Quranic cosmology in the context of "Cosmic ocean"

The cosmology of the ancient Near East refers to beliefs about where the universe came from, how it developed, and its physical layout, in the ancient Near East, an area that corresponds with the Middle East today (including Mesopotamia, Egypt, Persia, the Levant, Anatolia, and the Arabian Peninsula). The basic understanding of the world in this region from premodern times included a flat earth, a solid layer or barrier above the sky (the firmament), a cosmic ocean located above the firmament, a region above the cosmic ocean where the gods lived, and a netherworld located at the furthest region in the direction down. Creation myths explained where the universe came from, including which gods created it (and how), as well as how humanity was created. These beliefs are attested as early as the fourth millennium BC and dominated until the modern era, with the only major competing system being the Hellenistic cosmology that developed in Ancient Greece in the mid-1st millennium BC.

Geographically, these views are known from the Mesopotamian cosmologies from Babylonia, Sumer, and Akkad; the Levantine or West Semitic cosmologies from Ugarit and ancient Israel and Judah (the biblical cosmology); the Egyptian cosmology from Ancient Egypt; and the Anatolian cosmologies from the Hittites. This system of cosmology went on to have a profound influence on views in early Greek cosmology, later Jewish cosmology, patristic cosmology, and Islamic cosmology (including Quranic cosmology).

The term Hexaemeron (Greek: Ἡ Ἑξαήμερος Δημιουργία Hē Hexaēmeros Dēmiourgia), literally "six days," is used in one of two senses. In one sense, it refers to the Genesis creation narrative spanning Genesis 1:1–2:3: corresponding to the creation of the light (day 1); the sky (day 2); the earth, seas, and vegetation (day 3); the sun and moon (day 4); animals of the air and sea (day 5); and land animals and humans (day 6). God then rests from his work on the seventh day of creation, the Sabbath.

In a second sense, the Genesis creation narrative inspired a didactic genre of Jewish and Christian literature known as the Hexaemeral literature. Literary treatments in this genre are called Hexaemeron. This literature was dedicated to the composition of commentaries, homilies, and treatises concerned with the exegesis of the biblical creation narrative through ancient and medieval times and with expounding the meaning of the six days as well as the origins of the world. The first Christian example of this genre was the Hexaemeron of Basil of Caesarea, and many other works went on to be written from authors including Augustine of Hippo, Jacob of Serugh, Jacob of Edessa, Bonaventure, and so on. These treatises would become popular and often cover a wide variety of topics, including cosmology, science, theology, theological anthropology, and God's nature. The word can also sometimes denote more passing or incidental descriptions or discussions on the six days of creation, such as in the brief occurrences that appear in Quranic cosmology.

The creation of life from clay (or soil, earth, dust, or mud) appears throughout world religions and mythologies, some of the earliest occurring in the creation myths about the origin of man in the cosmology of the ancient Near East. The idea occurs in both biblical cosmology and Quranic cosmology. The clay represents an unformed, chaotic material which is shaped and given form by the gods in a creative process. A related motif is the use of clay to seed or create the world. In southwest Asia, the clay-shaping was cast as a magical act. In the same way that humans would use clay to make terracotta images of their gods, so the gods moulded humans out of clay in their godlike form. They were described as obtaining this material by pinching off pieces of wet mud.

The most famous example of this is in the biblical Book of Genesis (2:7), where Adam is made out of dust, an idea that appears across the Bible (Job 10:9; Psalm 90:3; 104:29; Isaiah 29:16, etc.). The idea is also found in the Epic of Gilgamesh where the goddess Aruru creates Enkidu from clay, in Egyptian mythology where Khmun makes man out of clay, and various Greek texts crediting Prometheus (one of the Titans) with doing the same. Later, the concept would influence art history, such as the impact it had on the work of Giorgio Vasari.