What is the Shar’i (Islamic legal) ruling on denying the sphericity of the Earth, given the existence of Quranic verses that indicate the Earth is "flat," as mentioned by the poet Abu Muhammad al-Andalusi?
Scholars have unanimously agreed that definitive revelation does not contradict definitive reason or reality, nor can it contradict a definitive scientific truth. The sphericity of the Earth is a definitive and universally agreed-upon scientific fact, as stated by Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah, who cited the Qur'an and as evidence, such as the Almighty’s saying: {And He is the one who created the night and the day and the sun and the moon; all in an orbit are swimming}, and His saying: {He wraps the night over the day and wraps the day over the night}. Similarly, Imam Abu al-Husayn al-Munadi, Ibn Hazm, and Ibn al-Qayyim transmitted the consensus of scholars on the sphericity of the heavens and the Earth. What al-Qahtani mentioned in his Nuniyyah regarding the denial of the Earth's sphericity is one of his mistakes.
Summary from Ftawy's records · added here
Reviewed by El Fatwa's sharia committee.
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