How Long Is a Day with Allah — 1,000 Years or 50,000?

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The Critique

Quran 22:47 and 32:5 say a day with the Lord is “as a thousand years of those you count.” Quran 70:4 says the angels ascend to Him “in a day the measure of which is fifty thousand years.”

Common Muslim Responseshow Muslim scholarship answers

Harmonizers say these describe different “days” — the day of cosmic administration versus the Day of Judgment — or that both are simply idioms for vast spans.

Counter-Rebuttalwhy critics find the responses insufficient

Possible, critics reply, but the texts give no such qualifiers; both use the same construction (“a day, the measure of which is…”). The idiom defense again trades precision for safety: if numbers in the Quran are not to be pressed, the same courtesy must extend to its numbered miracles and prophecies.