"And the heaven We built with Our own powers (aydin) and indeed We go on expanding it - 51:47"
Wala habibi! Let's look at the Arabic verse in question.
وَالسَّمَاء بَنَيْنَاهَا بِأَيْدٍ وَإِنَّا لَمُوسِعُونَ
Now, the key word in question is موسعون (moosi3oon). That is the ism al-faa3il (the "doer") of "أوسع" "awsa3a". Now "awsa3a" is the "af3ala" verb of the root. "af3ala" verbs in Arabic morphology refer to *making* the object perform the verb (Check Paradigm إفعال here:
http://www.learnarabiconline.com/paradigm-connotations.shtml).
So "awsa3a" means "ja3ala waasi3an", "to make sth. waasi3". Without doing all this morphology stuff you can get to that just by checking the entry for "awsa3a" in Al Mu3jam al Mu7ee6 (which you can do online if you wish). Now, what does "waasi3" mean? It simply means "wide" or "big". (Again, check Al Mu7ee6 if you don't believe me. Though this is a fairly commonly used adjective in Arabic. You might've already learned it.)
So, what is the verse actually saying?
"And the heaven, we have built it with hands (literal meaning) and we are those who make (it) big."
The more intensive verb "wassa3a" (from fa33ala) would have meant to make something expand.
"The تفعيل paradigm is also commonly used for expressing intensity. For example, the simple verb قطع means “to cut”, whereas the enhanced form قطّع means “to chop up”."
That's from the site I gave you about Arabic morphology.
Pickthall translated it best when he wrote:
We have built the heaven with might, and We it is Who make the vast extent (thereof).
Anyway, what's odd about the verse is that there's no object for "moosi3oon" (it should have said something like "laha lamoosi3oon". Of course, this could mean that the object has simply been omitted but the word still refers to "as-samaa2" (heaven) (something you can do in Arabic poetry). But it could also mean, as the Tafsir al Jalalayn exegesis states:
{ وإنا لموسعون } قادرون يقال: أد الرجل يئيد قوي، وأوسع الرجل: صار ذا سعة وقوة .
that "moosi3oon" is an adjective that means "capable".
What this shows is how flexible the Arabic language is and how a single word could mean many, many different things. But it also shows how ambiguous the Quran is (and coming from God, the last thing you want is ambiguity), and that the verse as understood by Islamic scholars before the whole "scientific miracles" craze in the 70s or so did not refer to "expansion". In Arabic, "moosi3" is a person who makes something big, and not a person who keeps on making something big (expanding it, MUWASSI3).
tl;dr version: No miracle here. Don't take translations at face value and always consult an Arabic dictionary.
Topic: Hey New Member