Vegetation before the Sun?

Genesis 1:11-13—”How can the vegetation come into existence without the sun?”

In Sahih Muslim1 and al-Tabari’s account of Qur’ānic creation sequence, we also find vegetation coming two days before the sun was created. The diagram above showing the sequence of the Torah creation period explains this—translucent light (which appeared on the first day) had been coming through the atmosphere from before this period, yet the sun or moon were not perceivable as yet. Thus photosynthesis could occur and plants develop, which in turn caused the oxygenation and clearing up of the atmosphere. Dr. Robert C. Newman (Ph.D. in Theoretical Astrophysics from Cornell University) concludes that “vegetation was the immediate cause of both the oxygenation of the atmosphere and the removal of its heavy cloud cover.”2

1. Sahih Muslim, #6707
2. . John Warwick Montgomery, ed. Evidence For Faith (World Publishing, 1986), pp.108-109.