Is the universe expanding, and does its mass grow?

The universe is constantly expanding, but its mass does not grow. It only changes between energy and matter, and the Holy Qur’an describes expanding as an ongoing attribute of God.

Science has found that the universe is expanding. Its most distant parts are moving away from each other at an unimaginable speed. But this does not mean that its mass is growing. The total amount has remained the same since the beginning. It only changes form, from energy into matter and from matter into energy.

In the beginning everything was packed together in one single state, as the second verse above describes. Then it was opened out and unfolded. Since then the universe has taken on ever new forms and shapes. What grows is not the amount, but the expansion and the variety of forms.

It is remarkable how the Holy Qur’an speaks of this. In the first verse above, God says that He has built the heaven. The Arabic word that translations render as vast power also carries the meaning of making wide and expanding. So God did not create the universe and then leave it as it was. He keeps expanding it.

The form of the word describes an attribute, not just a single act. Expanding belongs to God's nature and continues. When God speaks of Himself in the plural, this is an expression of greatness and majesty in Arabic. In this way the Holy Qur’an describes in a few words what research discovered only much later.