Have They Not Learnt we decrease the Earth from its edges

[ahmed frihy]

Assalamo alikom
Allah swt said in surat Alraad " Thunder " verse 41 and with same wording in surat Alanbeyaa " Messengers "verse 44
أَوَلَمْ يَرَوْا أَنَّا نَأْتِي الْأَرْضَ نَنْقُصُها مِنْ أَطْرافِها {have not they learnt that we decrease the Earth from its edges }
There are two old meanings for this verse
1-The kafirs lost lot of their lands fighting against the believers .
2-According to Ibn Abbas the meaning is that the disbelievers lost of their men during their battles against the Muslims.
For the first meaning the Mufasseroun also based their opinion on a verse from surat Fossilat saying { we shall show them our signs in the horizons } سَنُرِيهِمْ آياتِنا فِي الْآفاقِ Fossilat v.53
I say Quran is for every time and place . What they said is good and proper meaning but let us see in which context this verse was mentioned we find it came show the greatness of Allah and that He is able to give victory to the believers and give them the indications or signs for his ability.The word Earth could mean the planet earth since it is qualified with " Al " and suppose that all the planets were of irregular shapes and Allah swt kept on trimming the edges of these planets we certainly will end with spheres and that is exactly what we have now , Quran is Allah's words and is valid for every time and place as I mentioned earlier and that is the miracle of Quran and the same verse 53 of surat Fossilat can be easily applied to that opinion .
Allaho Alam Wa Ahkam.
Assalamo alikom