Short answer
No. Books of both Jain traditions, the Svetambara and the Digambara, put the moon higher than the sun. The Svetambara Suryaprajnapti, as its commentator Malayagiri explains it, sets the sun 800 yojanas above the earth and the moon 880. A yojana is an old Indian measure of distance. The Digambara Tiloyapannatti gives the same heights. Yet every solar eclipse comes at new moon, when the moon passes in front of the sun. The moon is the nearest of the heavenly bodies. The same books make the earth a flat disc of rings around Mount Meru, with two suns and two moons taking turns. India's own astronomers, Brahmagupta and Bhaskara, rejected the two suns from the sky. The Qur'an gives no distance and no order of height for the sun and the moon that the sky could contradict. It points from them to the One who made them.
Full explanation
A test anyone can make
The Qur'an tells people to look at the heavens and the earth and to reflect. It calls the sun and the moon signs. It says God (﷾) measured out stages for the moon, so that people can count the years. So Islam welcomes a test that anyone can make with their own eyes. Where a scripture speaks of what can be seen and measured, the sky can check it. Where it speaks of the unseen, the eye cannot. The Qur'an says that none in the heavens or on earth knows the unseen except Allah (﷾). This page applies the one test to the Jain books and then to the Qur'an. Passing it does not by itself prove that a book comes from God (﷾). Failing it shows that a book is wrong where it can be checked.
“Behold! in the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the alternation of night and day,- there are indeed Signs for men of understanding,- Men who celebrate the praises of Allah, standing, sitting, and lying down on their sides, and contemplate the (wonders of) creation in the heavens and the earth, (With the thought): "Our Lord! not for naught Hast Thou created (all) this! Glory to Thee! Give us salvation from the penalty of the Fire.”
“Among His Signs are the Night and the Day, and the Sun and the Moon. Do not prostrate to the sun and the moon, but prostrate to Allah, Who created them, if it is Him ye wish to serve.”
“It is He Who made the sun to be a shining glory and the moon to be a light (of beauty), and measured out stages for her; that ye might know the number of years and the count (of time). Nowise did Allah create this but in truth and righteousness. (Thus) doth He explain His Signs in detail, for those who understand.”
“Say: None in the heavens or on earth, except Allah, knows what is hidden: nor can they perceive when they shall be raised up (for Judgment).”
What the Jain books say about the sky
The Suryaprajnapti is one of the twelve Upangas, the subsidiary texts of the Svetambara canon. The scholar George Thibaut studied it in 1880. He worked mostly from the commentary of Malayagiri, because the manuscripts give the commentary in full. In this system the earth is a vast flat disc of rings, islands and oceans, with Mount Meru at its centre. The sun, the moon and the stars circle Meru, each at its own height above the earth. Two suns, two moons and two sets of stars take turns, appearing on alternate days south and north of Meru. The sun moves 800 yojanas (an old Indian measure of distance) above the earth. The moon moves at 880, eighty yojanas above the sun. The Digambaras do not accept the Suryaprajnapti. Their own cosmology, the Tiloyapannatti, belongs to a group of books that has long had canonical status among them. It gives the same heights: the sun's vehicles 800 yojanas above the earth, the moon's 880. It says the moon's jewelled vehicles shed cool, mild rays, and the sun's shed hot ones.
Jaini lists the Suryaprajnapti as the fifth of the twelve Upangas, the subsidiary texts of the Svetambara canon (p. 48). He writes that the Digambaras preserved only a small part of the original canon, so most of their scriptures are compositions of later learned teachers. These works, called the Anuyogas (expositions), have long enjoyed canonical status in the Digambara tradition, and the Svetambaras produced a comparable secondary canon. The second group, the Karananuyoga, contains treatises on ancient sciences such as cosmology and astronomy, among them the Trilokaprajnapti (Tiloyapannatti, seventh century) and the Trilokasara (eleventh century) (pp. 78-79).
Thibaut reports that the Jain doctrine that has always struck outsiders most is that there are two suns, two moons and two sets of constellations, which appear on alternate days south and north of Mount Meru (he quotes Colebrooke). Indian astronomers argued against it: Brahmagupta in his Sphuta-Siddhanta, and Bhaskara after him in the Siddhanta-Siromani, answered that the stars around the pole (the 'polar fish') are seen to go round once in a single day (pp. 107-108). Thibaut calls the Suryaprajnapti apparently the most important astronomical book whose authority the Jains acknowledge. He bases his account more on the commentary of Malayagiri than on the text itself, because the manuscripts give the commentary in full and only the opening words of the text; he judges that the commentary follows the text faithfully. Malayagiri works through the text's numerical rules with many worked examples (pp. 108-109). Thibaut explains the reason for the two suns: the sun was held to bring day to the four quarters around Meru in turn, so the sun that rises each morning is a second sun like the first. He adds that the doctrine makes little practical difference to the motions of the sun and moon (p. 110).
“The earth is considered to be an immense circular flat consisting of a number of concentric rings, called dvípas, separated from each other by ring-shaped oceans. In the centre of the earth stands Mount Meru”
“The moon describes (or the two moons describe) circles round Mount Meru at the height of eight hundred and eighty yojanas above the earth, so that her place is eighty yojanas above that of the sun.”
The Tiloyapannatti, a Digambara work on the shape of the world, places the discs of the moons 880 yojanas above the Chitra earth, the surface of the earth in Jain cosmology (7.36), and the cities of the suns 800 yojanas above it (7.65). It describes the moon's vehicles as jewelled half-spheres, open side up, with twelve thousand cool, mild rays (7.37-38), and the sun's as the same shape with twelve thousand hot rays (7.66-67). The editors' introduction sums up the order: the stars 790 yojanas above the earth, the sun 10 above them, the moon 80 above the sun, and the lunar constellations and the planets above the moon.
What every solar eclipse shows
The moon is on average about 384,400 kilometres from the earth. The sun is about 390 times farther away. No instrument is needed to see which is nearer. A solar eclipse comes only at new moon, when the moon stands at the sun's place in the sky. A dark disc slides across the sun and covers part or all of it. A day or two later the moon shows again as a thin crescent just east of the sun, its bright edge facing the sun. NASA puts it simply: a solar eclipse happens when the moon passes between the sun and the earth. So the moon is nearer than the sun. A moon eighty yojanas above the sun could never pass in front of it.
The Moon is an average of 238,855 miles (384,400 kilometres) from the Earth. The Sun, the solar system's only star, is about 93 million miles (150 million kilometres) from the Earth, so it is about 390 times farther away than the Moon.
NASA explains that a solar eclipse happens when the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth, casting a shadow on Earth that blocks the face of the Sun for observers in those places. Solar eclipses occur during the new moon phase, and lunar eclipses during the full moon phase.
“The moon describes (or the two moons describe) circles round Mount Meru at the height of eight hundred and eighty yojanas above the earth, so that her place is eighty yojanas above that of the sun.”
The Tiloyapannatti, a Digambara work on the shape of the world, places the discs of the moons 880 yojanas above the Chitra earth, the surface of the earth in Jain cosmology (7.36), and the cities of the suns 800 yojanas above it (7.65). It describes the moon's vehicles as jewelled half-spheres, open side up, with twelve thousand cool, mild rays (7.37-38), and the sun's as the same shape with twelve thousand hot rays (7.66-67). The editors' introduction sums up the order: the stars 790 yojanas above the earth, the sun 10 above them, the moon 80 above the sun, and the lunar constellations and the planets above the moon.
India's astronomers said so first
This objection did not come from outside India. Brahmagupta, who wrote in 628, rejected the Jain two suns, and Bhaskara repeated his answer. Their reason was something anyone can see at night. The stars around the pole go round once in a single day, so the same stars come back every night. Varahamihira, in the sixth century, taught that an eclipse of the sun is the moon covering it. Al-Biruni, a Muslim scholar who studied India about the year 1030, quotes him. He also points out that Brahmagupta computed eclipses of the sun from the size of the moon.
Thibaut reports that the Jain doctrine that has always struck outsiders most is that there are two suns, two moons and two sets of constellations, which appear on alternate days south and north of Mount Meru (he quotes Colebrooke). Indian astronomers argued against it: Brahmagupta in his Sphuta-Siddhanta, and Bhaskara after him in the Siddhanta-Siromani, answered that the stars around the pole (the 'polar fish') are seen to go round once in a single day (pp. 107-108). Thibaut calls the Suryaprajnapti apparently the most important astronomical book whose authority the Jains acknowledge. He bases his account more on the commentary of Malayagiri than on the text itself, because the manuscripts give the commentary in full and only the opening words of the text; he judges that the commentary follows the text faithfully. Malayagiri works through the text's numerical rules with many worked examples (pp. 108-109). Thibaut explains the reason for the two suns: the sun was held to bring day to the four quarters around Meru in turn, so the sun that rises each morning is a second sun like the first. He adds that the doctrine makes little practical difference to the motions of the sun and moon (p. 110).
Varahamihira lived from about 505 to 587 CE. Brahmagupta wrote his Brahmasphutasiddhanta in 628 CE. Al-Biruni, writing in 1030, placed Varahamihira 526 years before his own time, about 504 CE.
“As has been mentioned by scholars who enjoy the help of God, an eclipse of the moon is her entering the shadow of the earth, and an eclipse of the sun consists in this that the moon covers and hides the sun from us.”
“Why do you, after having spoken such words, then begin to calculate the diameter of the moon in order to explain her eclipsing the sun, and the diameter of the shadow of the earth in order to explain its eclipsing the moon? Why do you compute both eclipses in agreement with the theory of those heretics, and not according to the views of those with whom you think it proper to agree?”
What the Qur'an says, and what it does not
The Qur'an speaks often of the sun and the moon, but it gives no distance for either and no order of height. It says the sun may not catch up the moon, and that each swims along in its own orbit. Qur'an 71:16 calls the moon a light in the heavens, and gives no distance or order. Qur'an 67:5 says God (﷾) adorned the lowest heaven with lamps, and gives no measure. Qur'an 18:86 tells what the traveller Dhul-Qarnayn found when he reached the west. Qur'an 55:17 calls God Lord of the two Easts and the two Wests. Ibn Kathir, a 14th-century commentator, explains these as the sun's rising and setting points in summer and in winter. None of these gives a number or an order that the sky could contradict.
“It is not permitted to the Sun to catch up the Moon, nor can the Night outstrip the Day: Each (just) swims along in (its own) orbit (according to Law).”
“"'See ye not how Allah has created the seven heavens one above another, "'And made the moon a light in their midst, and made the sun as a (Glorious) Lamp?”
“And we have, (from of old), adorned the lowest heaven with Lamps, and We have made such (Lamps) (as) missiles to drive away the Evil Ones, and have prepared for them the Penalty of the Blazing Fire.”
“Until, when he reached the setting of the sun, he found it set in a spring of murky water: Near it he found a People: We said: "O Zul-qarnain! (thou hast authority,) either to punish them, or to treat them with kindness."”
“(He is) Lord of the two Easts and Lord of the two Wests:”
Explains "the two Easts and the two Wests" as the sun's rising points in summer and in winter, and its setting points in summer and in winter. He sets beside it Qur'an 70:40, "the easts and the wests", meaning the sun's rising places, which differ and move day by day, and Qur'an 73:9, "the East and the West", meaning east and west as a kind.
Islam's answer
Islam asks every soul to look at the sky and ask who made it. The sun and the moon are signs, and the Qur'an forbids bowing to them: bow to Allah (﷾), who created them. Abraham watched the star, the moon and the sun rise and set. Then he turned his face to the One who created the heavens and the earth. When the sun was eclipsed on the day the Prophet's (ﷺ) son Ibrahim died, people said it was for his death. He told them that the sun and the moon do not eclipse for anyone's death or birth, and told them to pray. Books that are wrong where the eye can check give no ground to trust them where it cannot. The Qur'an makes no claim about the sky that the eye has found wrong. Read it for yourself, and learn about the last Prophet (ﷺ) who brought it.
“Among His Signs are the Night and the Day, and the Sun and the Moon. Do not prostrate to the sun and the moon, but prostrate to Allah, Who created them, if it is Him ye wish to serve.”
“When the night covered him over, He saw a star: He said: "This is my Lord." But when it set, He said: "I love not those that set." When he saw the moon rising in splendour, he said: "This is my Lord." But when the moon set, He said: "unless my Lord guide me, I shall surely be among those who go astray." When he saw the sun rising in splendour, he said: "This is my Lord; this is the greatest (of all)." But when the sun set, he said: "O my people! I am indeed free from your (guilt) of giving partners to Allah. "For me, I have set my face, firmly and truly, towards Him Who created the heavens and the earth, and never shall I give partners to Allah."”
Al-Mughira ibn Shu'ba reports that the sun eclipsed on the day the Prophet's (ﷺ) son Ibrahim died, and people said it had eclipsed because of Ibrahim's death. The Prophet said that the sun and the moon do not eclipse for the death or the birth of anyone, and told them to pray and call on Allah when they see an eclipse.
“It is not permitted to the Sun to catch up the Moon, nor can the Night outstrip the Day: Each (just) swims along in (its own) orbit (according to Law).”
The replies, answered
Thibaut, On the Suryaprajnapti (1880), pp. 107-110
Thibaut reports that the Jain doctrine that has always struck outsiders most is that there are two suns, two moons and two sets of constellations, which appear on alternate days south and north of Mount Meru (he quotes Colebrooke). Indian astronomers argued against it: Brahmagupta in his Sphuta-Siddhanta, and Bhaskara after him in the Siddhanta-Siromani, answered that the stars around the pole (the 'polar fish') are seen to go round once in a single day (pp. 107-108). Thibaut calls the Suryaprajnapti apparently the most important astronomical book whose authority the Jains acknowledge. He bases his account more on the commentary of Malayagiri than on the text itself, because the manuscripts give the commentary in full and only the opening words of the text; he judges that the commentary follows the text faithfully. Malayagiri works through the text's numerical rules with many worked examples (pp. 108-109). Thibaut explains the reason for the two suns: the sun was held to bring day to the four quarters around Meru in turn, so the sun that rises each morning is a second sun like the first. He adds that the doctrine makes little practical difference to the motions of the sun and moon (p. 110).
Cited for
The two suns take turns, so only one is ever seen. No one can disprove that by looking.
The response
That is why this page does not lead with the two suns. Brahmagupta and Bhaskara did answer it from the sky. The stars around the pole go round once a day, so the same stars return every night. But the test here is simpler. One sun or two, the books put the moon eighty yojanas above the sun. Every solar eclipse shows the moon passing in front of it.
Where it lands — Whatever is said of the two suns, the order of the sun and moon can be seen. The books have it the wrong way round.
Jaini, The Jaina Path of Purification (1979), pp. 48 and 78-79
Jaini lists the Suryaprajnapti as the fifth of the twelve Upangas, the subsidiary texts of the Svetambara canon (p. 48). He writes that the Digambaras preserved only a small part of the original canon, so most of their scriptures are compositions of later learned teachers. These works, called the Anuyogas (expositions), have long enjoyed canonical status in the Digambara tradition, and the Svetambaras produced a comparable secondary canon. The second group, the Karananuyoga, contains treatises on ancient sciences such as cosmology and astronomy, among them the Trilokaprajnapti (Tiloyapannatti, seventh century) and the Trilokasara (eleventh century) (pp. 78-79).
Cited for
Many Jains read the cosmology as symbolic. Liberation comes from right faith, knowledge and conduct, not from astronomy.
The response
The books do not read like symbols. They give heights in yojanas above the earth, and Malayagiri worked their numbers through with many examples. The Digambara cosmologies have long had canonical status, and the Suryaprajnapti is in the Svetambara canon. To call the measures symbols is to grant that, read as written, they are wrong. Which passages count as symbols is then decided after the sky has spoken. The Muslim readings of 18:86 and 71:16 are not like this. They come from the verses' own words, and commentators gave them centuries before modern astronomy. And a book that is wrong where it can be checked gives no ground to trust it where it cannot.
Where it lands — A symbolic reading concedes that the measures fail as written; it is brought to the text after the facts were known.
Thibaut, On the Suryaprajnapti (JASB 49, 1880), part II, p. 181 — the height of the moon
“The moon describes (or the two moons describe) circles round Mount Meru at the height of eight hundred and eighty yojanas above the earth, so that her place is eighty yojanas above that of the sun.”
Cited for
The Suryaprajnapti is a Svetambara book. Digambaras do not accept it, so it says nothing about our teaching.
The response
The Digambaras' own Tiloyapannatti gives the same heights. It places the sun's vehicles 800 yojanas above the earth and the moon's 880. Jaini, a Jain scholar, names it among the cosmological books that have long had canonical status among the Digambaras. So the error is in the books of both traditions.
Where it lands — Both traditions' books put the moon above the sun.
Thibaut, On the Suryaprajnapti (1880), pp. 107-110
Thibaut reports that the Jain doctrine that has always struck outsiders most is that there are two suns, two moons and two sets of constellations, which appear on alternate days south and north of Mount Meru (he quotes Colebrooke). Indian astronomers argued against it: Brahmagupta in his Sphuta-Siddhanta, and Bhaskara after him in the Siddhanta-Siromani, answered that the stars around the pole (the 'polar fish') are seen to go round once in a single day (pp. 107-108). Thibaut calls the Suryaprajnapti apparently the most important astronomical book whose authority the Jains acknowledge. He bases his account more on the commentary of Malayagiri than on the text itself, because the manuscripts give the commentary in full and only the opening words of the text; he judges that the commentary follows the text faithfully. Malayagiri works through the text's numerical rules with many worked examples (pp. 108-109). Thibaut explains the reason for the two suns: the sun was held to bring day to the four quarters around Meru in turn, so the sun that rises each morning is a second sun like the first. He adds that the doctrine makes little practical difference to the motions of the sun and moon (p. 110).
Cited for
You judge the Jain books by a commentator, Malayagiri. Your own commentators put the sun in the fourth heaven. Ibn Kathir gives the planets an order. Al-Qurtubi reports that Ibn Umar put the sun in the fourth heaven in summer and the seventh in winter.
The response
Thibaut judged that Malayagiri's commentary follows the text faithfully. He gives the sun's 800 yojanas as the Suryaprajnapti's own figure. The Digambara Tiloyapannatti gives the same heights in its own verses, and Jaini says such books have long had canonical status among the Digambaras. The Muslim reports are of another kind. Ibn Kathir gives the order of the planets as a summary of what the astronomers say, and he notes that they differ. Al-Qurtubi gives the report from Ibn Umar with no chain of narrators, and it is a Companion's opinion. Neither is the Qur'an or a saying of the Prophet (ﷺ), and Muslims never counted such reports as scripture. When believers differ, the Qur'an tells them to refer the matter to Allah (﷾) and His Messenger (ﷺ). The Qur'an names no heaven for the sun or the moon, and gives no distance. The site's page on Qur'an 71:16 sets this out in full.
Where it lands — The Jain heights are in the texts themselves. The Muslim reports are opinions outside the Qur'an, which gives no measure.
Tiloyapannatti 7.201-216 and 7.272-275 — chapter 7 (the world of the luminaries), Rahu and Ketu
The Tiloyapannatti places the dark vehicles of Rahu, the colour of collyrium, four finger-breadths below the moon's (7.201-203). Rahu's vehicle covers one part of the moon's disc each day until the new moon, and uncovers it again until the full moon (7.211-214). It also gives another view: the moon's disc by its own nature turns dark for fifteen days and bright for fifteen (7.215). The 'parva' Rahus cover the moon's discs at the end of a full moon at intervals of six months (7.216). The text places dark vehicles of the Ketus four finger-breadths below the sun's (7.272-275).
Cited for
The dark disc in a solar eclipse is not the moon. The Tiloyapannatti places a dark vehicle of Ketu just below the sun.
The response
A solar eclipse comes only at new moon, when the moon is in the same part of the sky as the sun. Watch the moon through any month: its bright side always faces the sun. So the sun lights it. At new moon its dark side faces us, so it must be nearer to us than the sun. A moon above the sun would show its full lit face there, not a dark one. A day or two after an eclipse the moon shows again just east of the sun. It is a thin crescent, lit on the side facing the sun. Astronomers compute every eclipse of the sun from the motions of the sun and the moon. India's own astronomers saw the same. Varahamihira said plainly that the moon covers the sun. Brahmagupta argued in words that Rahu causes eclipses. Yet, as al-Biruni points out, he computed eclipses of the sun from the size of the moon.
Where it lands — The moon's lit side always faces the sun, and it is dark when it stands near the sun's place. So it is below the sun, and it is the body that covers it.
Tiloyapannatti 7.36 and 7.65 — chapter 7 (the world of the luminaries), verses 36 and 65
The Tiloyapannatti, a Digambara work on the shape of the world, places the discs of the moons 880 yojanas above the Chitra earth, the surface of the earth in Jain cosmology (7.36), and the cities of the suns 800 yojanas above it (7.65). It describes the moon's vehicles as jewelled half-spheres, open side up, with twelve thousand cool, mild rays (7.37-38), and the sun's as the same shape with twelve thousand hot rays (7.66-67). The editors' introduction sums up the order: the stars 790 yojanas above the earth, the sun 10 above them, the moon 80 above the sun, and the lunar constellations and the planets above the moon.
Cited for
No one knows the length of a Jain yojana, so the heights cannot be judged.
The response
The order does not depend on the unit. Whatever a yojana measures, the books put the moon eighty of them above the sun. In Thibaut's words, her place is eighty yojanas above that of the sun. A moon above the sun in any unit could never pass in front of it.
Where it lands — The order is wrong in any unit.
Tiloyapannatti 7.36 and 7.65 — chapter 7 (the world of the luminaries), verses 36 and 65
The Tiloyapannatti, a Digambara work on the shape of the world, places the discs of the moons 880 yojanas above the Chitra earth, the surface of the earth in Jain cosmology (7.36), and the cities of the suns 800 yojanas above it (7.65). It describes the moon's vehicles as jewelled half-spheres, open side up, with twelve thousand cool, mild rays (7.37-38), and the sun's as the same shape with twelve thousand hot rays (7.66-67). The editors' introduction sums up the order: the stars 790 yojanas above the earth, the sun 10 above them, the moon 80 above the sun, and the lunar constellations and the planets above the moon.
Cited for
The sun and moon of the texts are cities of gods, part of the unseen. If the Qur'an's Throne cannot be tested, neither can our cities.
The response
Unseen realms cannot be measured, and this page makes no claim about them. But these texts speak of the lights in our sky. The Tiloyapannatti gives the moon's vehicles cool, mild rays and the sun's hot ones. Both books measure their heights from this earth. The Qur'an's heavens and Throne carry no measured height, no order of the planets and no number of yojanas.
Where it lands — The books place their sun and moon in the visible sky above this earth; that part is not the unseen, and it is wrong.
Qur'an 18:86 — Surat al-Kahf (The Cave), verse 86
“Until, when he reached the setting of the sun, he found it set in a spring of murky water: Near it he found a People: We said: "O Zul-qarnain! (thou hast authority,) either to punish them, or to treat them with kindness."”
Cited for
Your Qur'an has the sun setting in a spring of murky water (18:86). It fails the same test.
The response
The verse says Dhul-Qarnayn "found it" setting there. It tells what a traveller saw at the western edge, as anyone on a shore sees the sun sink into the sea. Four verses later he "found it rising on a people". No reader takes that to mean the sun comes up out of those people. Elsewhere the Qur'an says the sun swims in its own orbit. Ibn Kathir read the verse this way in the fourteenth century, long before modern astronomy. The site's page on the muddy spring answers this in full.
Where it lands — The verse reports a traveller's view, and the Qur'an elsewhere gives the sun its own orbit.
Qur'an 55:17 — Surat al-Rahman (The Most Gracious), verse 17
“(He is) Lord of the two Easts and Lord of the two Wests:”
Cited for
Your Qur'an speaks of two Easts and two Wests (55:17). That is no different from two suns.
The response
The verse speaks of points on the horizon, not of two suns. Ibn Kathir explains them as the sun's rising points in summer and in winter, and its setting points in summer and in winter. Anyone who watches the sunrise through a year sees it move between them. The Qur'an also speaks of the East and the West as a kind (73:9), and of all the Easts and Wests (70:40). Ibn Kathir explains the second as the sun's rising places, which change day by day. One, two or many, each describes the same sun as it is seen.
Where it lands — The two Easts are two places on the horizon that anyone can see, not a second sun.
Qur'an 67:5 — Surat al-Mulk (The Sovereignty), verse 5
“And we have, (from of old), adorned the lowest heaven with Lamps, and We have made such (Lamps) (as) missiles to drive away the Evil Ones, and have prepared for them the Penalty of the Blazing Fire.”
Cited for
Your Qur'an says the lamps of heaven are missiles against devils (67:5). Stars are distant suns, so that is a false claim about the sky.
The response
The verse says God (﷾) adorned the lowest heaven with lamps and made such lamps missiles. The Qur'an's other verses name the missile: a flaming fire that pursues. Ibn Kathir explains that the devils are not pelted with the stars in the sky but with shooting flames below them. The verse speaks of what anyone can see: the lights of the night sky and the streaks of meteors. The purpose it gives belongs to the unseen. The site's page on Qur'an 67:5 answers the objection in full.
Where it lands — The verse speaks of what people see, and its purpose is unseen. It gives no distance or order that the sky could contradict.
Qur'an 71:15-16 — Surat Nuh (Noah), verses 15-16
“"'See ye not how Allah has created the seven heavens one above another, "'And made the moon a light in their midst, and made the sun as a (Glorious) Lamp?”
Cited for
Your Qur'an puts the moon in the midst of the seven heavens (71:16), beyond the stars of the lowest heaven. It makes the same mistake.
The response
The verse says God (﷾) made the moon a light "in them", the heavens, and gives no distance and no order. Arabic can say a thing is "in them" when it is in one of them. The commentator al-Qurtubi (13th century) reads it as the lowest heaven, the one the Qur'an says God (﷾) adorned with lamps. The site's page on Qur'an 71:16 sets this out in full.
Where it lands — The Jain books put the moon a measured height above the sun; Qur'an 71:16 gives no measure and no order that the sky could contradict.
Sahih al-Bukhari 3199 — Kitab Bad' al-Khalq (The Beginning of Creation), hadith 3199
Abu Dharr reports that at sunset the Prophet (ﷺ) asked him whether he knew where the sun goes, and he answered that Allah and His Messenger know best. He said: it goes until it prostrates beneath the Throne and asks permission, and permission is given. A time is coming when its prostration will not be accepted and permission will not be given. It will be told to go back the way it came, and it will rise from the place where it sets. He said this is the meaning of Qur'an 36:38.
Cited for
Your Bukhari says the sun goes each night to prostrate beneath the Throne (3199). That is no better than a moon above the sun.
The response
The hadith describes the sun's obedience to God (﷾), not a journey anyone could watch. Its fuller version in Sahih Muslim says, in the report itself, that people notice nothing unusual in the sun's course. Al-Khattabi, who died in 998, said its prostrating every night does not hinder its revolving in its course. The Throne is above all creation, so the sun is beneath it wherever it is. The site's page on Sahih al-Bukhari 3199 sets out the report and what the commentators said.
Where it lands — The report speaks of an unseen act of worship and gives no height or order that the sky contradicts.
Qur'an 65:12 — Surat al-Talaq (Divorce), verse 12
“Allah is He Who created seven Firmaments and of the earth a similar number. Through the midst of them (all) descends His Command: that ye may know that Allah has power over all things, and that Allah comprehends, all things in (His) Knowledge.”
Cited for
Your Qur'an has seven earths (65:12), and your reports put five hundred years between them. That is no better than the Jain disc of rings.
The response
The verse gives a number and nothing more. It gives no size, no place, no ocean around them and no mountain at their centre. The authentic hadith on them, in both Sahihs, gives no size or distance either. Land taken wrongly will hang round the wrongdoer's neck from seven earths. Ibn Kathir, citing it, rejects reading them as seven regions of this earth. The five hundred years is a measure. But Ibn Kathir gives it from Ibn Mas'ud and others, not from the Qur'an. The reports that give it from the Prophet (ﷺ) are weak. Al-Tirmidhi, who records one of them, called it gharib (known through one line of narrators), and its chain is broken. So that measure is not the Qur'an's teaching. The Jain books measure their sun and moon in yojanas from this earth, and the sky shows their order is wrong.
Where it lands — The Qur'an and the authentic hadith give the seven earths a number and nothing more; the measures come from other reports. The Jain books put their measures in the books themselves.
Qur'an 88:20 — Surat al-Ghashiya (The Overwhelming), verse 20
“And at the Earth, how it is spread out?”
Cited for
Your Qur'an says the earth is spread out (88:20). That is a flat earth, no better than a disc of rings around Meru.
The response
The verse says the earth is spread out. That is how the ground looks to the people who walk on it, and the verse gives no shape, size or edge. The Qur'an puts no mountain at the earth's centre and no rings of oceans around it. Muslim scholars such as Ibn Hazm, who died in 1064, taught that the earth is round. The site's page on whether the Qur'an says the earth is flat answers this in full.
Where it lands — "Spread out" describes the ground underfoot and gives no measure. The Jain books give a disc of rings with sizes, and those can be checked.
Perspectives
The two suns explain what is seen
The sun brings day to the four quarters around Meru in turn. So the sun that rises each morning is a second sun like the first. Only one is ever seen from one place. The system works for the motions of the sun and the moon as if there were one of each.
The Suryaprajnapti as its commentator Malayagiri explains it (Svetambara)
Two suns take turns, so only one is ever seen. The doctrine makes little practical difference to the motions of the sun and the moon.
Rebuttal
This page does not rest on the two suns. One sun or two, the books put the moon eighty yojanas above the sun. Every solar eclipse shows the moon in front of it.
The cosmology is not the path to liberation
Liberation comes from right faith, right knowledge and right conduct, not from astronomy. The cosmological books are treatises on ancient sciences by later teachers, and many Jains read their measures as symbols.
Jains who read the cosmology as symbolic, or as ancient learning outside the path
The cosmological books are works on ancient sciences such as cosmology and astronomy. And most Digambara scriptures were written by later learned teachers.
Rebuttal
The same scholar says these books have long had canonical status among Digambaras, and the Suryaprajnapti is in the Svetambara canon. They give heights in yojanas above the earth, and Malayagiri worked them as measures.
A dark body, not the moon, covers the sun
The Tiloyapannatti places dark vehicles of Rahu and Ketu, two dark bodies that Indian tradition links with eclipses, just below the moon and the sun. Rahu's vehicle covers the moon's disc a part at a time. So the dark disc in a solar eclipse need not be the moon.
A reply drawn from the Digambara Tiloyapannatti
The Tiloyapannatti places dark vehicles just below the sun and the moon. Rahu's covers the moon's disc a part each day, and other, 'parva' Rahus cover it at the end of a full moon every six months.
Rebuttal
The moon's bright side always faces the sun, every month and in every phase, so the sun lights it. At new moon it is in the same part of the sky as the sun, and its dark side faces us. A moon above the sun would be full there. A solar eclipse comes only then, at new moon. Varahamihira said it in the sixth century: the moon covers the sun.
The Islamic perspective
Books of both Jain traditions put the moon above the sun, and every solar eclipse shows it in front of the sun. India's own astronomers rejected the two suns from the sky. The Qur'an gives no distance and no order of height for the sun and the moon. It calls them signs and points from them to the One who made them.
The Suryaprajnapti, as Malayagiri explains it, puts the sun 800 yojanas above the earth and the moon 880. The Digambara Tiloyapannatti gives the same heights.
A solar eclipse happens when the moon passes between the sun and the earth, and only at new moon.
Brahmagupta and Bhaskara rejected the two suns because the stars around the pole go round once a day. Varahamihira said an eclipse of the sun is the moon covering it.
The Qur'an gives no distance or order of height for the sun and the moon. It says each swims in its own orbit.
The Qur'an teaches that the sun and the moon are signs of their Creator, to whom alone prostration belongs.