WATER, LIFE, AND THE HEAVENS: A Qur'an-First Interdisciplinary Framework for Planetary Habitability, Extraterrestrial Water, and the Future Search for Life

The search for life beyond Earth is one of the most fundamental scientific questions of the modern era. Contemporary astrobiology investigates this question through planetary habitability, the presence and history of liquid water, organic chemistry, energy availability, environmental stability, and the detection of potential biosignatures. This paper proposes a Qur’an-first interdisciplinary framework for generating research questions concerning water, life, and the wider cosmos. Three Qur’anic passages are examined as textual premises for scientific inquiry: Qur’an 21:30, which connects water with living things; Qur’an 24:45, which describes living creatures in relation to water; and Qur’an 42:29, which refers to creatures distributed within the heavens and the Earth. The study does not interpret these verses as empirical measurements, astronomical catalogues, or direct identification of extraterrestrial life. Rather, they are treated as scriptural premises capable of generating scientifically investigable questions. The central methodological principle proposed here is: “The Qur’an generates the research question; empirical science evaluates the scientific hypothesis.” The paper then compares this textual framework with selected developments in contemporary astrobiology, including the expanding exoplanet inventory, Mars biosignature research, Europa Clipper, Enceladus ocean chemistry, and the methodological difficulties involved in interpreting exoplanet atmospheric gases. A conceptual framework termed the Qur’anic Water–Life–Cosmos Hypothesis (QWLCH) is proposed. QWLCH does not claim that water guarantees life, nor does it assert that extraterrestrial life has already been detected. Instead, it proposes that water-bearing environments beyond Earth should remain scientifically important targets when water availability is considered together with appropriate chemical, energetic, environmental, temporal, and observational conditions. A conceptual representation is P(L | W, C, E, S, T) > 0, where L = possible life or biological activity; W = water availability; C = chemical suitability; E = energy availability; S = environmental stability; and T = sufficient temporal continuity. This expression is not a Qur’anic equation, not a measured probability, and not an established physical or biological law. It is a conceptual representation of a research-prioritization hypothesis. The proposed contribution is therefore methodological rather than concordist: QWLCH separates scriptural premises, empirical observations, scientific inference, and future testable research priorities. It is offered as a hypothesis-generating interdisciplinary framework for future astrobiological research rather than as proof of extraterrestrial life or a claim that the Qur’an predicts specific modern astronomical discoveries.