The 6 days creation in Quran, must it be literal?

[One Above All]

professor, when's the last time you:
Had a brain scan?
Were in high school?
Had a psychological evaluation?

Because you desperately need all three.

[The Grand Nudger]

Rythem, this is not numerology.
It is a pattern followed, just as the pattern of Pi is repeated constantly.
It displays intelligence to all.

Sure...sure, lol.  I just won't feel confident in your prediction until you've consulted your tea leaves as well, witch.

[Polaris]

According to passages in the Bible, a day in creation may not have been a day as we experience it but a day according to God's timeline.....best analogy I can think of is the Prophets from Star Trek Deep Space Nine.

[Mudhammam]

God has a timeline? So time is antecedent to God?

[professor]

Genesis one is quite specific about the days- "And there was evening and morning".... (per day) Any other understanding than what is obvious is wrong.
Unlike the "Greatest Deceiver"- Allah, the God of the bible is forthright.

Never could get into Startreck, I preferred hot rods or bikes.

God precedes timelines Nestor. Com'on you know that.

[robvalue]

God needs to be given the benefit of the doubt just to have his work not be contradictory?

I think if things are in this dire a state, we can assume either God is inept or the book is no longer representative of him and so should be ignored.

[Minimalist]

Poor god.  He has all these schleps making excuses for him.  Must be a real nebbish.

[paulpablo]

From forty hadiths of Imam Khomeini:


Some gnostics have interpreted the six days as stages in the journey of the light of the sun of existence in the mirror of descent and ascent.

According to the creed of gnosis, the descending levels of existence until the lowest point-which is the plane of concealment of the sun of existence by curtains of finitude and differentiation (ta’ayyunat)--constitute the reality of the night of ordainment (laylat al-qadr) and the beginning of the day of resurrection is from the first stage of return of mulk to malakut and removal of the curtains of ta’ayyunat to the ultimate levels of manifestation and return, which is the complete appearance of the greatest resurrection (qiyamat al-kubra).

The six days in which the creation of the heavens and the earth was completed, culminating in the Throne of God, the Throne of the all-Beneficent, which is the ultimate end of Divine istawa, power, and dominance, are the sixfold ascending planes in the greater cosmos (‘alam al-kabir); and the Throne of God, which is the manifestation of the perfect dominance and ownership, is the plane of will and the all-beneficent sacred effusion (fayd al-muqaddas al-rahmani), which is its complete manifestation after elimination of the ta’ayyunat and completion of the creation of the heavens and the earths.

And until the existence of the heavens and the earth endures, their creation is not finished from the viewpoint of the people of gnosis, in accordance with the words “Everyday He is engaged in some work” (55:29) and as implied by the absence of repetition in revelation (tajalli). In the Greater Man (insan al-kabir) and the greater cosmos the sixfold planes and their seventh subtlety (latifah) is the Throne of the All-Beneficent, which is the plane of the real heart, and were it not for the fear of prolixity, we would have explained thoroughly the greater plausibility of this interpretation in comparison to other interpretations, although the knowledge of the Divine scripture is with God, the Exalted, and those who are its special addressees. We speak on the basis of probabilities and plausibilities following the infeasibility of the literal sense.



To those who emphasize it must be literal, what is your argument?  Are metaphors impossible for God to use and he shouldn't use them at all because they can be taken literally?

The best way to communicate the final message to all of mankind is to write an arabic book of poetic metaphors. 

Also the jews believe god made the world in 6 days, then the christians, you would think by the time god had written his 3.0 book that he would say something like "And I created the world in 6 days metaphorically speaking of course."

[Polaris]

Poor god.  He has all these schleps making excuses for him.  Must be a real nebbish.

He has you caring enough to post endlessly about Him.

[The Grand Nudger]

You can't possibly have missed that it's -you- chuckleheads that worry us...not your gods........?