make air, water and rocket fuel. It is also said that the moon is rich in helium-3, which, almost non-existent on earth, may be usable as an ideal fuel for fusion power plants because of its low radioactivity (ibid., p.110).

Apart from the moon’s rich resources, asteroids are seen as extremely valuable celestial bodies. Scientists have found that there are dozens of mineral-rich asteroids circumnavigating the earth. These asteroids are on average 500 metres across and made of solid nickel-iron. Just one such asteroid could possibly meet years of global demand for these elements. Scientists reckon that asteroids within the vicinity of the earth contain abundant amounts of nitrogen, hydrogen and free metals. It is technologically feasible to process these asteroids on an industrial scale in outer space, more easily than exploitation of the moon’s resources. Such extraterrestrial production could avert earthbound pollution and potential conflicts over scarce earth resources (Condora, 1984, p.178). It was estimated in the 1980s that an asteroid could be worth five billion dollars. It is also projected that asteroids would be processed in outer space for extraterrestrial construction of space stations.

C) Space manufacture 

Although satellite communications and remote sensing are already very profitable commercial enterprises, space manufacturing is thought to have even greater commercial potential. As space is a relatively dust-free, micro gravity environment, it offers a unique laboratory setting for the development and processing of some complicated chemicals, pharmaceuticals, semi-conductor crystals, glass and metal alloys-indeed, production under micro gravity conditions is estimated to be up to 500 hundred times that possible on earth and with a degree of purity unobtainable on earth (Jericho and McCracken, 1986, p.802).The potential market sales for such products is reckoned at around $20 billion annually.

Additionally the relatively uncontaminated space environment is an ideal place for growing crystals used in computers, optoelectronics and ultrasonic equipment; for developing floride glass used in laser and fibre optic applications; and for producing new metal alloys as well as metals of higher purity and structural uniformity (ibid., p.803). In sum, the horizons for potential use of space are immeasurable.

The Islamic countries and space activities

Our concern is to find out what the Muslims are doing or not doing in the face of the continued progress of the space-faring Christians (NASA, ESA), the Jews (Israel), the Buddhists (People’s Republic of China, Japan), the Hindus (India). It was declared at the beginning of the ‘space age’ that space would be a province all mankind. However, it is apparent that it is only the technologically advanced non-Muslim states who are ploughing in huge sums of money into aerospace technology and enjoying the benefits of the outer space environment. Muslims in general seem unaware of the fact that it is enjoined upon them to keep abreast of the latest science and technology and to be as equipped as the non-Muslims. For example, in Sura al-Mulk, God directs our attention to the Heavens:

‘He who created the seven one above another: you will see no want of proportion in the creation of the Most Gracious, so turn your sight again: Do you see any flaw? Again turn your vision a second time; your sight will return to you dim and discomfited, in a state worn out’ (67.3-4. See also 7.54; 13.2; 21.33; 36.40;51.7; 81.15.)

In the light of this encouragement, the Arab Muslims, from very the beginning of Islamic civilization reached the highest degree in astronomy. While the pre-Renaissance Christians thought the world flat, Muslims realized that it must be round and that it rotates on its axis. The Muslims in the Abbasid period detected many stars and constellations and gave names to them which are still used (See, for more information, Sharh al-Mawaqif and Ma‘rifatname by Ibrahim Haqqi of Erzurum; also, al-Hayat by Nur al-Din Batruji,d.1185).

Until the decline of the Ottoman Empire, Islamic scholars had been for centuries at the leading edge of study in astronomy as well as other pure and applied sciences. Even as late as the last 19th century, astronomy was an essential subject in the curriculums of the Ottoman colleges. However, some narrow-minded Muslims decried the teaching of scientific knowledge in schools and prevented Muslims from education. Their efforts were one (though not the only) reason for the relative decline of the Oriental world. This attitude degenerated further into the sinister view that any non-Muslim knowledge or equipment makes a person an unbeliever.

Vestiges of this barbarism remain to this day. To give an anecdote: I know of an imam who was recently accused by some peasants of being an unbeliever simply for informing them during a sermon delivered in their village that human beings had landed on the moon.

On the other side, Western propaganda has persistently labelled Islam as ‘backward’ and ‘unenlightened’, and imposed a feeling of inferiority among many Muslims-so that they find themselves thinking-‘The non-Muslims have walked on the moon, while we still walk barefoot on the earth.’ For over a century and a half, Muslims have been deliberately kept behind Western achievements. But the trust (amana) that God has bestowed upon mankind is most particularly the responsibility of the believers, the Muslims. Are we ready to live up to it?

God declares in the Qur’an: Before this We wrote in the Psalms, after the Message (given to Moses ): My servants, the righteous, shall inherit the earth. No one should doubt that one day this truth guaranteed by God’s oath will come true. An eminent Islamic scholar has read this verse to mean that the human stewardship will not be confined to the earth. Rather, those who become the trustees and masters of the earth will also rule over the remotest parts of the skies (Sahin, 1993). Naturally, such rule depends upon qualifications and quality. It is essential therefore that Muslims acquire the qualities demanded by the only Owner of the heavens and the earth. Even, this promise will come true to the degree that Muslims do acquire the requisite qualities (ibid.).

Are the Muslims indeed striving to get the requisite qualities? To a certain degree, yes. After the emancipation from the years of colonization, Islamic countries (particularly Indonesia, Pakistan, Iraq and Iran) began to educate their own experts in sophisticated technology. But colonization has been followed by a brain drain. Thus, it is reported that there are considerable numbers of Turkish scientists working in NASA’s space programmes.

With regard to space technology, there are incipient attempts by the Islamic countries. One such attempt is the Arab Satellite Communication Organization (ARABSAT). The Charter of the Organization was signed by twenty one Arab States in 1976. ARABSAT is intended to fulfil the aspirations of the Arabs have their own satellite system as a tool for socio-economic development of the region and for bringing about the transfer of technology. The ARABSAT space segment is composed of two satellites launched in 1985 and 1992, and located on the GSO at 19’E and 26’E respectively. But the organization does not have its own launching pads. Hence, it is dependent upon either the European Ariane or the US Space Shuttle. In addition to this, two Turkish Satellites will soon be sent to the GSO. TURKSAT project will be an important milestone in the communication of Turkic and Islamic countries.

Surely, the achievements of ARABSAT and TURKSAT are not promising in terms of scope and infrastructure. Islamic countries need to pool their scientific, technological and, more importantly, financial resources to set up an Islamic aerospace organization. Arab petro-dollars are wasted in Western banks when they could be channelled into this potentially lucrative area. The break-up of the USSR is an extremely good opportunity for the fledging Turkic Republics to collaborate with other Islamic states. The launch pads of the former Soviet Union were set up in Kazakhstan. Today the Kazakhs are waiting for customers. In the CIS, as Mikhail Osin said: ‘the pay of those who build spaceships is lower than that of a floor sweeper’ (Lemonick, 1993). The petrol-rich Arab countries could and should attract the space-engineers of Muslim states to work in the establishment of Muslim space programmes…

In conclusion, unless Muslims are prepared to face up to the necessities of the post-industrial era and to the requirements of a new century by investing their wealth on intellectual property and technology, never will the present Muslims walk on the moon, while the Christians will be left free to exploit the resources of the Universe not for the benefit of all mankind, but their own benefit at the expense of others. But, when God’s promised time due, the Crescent will surely embrace the stars.

References

• BILLE, M.A. (1991) ‘The law of space resources: exploiting the final frontier’ in Fauchnan and Mayniak (1991).
• CHRISTOL, C.Q. (1980-81) ‘International space law and use of natural resources: solar energy’, Revue Belge de Droit Internationale, 15, pp.28-52.
• CONDORA, C. (1984) ‘Outer space like the sea and air, whose frontier? Incredible potential with inscrutable obstacles’, Houston Journal of international Law, 6, pp.175-96.
• FAUCHNAN, B. and MAYNIAK, G. (eds) (1991) Space Manufacturing: Energy Materials from Space, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
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