The Earth Is Shrinking

In the Name of Allah---the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful.

The Earth Is Shrinking

Cooling, Solidification, Global Contraction, and a Possible Physical Interpretation of Qur'an 21:44

Introduction

The Earth is often imagined as a physically permanent sphere whose dimensions have remained essentially unchanged since its formation. Modern geophysics, however, presents a much more dynamic picture. The Earth was formed in an extremely hot state, underwent extensive melting and differentiation, and has been continuously losing internal heat ever since. Its interior remains thermally active, but the planet has nevertheless undergone a long history of cooling, crystallization, solidification, and density changes.

This raises a fundamental physical question:

If a planet formed from extremely hot and partly molten material gradually cools and solidifies, should its physical dimensions remain exactly constant?

The answer is not necessarily. Solidification and cooling can change density and volume. In an ordinary physical system, thermal contraction and phase changes can cause material to occupy less volume. Applied to a planetary body, such changes can potentially produce large-scale mechanical adjustments of the crust and changes in the planet's radius.

A 2022 study published in Frontiers in Earth Science, entitled Geodynamics Based on Solidification of Liquid/Molten Substances in the Earth's Interior, developed precisely such a model. The authors argued that solidification inside Earth produces changes in density and volume and that these changes can manifest macroscopically as contraction of the Earth. They analyzed GPS observations, length-of-day measurements and estimates of the latent heat associated with solidification. Their GPS analysis produced an estimated average radius decrease of 1.65 ± 0.25 mm per year, corresponding in their calculation to a volume decrease of approximately 842 km³ per year.

Frontiers in Earth Science observes:

In this study, using three sets of observations (Global Positioning System data, length of day data, and the latent heat of Earth solidification), we show that these observations are consistent with the aforementioned assumption that the solidification of liquid cause changes in density and volume in the Earth’s interior. Mechanical analyses indicate that liquid solidification in the interior of the Earth leads to decrease in the Earth’s volume. This increases the intensity of plate interactions, which leads to the movement of large plates, triggering geological events such as earthquakes. Thus, it is determined that liquid solidification in the Earth’s interior is the main source for the movement of plates.

The study observes further:
The solidification of molten substance leads to changes in the internal volume, and it macroscopically manifests as the collapse of the Earth’s volume. If this happened, akin to a deflating balloon, the Earth’s radius would decrease, thereby decreasing the distance between the corresponding points on the Earth’s surface. When the Earth is considered a standard sphere, there is a definite relationship between the reduction of the Earth’s radius and any changes in distance between the two points on the surface.......

This finding is controversial and should not be presented as an established scientific consensus. Other geodetic studies have obtained different values, and the Frontiers paper itself notes that previous studies had reported values ranging from expansion to contraction. Nevertheless, the study provides an intriguing modern scientific framework for considering whether the Earth's dimensions may be changing.

It also provides an interesting point of comparison with a remarkable Qur'anic expression:

أَوَلَمْ يَرَوْا أَنَّا نَأْتِي الْأَرْضَ نَنقُصُهَا مِنْ أَطْرَافِهَا

"Do they not see that We reduce the earth from its extremities?"
— Qur'an 21:44

The question is whether this verse can legitimately be understood, at least as a possible literal physical interpretation, as referring to a reduction of the Earth's physical dimensions.

The answer requires both scientific caution and exegetical honesty.

1. The Early Earth: A Hot and Partly Molten Mass

The modern scientific picture of Earth's formation begins with an enormously energetic process. During planetary accretion, gravitational energy was converted into heat. Additional heating resulted from radioactive elements, impacts by large planetary bodies and, ultimately, the enormous collision that is generally associated with the formation of the Moon.

The young Earth therefore passed through conditions radically different from those of the present oblate sphere. Scientific models describe an early magma ocean, followed by progressive cooling, crystallization and differentiation into the core, mantle and crust.

The Frontiers study explicitly describes this history:

"The Earth has evolved from a molten state (magma ocean) to today’s layered structure via large-scale cooling and solidification."

The transformation from an initially hot and partly molten planetary body into today's differentiated planet was therefore not a single event. It was a prolonged physical evolution.

The basic sequence can be represented as:

Early molten/hot Earth
↓
Cooling and heat loss
↓
Solidification and crystallization
↓
Changes in density and internal volume
↓
Mechanical adjustment of the planet
↓
Possible global contraction

This is the scientific foundation upon which the shrinking-Earth hypothesis has been constructed.

2. Cooling Normally Produces Contraction

The underlying physical principle is familiar.

When most materials are heated, they expand; when they cool, they contract. In simplified form, volumetric thermal expansion can be represented as:

$$\Delta V \approx \beta V\Delta T$$

where V is volume and $\beta$ is the volumetric coefficient of thermal expansion.

Thus, if a body loses thermal energy and its temperature falls, its equilibrium volume can decrease.

Earth is obviously not a simple laboratory sphere. Its interior is subjected to enormous pressures, temperatures vary enormously with depth, different minerals undergo different phase transitions, and mantle convection continually redistributes heat and material.

Nevertheless, the general thermodynamic principle remains relevant: cooling and phase transformation can produce changes in density and volume.

The Frontiers authors specifically emphasize this connection between solidification, density, and volume. Their paper states that solidification is accompanied by heat release and volume contraction and proposes that the cumulative effect can produce global volume shrinking.

3. Solidification Is More Than Simple Cooling

The argument becomes particularly interesting when we move from ordinary thermal contraction to solidification.

A liquid-to-solid transition changes the microscopic arrangement of matter. The resulting solid may occupy a different volume from the original liquid. Under Earth's extreme pressure and temperature conditions, the relationship is complicated, but the transition nevertheless involves changes in density, latent heat and volume.

The Frontiers researchers therefore propose that the continuous transformation of molten material into solid material inside Earth can produce cumulative volume changes.

They write that:

"The solidification of molten substance leads to changes in the internal volume"

They then extend this microscopic or internal change to the planet as a whole.

This gives us the next stage in the proposed sequence:

Cooling and solidification
→ changes in density
→ changes in internal volume
→ mechanical adjustment of the Earth

4. From Internal Volume Change to Global Contraction

How can a change occurring deep inside Earth affect the planet's external dimensions?

The Earth is not an empty shell surrounding a fixed volume. Its crust and lithosphere form a mechanically coupled outer layer over a continuously changing interior.

If the equilibrium volume of material within the Earth changes, the planet must mechanically adjust to a new equilibrium configuration.

The Frontiers study describes this process as a macroscopic contraction of Earth's volume. In its model, solidification in Earth's interior reduces internal volume, while the resulting mechanical changes affect the lithosphere and tectonic plates.

The authors compare the geometrical consequence to a deflating balloon.

Their key passage is:

"The solidification of molten substance leads to changes in the internal volume, and it macroscopically manifests as the collapse of the Earth’s volume."

The next sentence is particularly significant:

"If this happened, akin to a deflating balloon, the Earth’s radius would decrease..."

This is the central physical idea behind the shrinking-Earth interpretation.

5. Reduction of the Earth's Radius

If Earth is approximated as a sphere, its volume is:

$$V=\frac{4}{3}\pi R^3$$

Therefore, a reduction in the mean radius necessarily produces a reduction in volume.

For small changes:

$$\frac{\Delta V}{V}\approx3\frac{\Delta R}{R}$$

Consequently, even a very small annual change in radius corresponds to a measurable volume change when applied to a planet as enormous as Earth.

The Frontiers study analyzed GPS data from thousands of ground stations covering the period 1995–2019. The authors calculated an average radius change of:

$$-1.65\pm0.25\ {\rm mm/year}$$

They then calculated a corresponding volume change of approximately:

$$-841.6\pm127.5\ {\rm km^3/year}$$

according to their model.

This is an extraordinary claim—not because 1.65 mm sounds large, but because the implied volume change is enormous when multiplied across Earth's gigantic surface and interior.

6. If the Radius Decreases, Surface Distances Decrease

This is perhaps the most elegant mathematical part of the argument.

Imagine two points on Earth's surface. If their angular separation from Earth's center remains constant, their surface distance is proportional to Earth's radius.

For a spherical Earth:

$$d=R\theta$$

where $d$ is the surface distance and $\theta$ is the angle between the two points.

Therefore:

$$\frac{\Delta d}{d}=\frac{\Delta R}{R}$$

If the Earth's radius becomes smaller, the corresponding distance between two fixed angular positions on the surface also becomes smaller.

This is why GPS measurements can theoretically provide evidence for global contraction.

The Frontiers study used precisely this conceptual relationship. It compared changes in distances between GPS receivers and inferred corresponding changes in Earth's radius. The researchers used data from thousands of stations and performed millions of distance calculations over the 1995–2019 period.

Thus the proposed chain is mathematically coherent:

Decrease in internal volume
→ decrease in global radius
→ decrease in corresponding surface distances

7. The Complete Scientific Sequence

The argument can now be summarized as follows:

Stage 1 — Early molten/hot Earth

Earth began its geological history in an extremely energetic, hot state and experienced extensive melting.

Stage 2 — Cooling and solidification

The young planet radiated heat into space and progressively cooled. Molten material crystallized and solidified.

Stage 3 — Change in internal volume

Cooling and liquid-solid transformations alter density and volume.

Stage 4 — Global contraction

If those internal volume changes accumulate sufficiently, the mechanically coupled planet can adjust toward a smaller equilibrium configuration.

Stage 5 — Reduction in mean radius

A contraction of the planetary body means a reduction in its mean radius.

Stage 6 — Reduction in corresponding surface distances

For a spherical approximation, a smaller radius produces proportionally smaller distances between corresponding points on the surface.

This is essentially the physical framework proposed by the Frontiers study.

8. Qur'an 21:44

The following Qur'anic verse deserves to be interpreted with utmost care:

Allah says:

أَوَلَمْ يَرَوْا أَنَّا نَأْتِي الْأَرْضَ نَنقُصُهَا مِنْ أَطْرَافِهَا ۚ وَاللَّهُ يَحْكُمُ لَا مُعَقِّبَ لِحُكْمِهِ ۚ وَهُوَ سَرِيعُ الْحِسَابِ

A literal rendering of the relevant expression is approximately:

"Do they not see that We decreed the earth to be reduced in its horizons?"

The critical expression is:

نَنقُصُهَا مِنْ أَطْرَافِهَا

nanquṣuhā min aṭrāfihā

Literally, "We decreed the earth to be reduced in its horizons."

The word نقص (naqaṣa) carries the basic sense of diminution, reduction, decrease, or taking away. أطراف (aṭrāf) refers to extremities, edges, sides, or horizins.

That linguistic possibility makes the verse interesting when considered alongside the modern concept of global reduction.

The key word is أَطْرَاف (aṭrāf), the plural of طَرَف (ṭaraf). Its basic semantic field includes an edge, extremity, end, boundary, or outermost part of something. Therefore, when the object under discussion is الأرض (the Earth), interpreting aṭrāf al-arḍ as referring to the Earth's outer limits or horizons is not inherently far-fetched.

In fact, this can make your proposed interpretation more precise.

"Aṭrāf" and the Earth's horizons

Consider the expression:

نَنقُصُهَا مِنْ أَطْرَافِهَا

Rather than immediately translating it as:

"We reduce it from its edges"

one could render the physical possibility more naturally as:

"We diminish the Earth from its outer limits."

Or:

"We reduce the Earth from its extremities."

When applied to a spherical planet, its outermost limits are its surface/boundary, while from the standpoint of an observer on Earth, the apparent outer limit of the terrestrial surface is the horizon.

The expression نَنقُصُهَا مِنْ أَطْرَافِهَا does not necessarily require the interpretation that portions of particular geographical territories are being removed. The word أطراف denotes the extremities, edges or outer limits of an object. When applied to the Earth as a spherical body, its extremities may naturally be understood as its outer boundary or terrestrial horizons. If the Earth's mean radius decreases as a consequence of cooling, solidification and internal contraction, its outer boundary correspondingly moves inward. In this sense, the Earth would literally be diminished from its outer limits.

9. What Does Classical Tafsir Say?

Classical exegetes (mufassirūn) did not interpret Surah Ar-Ra‘d (13:41) as referring to physical planetary shrinkage. Instead, traditional scholarship understood the phrase "reducing it from its borders" (nanquṣuhā min aṭrāfihā) through historical, social, and spiritual lenses.

Primary Classical Interpretations

• Geopolitical/Territorial Shifts: Scholars such as Ibn ‘Abbās, Al-Ḥasan, and Ad-Ḍaḥḥāk interpreted "the land" as the territory controlled by the opponents of Islam. The "reduction" signified the expansion of Islamic governance and the gradual shrinking of pagan domain through peaceful acceptance and conquests.

• Loss of Scholars and Righteous Figures: Another prominent view attributed to Ibn ‘Abbās, Mujāhid, and Al-Sha‘bī links the shrinkage of the Earth’s borders to the death of great scholars (‘ulamā’) and virtuous leaders. The physical earth is metaphorically "diminished" when it loses the divine light, guidance, and knowledge these individuals provided.

• Depopulation and Moral/Economic Decline: Other commentators, such as Qatādah, framed the reduction as the destruction of corrupt civilizations, crop failures, and demographic decline brought about by divine judgment on oppressive nations.

• Spiritual/Allegorical (Ishārī) Exegesis: Sufi commentators (such as Al-Qushayrī and Al-Kāshānī) extended the metaphor to human life, viewing the "earth" as the human body or ego, whose faculties and physical strength gradually diminish with age and spiritual purification.

The quotes from Al-Sha'bī and 'Ikrimah directly address the rationale behind why classical scholars rejected a literal, physical reduction of the planet:

• Al-Sha‘bī: "If the Earth were physically shrinking, even your small private space (enclosure/privy) would become too tight for you; rather, it is the souls and fruits that are being diminished."

• ‘Ikrimah: "If the Earth were physically shrinking, you would not find a place to sit; rather, it refers to death [of people]."

Analysis of Their Reasoning

1. Rejection of a Reductio ad Absurdum: Early scholars interpreted a literal physical contraction of the land mass as a process that would inevitably squeeze out living space, rendering human life impossible. To avoid an outcome they saw as visually and practically unobservable in daily life, they ruled out physical shrinkage entirely.

2. Grounding the Text in Observable Reality: The verse begins with the rhetorical question, "Do they not see...?" (Awa-lam yaraw). Classical commentators reasoned that the sign must refer to a visible, tangible reality that the audience could actively observe. Because people did not witness the physical ground shrinking under their feet, scholars concluded the text must refer to observable phenomena—such as the loss of human lives, the death of scholars, crop failures, or the shrinking of enemy territory due to Islamic conquests.

3. Linguistic Scope of Al-Arḍ: In classical Arabic usage, al-arḍ refers not only to the planet as a whole, but also to specific regions, territories, or cultivated land. Scholars applied this localized meaning to keep the textual interpretation aligned with historical and physical reality. So the primary reason for metaphorical interpretation was limited and incomplete observation, not the Qur'anic words.

10. Could There Nevertheless Be a Literal Physical Interpretation?

The Qur'an frequently uses expressions that operate at more than one conceptual level. The question here is whether the phrase "We decreed the earth to be reduced in its horizons." could, in addition to its contextual meaning, be compatible with a physical phenomenon in which Earth's dimensions gradually decrease.

Under this possible reading:

الأرض — al-arḍ
could refer to the Earth itself as a physical planetary body.

نَنقُصُهَا — nanquṣuhā
could be understood literally as "We diminish/reduce it."

مِنْ أَطْرَافِهَا — min aṭrāfihā
could suggest reduction from its hirizons

If the Earth undergoes global contraction, its outer boundary moves inward relative to its center.

In other words:

larger radius
↓
progressive contraction
↓
smaller radius
↓
outer surface moves inward
↓
the Earth is physically diminished from its outer extent

That would provide a possible physical correspondence to the wording.

11. "From Its Horizons" and a Shrinking Sphere

The expression becomes particularly interesting if Earth is treated geometrically.

Consider two spherical surfaces:

Earlier Earth

$$R_1$$

Later Earth

$$R_2<R_1$$

The difference:

$$R_1-R_2$$

represents the inward movement of the outer boundary.

The entire surface has moved toward the center.

Thus, "reduction from the extremities" need not necessarily mean that only one geographical region disappears. In a globally contracting sphere, the boundary itself is progressively displaced inward.

This is conceptually different from erosion, where material is removed from particular portions of the surface.

In global contraction:

the whole planetary boundary participates in the reduction.

This is why the wording "from its horizons" is potentially intriguing in a planetary context.

12. The Larger Geological Picture

There is nevertheless a much broader point that is difficult to dispute.

Earth is not a static object.

It has evolved from a hotter and more energetic early state into its present differentiated structure. Its interior continues to lose heat. Its core continues to evolve. Its mantle continues to convect. Its crust is continually created, destroyed, fractured, compressed and displaced.

The planet therefore undergoes continuous physical evolution.

The question is not whether Earth changes.

It does.

The more difficult question is whether one component of that evolution is a net global reduction in Earth's volume and radius. The Frontiers study answers that question affirmatively. 

13. A Remarkable Conceptual Correspondence

If future observations were to establish conclusively that Earth is undergoing long-term global contraction, the conceptual sequence would be remarkably simple:

A hot Earth cools.

Molten material solidifies.

Density and internal volume change.

The planet adjusts mechanically.

Its radius decreases.

Its outer boundary moves inward.

Distances between corresponding points on its surface decrease.

This is not a supernatural mechanism. It is a physically intelligible consequence of planetary thermodynamics and geophysics.

And it gives a potentially meaningful physical dimension to the Qur'anic phrase:

نَنقُصُهَا مِنْ أَطْرَافِهَا

"We decreed the earth to be reduced in its horizons."

Conclusion

The idea that the Earth may be shrinking should not be dismissed simply because the effect is extremely small on a human timescale. The Earth began as a much hotter planetary body and has undergone billions of years of cooling, crystallization and differentiation. The physics of thermal contraction and solidification provides a plausible mechanism by which changes in internal volume can translate into changes in the planet's dimensions.

The 2022 Frontiers in Earth Science study provides an especially interesting modern example. Using GPS observations from 1995–2019, together with length-of-day observations and estimates of solidification-related heat and volume changes, its authors calculated an average decrease in Earth's radius of approximately 1.65 mm per year, corresponding to approximately 842 km³ of volume reduction per year.

This result should not yet be described as settled scientific consensus. Nevertheless, it establishes that global contraction of the Earth is a scientifically investigated hypothesis supported by a published quantitative model and observational analysis.

Against this background, Qur'an 21:44 presents an intriguing linguistic possibility:

أَفَلَا يَرَوْنَ أَنَّا نَأْتِي الْأَرْضَ نَنقُصُهَا مِنْ أَطْرَافِهَا

The classical exegetical tradition principally understood this as the diminution of the lands and power of the unbelievers. That interpretation remains important and should not be discarded.

Yet the literal vocabulary of the verse—"We reduce the earth from its extremities"—is also capable of prompting a broader physical reflection. If the Earth is indeed undergoing global contraction, then its outer boundary is progressively displaced inward, its mean radius decreases, and corresponding distances across its surface decrease.

Thus, one may cautiously propose a possible physical correspondence, rather than claim a definitive scientific tafsir:

Early molten Earth
↓
Cooling and solidification
↓
Change in internal volume
↓
Global contraction
↓
Reduction in mean radius
↓
Reduction of corresponding surface distances
↓
A possible physical manifestation of "نَنقُصُهَا مِنْ أَطْرَافِهَا"

Whether this is what the verse intended is ultimately a matter of Qur'anic interpretation, not something a geophysical experiment can decide. But the fact that modern geophysics can formulate and quantitatively investigate a process in which the Earth itself becomes physically smaller makes the verse an intriguing subject for renewed scientific reflection.