Shayh Bin Bāz’s explained his view very clearly in his article titled: (الأدلة العقلية والنقلية) that the sun is in actual and absolute motion (as opposed to restricted motion, see below) and that this is the motion through which night and day alternate and through which seasons occur (as opposed to these phenomena being caused by the axial rotation and orbit of the earth around the sun).
The Shaykh says right at the end of the treatise:[1]
That which revealed and observable evidences are established upon is that the sun traverses in its circular motion,[2] in its stations (in relation to the stars), its eastern (rising points) and its western (setting points) with absolute motion. This [motion] varies in accordance with its stations and the seasons. [All of this] is organised with a tremendous precise and exact arrangement which the sun does not exceed or transgress.
As for the saying that it is stationary and does not move, then it is disbelief and misguidance and a futile saying that opposes revealed and observed evidences. It is not permissible for a Muslim to believe that—as I have explained in the preceding speech—because Allāh the Sublime describe the sun with motion in many verses from His Mighty Book and He never described it once as being stationary. Likewise, the Messenger (صلى الله عليه وسلم). Thus, to describe it as being stationary is considering Allāh the Sublime and His Messenger (صلى الله عليه وسلم) to be untruthful. Further, it is also opposed to what is witnessed just as it is opposed to revealed text.
Shaykh Bin Bāz (رحمه الله) holds takfīr of such a one, the one who rejects the sun has this absolute motion through which the phenomena of the alternation of the night, day and variation of seasons occur.
However, some people of philosophy and kalām[3], trying to hold on to the Solar System model of the disbelievers claim that the motion being referred to in the Qurʾān is the sun rotating around its own axis while it is at the same time stationary.
Shaykh Bin Bāz (رحمه الله) speaks of this view:
The saying that the sun is stationary and moving around itself (axial rotation) at the same time, as is said by many of the astronomers, is a futile saying opposing revealed and observed evidences.
The Shaykh went on to explain that he does not make takfīr of such a one, but that:
It is not permissible for a Muslim to say the sun is stationary from any angle at all because that clashes with the texts of the Noble Qurʾān, the texts of the Sunnah and the testimonies of visual observation, and the disbelief of the one holding this is not far off (وما كفر صاحبه ببعيد) , and from Allāh is aid sought.
The reason why Shaykh Bin Bāz (رحمه الله) says that this person’s disbelief is not far off is because this person is trying to flee from what is clear and apparent by seeking refuge in a view in which he deceives himself into thinking that he is not denying what the Qurʾān says, that the sun moves, only that it moves around its own axis. So technically speaking, in his mind, he considers the sun to be moving and not stationary, hence in his estimation, he has not opposed the Qurʾān.
Because there is some misinterpretation (taʾwīl, shubhah), Shaykh Bin Bāz does not make takfīr of such a one. However, in reality, this person is not far off from disbelief, because essentially, he is saying the sun is actually stationary and that none of the phenomena (alternation of day and night, variation of seasons) arise due to the sun’s motion.
Then the Shaykh discusses a third view which is the claim that the Earth has two motions, daily axial rotation and then yearly motion around the sun:
I made clear in what has preceded that the statement of the daily and yearly circular motion of the Earth, all of it is falsehood, and I mentioned of revealed and observed evidences, the speech of the people of knowledge among the mufassirīn (exegetes) and other than them from the Muslim scholars and the astronomers what indicates the earth being stationary and firmly-fixed and the absence of circular motion and that the sun is the one that traverses around it just as Allāh (عز وجل) has organised it for the beneficial interests of the servants.
This is refutation of the people of philosophy and kalām who—trying their hardest to merge the Book and Sunnah with the saying of the disbelieving astronomers—claim that the motion affirmed for the sun is not circular motion around the Earth, but just "motion" and one cannot describe that motion in any way, because it allegedly has not been mentioned in the texts.
This is pure falsehood.
Rather the revealed texts are explicit that the alternation of the day and night are through the motion of the sun. The Companions and those after them from the scholars and commentators of the Qurʾān have made clear that the sun's motion is daily circular motion around the Earth.
This is what Shaykh Bin Bāz is referring to and he refers to this as the unrestricted motion, meaning that which is left exactly as the Qurʾān and Sunnah came with. Whoever denies this motion is a disbeliever.
Earlier in the treatise the Shaykh (رحمه الله) explained the error of the one who tries to qualify and restrict this motion, by claiming it refers only the sun’s axial rotation. This is taqyīd (qualification, restriction) that the Qurʾān and Sunnah never came with.
Shaykh Bin Bāz says explicitly on page 38 of this treatise (وهذا هو الجريان المطلق الذي وصفها الله في محكم كتابه وعلى لسان رسوله ) that this daily motion around the Earth, giving rise to day and night and the seasons is the “absolute motion” mentioned by Allāh in His Book and the Messenger in his Sunnah, referring to the ḥadīth of Abu Dharr (رضي الله عنه).
Summary
01 Shaykh Bin Bāz (رحمه الله) outlines three positions:
The first is the motion of the sun around the Earth which in the Qurʾān and the Sunnah is the circular motion through which day and night alternate, there being no other motion being intended other than this, and this is explicit in the revealed texts, through the use of the word falak (circular motion) and from them the ḥadīth of Abu Dharr (رضي الله عنه).
Whoever denies this motion of the sun and claims the sun is stationary is a disbeliever.
02 The second is the claim that the sun only has axial rotation, rotating around itself while being stationary itself. Such a person is not far off from disbelief.
03 The third is the one who claims that the phenomena of night and day and the seasons are due to the Earth’s daily motion (axial rotation) and yearly motion (orbit around the sun), but that the sun is also in motion, and this is what is said by the contemporary astronomers. However, this statement is also falsehood and rejected by observation as the sun’s motion is observed with the senses as is the Earth’s rest and no evidence has ever been provided that the Earth is in motion and all attempts to detect Earth’s motion in the 19th century failed, which is what led the people of disbelief to save their Copernican model through the invention of “relativity”, to conceal this fact of Earth's rest.
The Shaykh withholds from the takfīr of such a person because though the revealed texts indicate Earth's rest, there is faulty interpretation (taʾwīl) and misconception (shubhah) involved which this prevents him from making takfīr of such a one, and this is a matter of investigation.
But there is no doubt, alongside the Shaykh's precaution, that this is close to kufr nevertheless, just as Shaykh Muqbil (رحمه الله) said, that speaking with the motion of the Earth is closer to kufr.
If one rejects this reality after it is clearly established and the faulty interpretations and misconceptions are removed, then that would be rejection after knowledge and this would be disbelief.
04 As mentioned above, sadly there are Muslims who know these affairs and they latch on to what maybe a scholar or two who may have held that what the disbelievers say are established certainties, and despite these evidences being made clear, they continue trying in vain to merge the speculations of the disbelievers with explicitly stated realities mentioned in the revealed texts.
Such people are in great danger.
05 Finally, and more generally speaking, from the greatest of trials and afflications to befall the Muslims in the modern era is their acceptance of the speculations of the disbelievers through their crass pseudosciences whether this is in the field of Cosmology and Astronomy (such as the Big Bang and Solar System models) or Darwinian evolution.
There are among the Muslims who believe these things having been deceived by the self-deception of the disbelievers themselves, those who follow their desires and have made a religion out of what they call “science” but which departs from genuine science and involves all sorts of trickery, deception, sleight-of-hand, mind experiments, models, simulations and various other types of make believe in which they try to project and impose the fabrications of their minds onto physical realities.
Note: The heads of disbelief, past and present, believe that the Prophets and Messengers were simply shrewd, intelligent men with creative imaginations, powerful intellects and charisma, and, wanting to rectify society, they made up fabricated stories about life and death, the hereafter, Paradise and Hell in order to help people live good lives. Basically, they were skilled at manipulating society through the "noble lie".
This is what they believe, and in turn, they themselves believe that they can tell "noble lies" in order to manage society and help it run efficiently and in the way they desire. This is what Plato wrote about over two thousand years ago and the Western and European elites love him for that, and follow his teachings.
Upon this, they have turned science, originally a useful and somewhat objective means of studying creation, into a religion itself.
They know that control over what is knowable yields the greatest amount of power, more than guns, tanks, planes, missiles and bombs. This is why over the past century or so, there has been a concerted effort to gain total control over what is knowable by means of science, so that monopoly power can be gained through it.
From the most harmful of these crass and fraudulent pseudosciences in the modern era is "Climate Science" and "Darwinian Virology" against which all Muslims are warned and advised with caution. These frauds and pseudosciences (in which some truth can be mixed with falsehood) are used to psychologically manipulate and control people, just as the Big Bang and Solar System models are used to brainwash people into beleiving that they are nothing more than an insignificant speck in a never-ending, eternal cosmos, and do not have any privileged position whatsoever.
Footnotes
1. See page 72 of the treatise.2. The word "falak" means circular motion and has been explained by the Companions and their successors who took explanation of the Qurʾān from them.
3. The Salaf considered anyone who spoke with opinion to oppose the Qurʾān and the Sunnah to be from the people of blameworthy kalām, so this is not restricted to the topic of the Ṣifāt (Attributes) of Allāh alone.
