Subject: [Masjid Tucson] Submission weekly reminder

In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful

Peace be upon you,

	Greatness of God*
[Quran 39:67] They can never fathom the greatness of GOD. The whole earth is within His fist on the Day of Resurrection. In fact, the universes are folded within His right hand.* Be He glorified; He is much too high above needing any partners.
*39:67 Our universe, with its billion galaxies, a billion trillion stars, uncountable decillions of heavenly bodies, spanning many billions of light-years, is the smallest and innermost of seven universes. This incomprehensible vastness of the seven universes is within God's hand. Such is the greatness of God. See Appendix 6.

No one can count the stars. The last deep sky survey by Hubble (2016) suggested there were at least 10 times more galaxies in the observable universe than previously thought, i.e., at least 2 trillion galaxies. Astronomers estimate on average a galaxy like ours contains 100 billion stars. Multiplying the two gives us a septillion stars (that’s 1 followed by 24 zeroes). Those are numbers beyond our comprehension.

In Appendix 6 of the Quran, Dr Khalifa wrote: If we take only a quintillion [1,000,000,000,000,000,000] of the stars and simply count them [from 0 to quintillion] one count per second, day and night, this will take 32 billion years (more than the age of the universe). That is how long it will take to just "count" them; but God "created" them. Such is the greatness of God.

On a clear night away from city lights, you can get a sense for the vastness of the stars in space. It’s overwhelming. It’s truly proof of God’s immense power and greatness. He created each star, put it in its place in the galaxy and determined its life span. And each star is a submitting creature, willing to shine out in space for centuries or millennia until that life span is fulfilled.

Praise be to God, Lord of the universe.


References:
Greatness of God, https://www.masjidtucson.org/quran/appendices/appendix6.html

Peace.