Intro
In 1891, allegedly, a Christian by the name of ‘Abdullah James made three objections against Islam. He argued that the Muhammad (saw) had been in doubt about his own Prophethood, that he did not show any miracles, and that he did not possess any knowledge of the unseen. Anjuman Himayat-e-Islam sent these questions to Nur ud Din and he seems to have sent them to MGA. Thus, allegedly, in 1892, the Ahmadiyya Movement published “Three Questions by a Christian and their Answers” (See Hidden Treasures)(however, Maulvi Muhammad Ali didn’t mention it in 1915). In this book, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad did not write a book specifically to “refute” modern astronomy. Instead, he tried to show that the Quran was compatible with the science of his time, even if his own terminology was sometimes a mix of old and new. MGA used words like Kashish (Gravity). By acknowledging gravity, he was accepting the mechanism that makes an orbit possible.
On page 40, MGA and his team of writers began answering the 3rd question, which was about the lack of miracles and why just a few signs given to Muhammad (saw). On page 50, MGA argued that the Earth is barkarar which means steadfast and in place. Ahmad Rida Khan made the same arguments about 20 years later. MGA also argued that the Earth is “in-place” due to the gravity (kashish) of the stars. Again, in summary, MGA used the word Barqarar (برقرار) to mean “maintained” or “sustained.” His core argument was: The Earth is a massive, heavy body.
It is “suspended” in space (not sitting on anything). It remains Barqarar (stable/sustained) instead of falling or colliding with other bodies. Sabit (ثابت) can mean “stationary” in older Urdu/Arabic texts (as in Sawabit, the “fixed stars”). However, MGA links this “fixedness” to Kashish (کشش)—the attraction/gravity of other stars. Moreover, MGA and his team argued that the Earth stays “fixed” (in its place/path) only because other heavenly bodies are pulling on it from all directions. The Nuance: In his view, this “pull” isn’t just a random physical law; it is a “system” designed by God to keep the Earth from being destroyed. If you look at the Urdu text directly, he does not explicitly use the word for a moving orbit (Daira or Madar) in this specific passage. His focus is on suspension. To a critic, it sounds like he believes the Earth is being held “still” by competing gravitational pulls. To an Ahmadi translator, this is interpreted as him describing “orbital equilibrium”. MGA mentions that the Earth is held by the “gravity of the stars” (Sitaron ki kashish). MGA was using 19th-century Natural Philosophy. At that time, many religious thinkers tried to combine the new discovery of “Gravity” with the old religious idea that God “upholds the heavens without pillars”.
However, in 2007, in the official English translation of “Three Questions by a Christian and their Answers”, the Ahmadiyya translation team lied and gave the impression that MGA wrote that the Earth has an orbit, however, orbit would be “apne daere mein”. Instead, MGA wrote sabith or barkarar which means steadfast and in place.
In 1908, MGA and his team of writers argued that the sun seems to complete its orbit in about three hundred sixty-four days (See Chashma-e-Ma‘rifat, Ruhani Khaza’in, Vol. 23, pp. 17-19, via essence of Islam-1, English, pages 116-117). MGA argued that the sun has an orbit just like the moon.
