[I swear] by Heaven and the Tariq! And what will convey to you what the Tariq is? It is the Star Piercing [the darkness]! (Surat At-Tariq 86:1-3).
A pulsar star is a highly magnetized neutron star, with a relatively small radius between 10 and 15 km, having somewhat greater mass than the Sun which has a radius of approximately 1 million km.
This type of stars beams out radiation along the magnetic poles. These radiation pulses reach Earth in the same manner as the beam from a lighthouse causes flashes.
Being enormous cosmic flywheels with a tick, they make some of the best clocks mankind knowns. Sounds of pulsar stars transfer to us on Planet Earth in the form of radio-waves. We receive them via radio telescopes scattered throughout the globe.
Astronomers discovered the first pulsar in 1967. So far, they’ve detected over 2,000 pulsars in total. Indeed, they are fascinating members of the cosmic community.
The majority of pulsars rotate on the order of once per second (we call them “slow pulsars”). On the other hand, there are more than 200 pulsars that rotate hundreds of times per second (called “millisecond pulsars”). The fastest millisecond pulsars can rotate more than 700 times per second.
If Prophet Muhammad was the one who wrote the Holy Qur’an as atheists claim, and if he chose that name for the Surah of At-Tariq, and if he was the one who stated in the verse that At-Tariq is a pulsating star, how would he have done that without a radio telescope bearing in mind that humanity’s first ever radio antenna was built in 1932, and that radio waves were first predicted theoretically by humans in 1867. How did Prophet Muhammad know these information in the 7th century AD!
In this episode of the program “Reason”, the famous Egyptian geologist Dr. Zaghloul El-Naggar explains some of the signs of verses of Surat At-Tariq.
This article is from Science’s archive and we’ve originally published it on an earlier date.