The claim
Critics argue that "seven mighty heavens" reflects an outdated, naive cosmology—a literal stack of seven solid domes or layers above the earth—which modern astronomy has disproven, showing the Qur'an to be a product of its time rather than a divine text.
The kernel of concern
It is true that pre-modern peoples often pictured layered skies, and that the Qur'an does not present a modern astrophysical map of the universe. Reading "seven heavens" as seven physical domes would not match what we observe.
What the verse actually says
The verse says "and built above you seven mighty heavens" (78:12). The commentators define shidādā as "firm, strong, well-secured," describing a soundly built structure. The Qur'an's stated purpose here is to display God's power and bounty as an argument for the resurrection (78:6–16), not to teach a cosmological diagram. It does not describe the heavens as solid domes resting on the earth.
The honest position
The honest position is that the Qur'an uses "seven heavens" as a recurring expression for the created realms above us, and classical scholars treated its precise structure as part of the unseen (ghayb) rather than something to be pinned to any one cosmological model. The text never specifies solid domes; it stresses firmness and elevation. The number seven recurs across the Qur'an (e.g. 65:12, 67:3) and is understood by mainstream scholarship as real but its nature deferred to God's knowledge—a posture that does not commit the text to any disproven physical schema.
Strongest counter-arguments
A skeptic may reply that "seven" still looks like ancient numerology. The measured counterpoint is that the Qur'an deliberately avoids the detailed mythological cosmologies common in its milieu (no gods holding up the sky, no specified materials), and that scripture using accessible, observational language to make a theological point—God built the sky firmly, therefore He can raise you—is not the same as asserting a falsified scientific model. The argument of the passage stands regardless of how the seven realms are physically construed.