Question: Slow or quick creation?
We find in the Qur'an 7:54 "Lo! your Lord is Allah Who created the heavens and the earth in six Days, ..."
Many Muslims in recent days try to become modern in their interpretation and bring the six days into line with cosmology and its currently proposed 15 billion years as age of the universe. So, they claim that the word for day does not only mean day, but can mean period, or even eon. And they even claim that the Qur'an is on this very much in line with science in this regard. Yet the Qur'an makes another statement about the speed of Allah's creation:
2:117 "The Originator of the heavens and the earth! When He decreeth a thing, He saith unto it only: "Be!" And it is."
Does this aya (sura) not say that God creates instantaneous? Does this really leave room for billions of years of development?
Six days are still pretty quick and acceptable in the range of "Be! And it is" given the massive size of the universe and the complexity of life ..., but wouldn't it be quite a stretch to translate Sura 2:117 as "When He decreeth a thing, He saith unto it only: Be! And it finally came to pass after about 10 billion years."?
Answer: the sentence: "He saith unto it only be and it is" may mean instantaneous or more evidently the certainty that God will do it. It is not about time but about inevitability. This emphasizes that God never fail on his promise and is able to do any hard task.
