Eminent religious scholar Kaukab Noorani has expressed his disbelief in the widely-accepted scientific fact that earth orbits around the sun in a video which is going viral over the internet.

“Science says earth revolves around Sun. [Religious] scholars say the earth is stationary. Earth doesn’t revolve,” the acclaimed Islamic preacher claimed during a sermon.

He went on to criticise the ‘people of science’ for teaching children that earth revolves around the sun. While explaining his opinion, he gave a reference of a book titled “Al Fauz Ul Kabeer”.

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Noorani refuted the proven scientific fact of earth’s motion by saying that the planet is stationary because of holy reasons. The video was later shared by a Twitter account and people raised their eyebrows in the comments section.

In 2015, a Saudi cleric made news when he rejected the theory that the Earth revolves around the Sun and claimed that the opposite is true, Al Arabia News reported.

His statements sparked a wave of social media remarks across the globe.

When a student questioned him about whether the Earth was stationary or moving, Sheikh Bandar al-Khaibari responded with “stationary and does not move.”

To support his theory, Khaibari quoted some clerics and chose to present some religious statements. He then used some visuals to further strengthen his argument.

Holding up a sealed water cup, he questioned “First of all, where are we now? We go to Sharjah airport to travel to China by plane, clear? Focus with me, this is Earth,” he said pointing at the sealed cup.

He then argued that if a plane stops still in the air, “China would be coming towards it in case the Earth rotates in one direction. If the Earth rotates in the opposite direction, the plane would never reach China, because China is also rotating,” he explained.

A wave of controversial remarks flooded social media, following the clerics video, so much so that a new hashtag began trending on Twitter: #cleric_rejects_rotation_of_Earth

Several Twitter users ridiculed the cleric for this notion.

In an interesting remark, one user tweeted: “What a coincidence that this would occur on Galileo’s birthday!”

Galileo was accused by the church for many of his beliefs including his support for the Copernican theory that the Earth and other planets revolved around the sun.

In the 16th century, Italian scientist Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for teaching Copernicus’ heliocentric view of the universe which argued that earth was a planet orbiting the Sun once every year.