Islam Cleric on science … or not

SaudiArabianClericA senior Saudi Muslim cleric says that “there is no doubt” that the sun revolves around the earth, as seen in a video translated Monday by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). This may be causing some grief with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as they have been ordered by President Obama to “help [the Muslim world] feel good about their historic contribution to science, math and engineering.”

Granted, the NASA directive was just another of Obama’s idiot ideologies like Liberation Theology, anti-capitalism, racialism, and the destruction of American leadership in the world, but who cares?  It’s only science.

Back in July 2010, NASA chief Charles Bolden, an Obama appointee, told Al Jazeera that his boss had given him three priorities… none of them involving space exploration.  The foremost priority for the agency once tasked with sending a man to the moon was “to reach out to the Muslim world… to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering.”

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden visiting NASA Ames Research Center on Monday, March 17 to check out various technologies under development at the center.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden visiting NASA Ames Research Center on Monday, March 17, 2014 to see new technologies under development at the center.

NASA is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation’s civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research (Wikipedia), but, apparently, they can’t find a Malaysian airplane anywhere on earth.

Now back to the cleric.

During a recent interview on Saudi Arabia’s Channel 1 television, Saleh Al-Fawzan, a member of the Saudi Council of Senior Scholars, was asked about planetary movement.

The host asked, “Allah says in a Koranic verse: ‘And the sun runs towards its stopping point. That is the determination of the All-Powerful, the All-Knowing.’ Does the sun revolve around the earth?”

The cleric, Al-Fawzan answered, “There is no doubt about it. The Koran says: ‘The sun runs…’ Nevertheless, they [scientists] say that the sun stands in place and the Earth moves. This contradicts the Koran.”

“Ignoring the Koran and adopting modern theories is not something a Muslim can do. A Muslim must follow the Koran,” Al-Fawzan implored the viewers.

Here is the video of his interview courtesy of MEMRI. While it was originally posted online in late January, MEMRI provided a translation on Monday:
In all fairness, if the good cleric had studied science, he would have known that while the earth rotates around the sun – the sun is not standing still.  The sun with the entire solar system is also in movement so the Koran (in these three words) is correct, “the sun runs.”

The Telegraph covered President Obama’s directive to NASA at the time and their story is available online by clicking here.

This latest MEMRI translation was first reported by TheBlaze.com here.