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The Amazing Qur'an (1 of 2)
By Gary
Miller
Calling the Qur'an amazing is not
something done only by Muslims, who have an appreciation for the
book and who are pleased with it; it has been labeled amazing by
non-Muslims as well. In fact, even people who hate Islam very
much have still called it amazing.
One thing which surprises non-Muslims who are examining the book
very closely is that the Qur'an does not appear to them to be
what they expected. What they assume is that they have an old
book which came fourteen centuries ago from the Arabian desert;
and they expect that the book
should look something like that - an old book from the desert.
And then they find out that it does not resemble what they
expected at all. Additionally, one of the first things that some
people assume is that because it is an old book which comes from
the desert, it should talk about the desert. Well the Qur'an
does talk about the desert - some of its imagery describes the
desert; but it also talks about the sea - what it's like to be
in a storm on the sea.
Some years ago, the story came to us in Toronto about a man who
was in the merchant marine and made his living on the sea. A
Muslim gave him a translation of the Qur'an to read. The
merchant marine knew nothing about the history of Islam but was
interested in reading the Qur'an. When he finished reading it,
he brought it back to the Muslim and asked, "This Muhammad, was
he a sailor?" He was impressed at how accurately the Qur'an
describes a storm on a sea. When he was told, "No as a matter of
fact, Muhammad lived in the desert," that was enough for him. He
embraced Islam on the spot. He was so impressed with the
Qur'an's description because he had been in a storm on the sea,
and he knew that whoever had written that description had also
been in a storm on the sea. The description of "a wave, over it
a wave, over it clouds" (Qur'an 24:40) was not what someone
imagining a storm on a sea to be like would have written;
rather, it was written by someone who knew what a storm on the
sea was like. This is one example of how the Qur'an is not tied
to a certain place and time. Certainly, the scientific ideas
expressed in it also do not seem to originate from the desert
fourteen centuries ago.
Smaller than the Atom:
Many centuries before the onset of Muhammad's Prophethood, there
was a well-known theory of atomism advanced by the Greek
philosopher, Democritus. He and the people who came after him
assumed that matter consists of tiny, indestructible,
indivisible particles called atoms. The Arabs too, used to deal
in the same concept; in fact, the Arabic word "dharrah" commonly
referred to the smallest particle known to man. Now, modern
science has discovered that this smallest unit of matter (i.e.,
the atom, which has all of the same properties as its element)
can be split into its component parts. This is a new idea, a
development of the last century; yet, interestingly enough, this
information had already been documented in the Qur'an which
states: "He [i.e., Allah] is aware of an atom's weight in the
heavens and on the earth and even anything smaller than that..."
(10:61). Undoubtedly, fourteen centuries ago that statement
would have looked unusual, even to an Arab. For him, the "dharrah"
was the smallest thing there was. Indeed, this is proof, that
the Qur'an is not outdated.
In Honey There Is Healing:
Another example of what one might expect to find in an "old
book" that touches upon the subject of health or medicine is
outdated remedies or cures. Various historical sources state
that the Prophet gave some advice about health and hygiene, yet
most of these pieces of advice are not contained in the Qur'an.
At first glance, to the non-Muslims this appears to be a
negligent omission. They cannot understand why Allah would not
"include" such helpful information in the Qur'an. Some Muslims
attempt to explain this absence with the following argument:
"Although the Prophet's advice was sound and applicable to the
time in which he lived, Allah, in His infinite wisdom, knew that
there would come later medical and scientific advances which
would make the Prophet's advice appear outdated. When later
discoveries occurred, people might say that such information
contradicted that which the Prophet had given. Thus, since Allah
would never allow any opportunity for the non-Muslims to claim
that the Qur'an contradicts itself or the teachings of the
Prophet, He only included in the Qur'an information and examples
which could stand the test of time."
However, when one examines the true realities of the Qur'an in
terms of its existence as a divine revelation, the entire matter
is quickly brought into its proper perspective, and the error in
such argumentation becomes clear and understandable. It must be
understood that the Qur'an is a divine revelation, and as such,
all information in it is of divine origin. Allah revealed the
Qur'an from Himself. It is the words of Allah, which existed
before creation, and thus nothing can be added, subtracted or
altered. In essence, the Qur'an existed and was complete before
the creation of Prophet Muhammad, so it could not possibly
contain any of the Prophet's own words or advice. An inclusion
of such information would clearly contradict the purpose for
which the Qur'an exists, compromise its authority and render it
inauthentic as a divine revelation.
Consequently, there was no "home remedies" in the Qur'an which
one could claim to be outdated; nor does it contain any man's
view about what is beneficial to health, what food is best to
eat, or what will cure this or that disease. In fact, the Qur'an
only mentions one item dealing with medical treatment, and it is
not in dispute by anyone. It states that in honey there is
healing. And certainly, I do not think that there is anyone who
will argue with that!
Not from Muhammads's Mind:
If one assumes that the Qur'an is the product of a man's mind,
then one would expect it to reflect some of what was going on in
the mind of the man who "composed" it. In fact, certain
encyclopedias and various books clam that the Qur'an was the
product of hallucinations that Muhammad underwent. If these
claims are true - if it indeed originated from some
psychological problems in Muhammad's mind - then evidence of
this would be apparent in the Qur'an. Is there such evidence? In
order to determine whether or not there is, one must first
identify what things would have been going on in his mind at
that time and then search for these thoughts and reflections in
the Qur'an.
It is common knowledge that Muhammad had a very difficult life.
All of his daughters died before him except one, and he had a
wife of several years who was dear and important to him, who not
only proceeded him in death at a very critical period of his
life. As a matter of fact, she must have been quite a woman
because when the first revelation came to him, he ran home to
her afraid. Certainly, even today one would have a hard time
trying to find an Arab who would tell you, "I was so afraid that
I ran home to my wife." They just aren't that way.
Yet Muhammad felt comfortable enough with his wife to be able to
do that. That's how influential and strong woman she was.
Although these examples are only a few of the subjects that
would have been on Muhammad's mind, they are sufficient in
intensity to prove my point. The Qur'an does not mention any of
these things - not the death of his children, not the death of
his beloved companion and wife, not his fear of the initial
revelations, which he so beautifully shared with his wife -
nothing; yet, these topics must have hurt him, bothered him, and
caused him pain and grief during periods of his psychological
reflections, then these subjects, as well as others, would be
prevalent or at least mentioned throughout.
Test of Falsification:
A truly scientific approach to the Qur'an is possible because
the Qur'an offers something that is not offered by other
religious scriptures, in particular, and other religions, in
general. It is what scientists demand. Today there are many
people who have ideas and theories about how the universe works.
These people are all over the place, but the scientific
community does not even bother to listen to them. This is
because within the last century the scientific community has
demanded a test of falsification. They say, "If you have theory,
do not bother us with it unless you bring with that theory a way
for us to prove whether you are wrong or not."
Such a test was exactly why the scientific community listened to
Einstein towards the beginning of the century. He came with a
new theory and said, "I believe the universe works like this;
and here are three ways to prove whether I am wrong!". So the
scientific community subjected his theory to the tests, and
within six years it passed all three. Of course, this does not
prove that he was great, but it proves that he deserved to be
listened to because he said, "This is my idea; and if you want
to try to prove me wrong, do this or try that." This is exactly
what the Qur'an has - falsification tests. Some are old (in that
they have already been proven true), and some still exist today.
Basically it states, "If this book is not what it claims to be,
then all you have to do is this or this or this to prove that it
is false." Of course, in 1400 years no one has been able to do
"This or this or this, " and thus it is still considered true
and authentic. I suggest to you that the next time you get into
dispute with someone about Islam and he claims that he has the
truth and that you are in darkness, you leave all other
arguments at first and make this suggestion. Ask him, "Is there
any falsification test in your religion? Is there anything in
your religion that would prove you are wrong if I could prove to
you that it exists - anything?" Well, I can promise right now
that people will not have anything - no test, no proof, nothing!
This is because they do not carry around the idea that they
should not only present what they believe but should also offer
others a chance to prove they're wrong. However, Islam does
that. A perfect example of how Islam provides man with a chance
to verify it authenticity and "prove it wrong" occurs in the 4th
chapter. And quiet honestly, I was surprised when I first
discovered this challenge. It states: "Do they not consider the
Qur'an? Had it been from any other than Allah, they would surely
have found therein much discrepancy." (4:82)
This is a clear challenge to the non-Muslim. Basically, it
invites him to find a mistake. As a matter of fact, the
seriousness and difficulty of the challenge aside, the actual
presentation of such a challenge in the first place is not even
in human nature and is inconsistent with man's personality. One
doesn't take an exam in school after finishing the exam, write a
note to the instructor at the end saying, "This exam is perfect.
There are no mistakes in it. Find one if you can!". One just
doesn't do that. The teacher would not sleep until he found a
mistake!
And yet this is the way the Qur'an approaches people. Another
interesting attitude that exists in the Qur'an repeatedly deals
with its advice to the reader. The Qur'an informs that reader
about different facts and then gives the advice: "If you want to
know more about this or that, or if you doubt what is said,
"then you should ask those who have knowledge." This too is a
surprising attitude. It is not usual to have a book that comes
from someone without training in geography, botany, biology,
etc., who discusses these subjects and then advises the reader
to ask men of knowledge if he doubts anything.
Yet in every age there have been Muslims who have followed the
advice of the Qur'an and made surprising discoveries. If one
looks to the works of Muslim scientists if many centuries ago,
one will find them full of quotations from the Qur'an. These
works state that they did research in such a place, looking for
something. And they affirm that the reason they looked in such
and such a place was that the Qur'an pointed them in that
direction. For example, the Qur'an mentions man's origin and
then tells the reader, "Research it!" It gives the reader a hint
where to look and then states that one should find out more
about it. This is the kind of thing that Muslims today largely
seem to overlook - but not always, as illustrated in the
following example. A few years ago, a group of men in Riyadh,
Saudi Arabia collected all if the verses in the Qur'an which
discuss embryology - the growth of the human being in the womb.
They said, "Here is what the Qur'an says. Is it the truth?" In
essence, they took the advice of the Qur'an: "Ask the men who
know." (16:43)
Only Has Been Divinely Revealed:
They chose, as it happened, a non-Muslim who is a professor of
embryology at the University of Toronto. His name is Keith
Moore, and he is the author of textbooks on embryology - a world
expert on the subject. They invited him to Riyadh and said,
'This is what the Qur'an says about your subject. Is it true?
What can you tell us?' While he was in Riyadh, they gave him all
of the help that he needed in translation and all of the
cooperation for which he asked. And he was so surprised at what
he found that he changed his textbooks. In fact, in the second
edition of one of his books called "Before We Are Born...",
about the history of embryology, he included some material that
was not in the first edition because of what he found in the
Qur'an. Truly this illustrates that the Qur'an was ahead of its
time and that those who believe in the Qur'an know what other
people do not know.
I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Keith Moore for a
television presentation, and we talked a great deal about this -
it was illustrated by slides and so on. He mentioned that some
of the things that the Qur'an states about the growth of the
human being were not known until thirty years ago. In fact, he
said that one item in particular - the Qur'an's description of
the human being as a "leech-like clot" ('alaqah) at one stage -
was new to him; but when he checked on it, he found that it was
true, and so he added it to his book.
He said, "I never thought of that before," and he went to the
zoology department and asked for a picture of a leech. When he
found that it looked just like the human embryo, he decided to
include both pictures in one of his textbooks. Dr. Moore also
wrote a book on clinical embryology, and when he presented this
information in Toronto, it caused quite a stir throughout
Canada. It was on the front pages of some of the newspapers
across Canada, and some of the headlines were quite funny. For
instance, one headline read: "SURPRISING THING FOUND IN ANCIENT
BOOK"! It seems obvious from this example that people do not
clearly understand what it is all about. As a matter of fact,
one newspaper reporter asked Professor Moore, "Don't you think
that maybe the Arabs might have known about these things - the
description of the embryo, its appearance and how it changes and
grows? Maybe there were not scientists, but maybe they did
something crude dissections on their own - carved up people and
examined these things."
The professor immediately pointed out to him that he [i.e., the
reporter] had missed a very important point - all of the slides
of the embryo that had been shown and had been projected in the
film had come from pictures taken through a microscope. He said,
"It does not matter if someone had tried to discover embryology
fourteen centuries ago, they could not have seen it!". All of
the descriptions in the Qur'an of the appearance of the embryo
are of the item when it is still too small to see with the eye;
therefore, one needs a microscope to see it. Since such a device
had only been around for little more than two hundred years, Dr.
Moore taunted, "Maybe fourteen centuries ago someone secretly
had a microscope and did this research, making no mistakes
anywhere. Then he somehow taught Muhammad and convinced him to
put this information in his book. Then he destroyed his
equipment and kept it a secret forever. Do you believe that? You
really should not unless you bring some proof because it is such
a ridiculous theory." In fact, when he was asked "How do you
explain this information in the Qur'an?" Dr. Moore's reply was,
"It could only have been divinely revealed."!
Although the aforementioned example of man researching
information contained in the Qur'an deals with a non-Muslim, it
is still valid because he is one of those who is knowledgeable
in the subject being researched. Had some layman claimed that
what the Qur'an says about embryology is true, then one would
not necessarily have to accept his word. However, because of the
high position, respect, and esteem man gives scholars, one
naturally assumes that if they research a subject and arrive at
a conclusion based on that research, then the conclusion is
valid.
One of Professor Moore's colleagues, Marshall Johnson, deals
extensively with geology at the University of Toronto. He became
very interested in the fact that the Qur'an's statements about
embryology are accurate, and so he asked Muslims to collect
everything contained in the Qur'an which deals with his
specialty. Again people were very surprised at the findings.
Since there are a vast number subjects discussed in the Qur'an,
it would certainly require a large amount of time to exhaust
each subject. It suffices for the purpose of this discussion to
state that the Qur'an makes very clear and concise statements
about various subjects while simultaneously advising the reader
to verify the authenticity of these statements with research by
scholars in those subjects.
And as illustrated by the Qur'an has clearly emerged authentic.
Undoubtedly, there is an attitude in the Qur'an which is not
found anywhere else. It is interesting how when the Qur'an
provides information, it often tells the reader, "You did not
know this before." Indeed, there is no scripture that exists
which makes that claim. All of the other ancient writings and
scriptures that people have, do give a lot of information, but
they always state where the information came from.
For example, when the Bible discusses ancient history, it states
that this king lived here, this one fought in a certain battle,
another one had so may sons, etc. Yet it always stipulates that
if you want more information, then you should read the book of
so and so because that is where the information came from. In
contrast to this concept, the Qur'an provides the reader with
information and states that this information is something new.
Of course, there always exists the advice to research the
information provided and verify its authenticity. It is
interesting that such a concept was never challenged by
non-Muslims fourteen centuries ago. Indeed, the Makkans who
hated the Muslims, and time and time again they heard such
revelations claiming to bring new information; yet, they never
spoke up and said, "This is not new. We know where Muhammad got
this information. We learned this at school."
They could never challenge its authenticity because it really
was new! In concurrence with the advice given in the Qur'an to
research information (even if it is new), when 'Umar was caliph,
he chose a group of men and sent them to find the wall of
Dhul-Qarnayn. Before the Qur'anic revelation, the Arabs had
never heard of such a wall, but because the Qur'an described it,
they were able to discover it. As a matter of fact, it is now
located in what is called Durbend in the Soviet Union. It must
be stressed here that the Qur'an is accurate about many, many
things, but accuracy does not necessarily mean that a book is a
divine revelation. In fact, accuracy is only one of the criteria
for divine revelations.
For instance, the telephone book is accurate, but that does not
mean that it is divinely revealed. The real problem lies in that
one must establish some proof of the source the Qur'an's
information. The emphasis is on the reader. One cannot simply
deny the Qur'an's authenticity without sufficient proof. If,
indeed, one finds a mistake, then he has the right to disqualify
it. This is exactly what the Qur'an encourages. Once a man came
up to me after a lecture I delivered in South Africa. He was
very angry about what I had said, and so he claimed, "I am going
to go home tonight and find a mistake in the Qur'an." Of course,
I said, "Congratulations. That is the most intelligent thing
that you have said." Certainly, this is the approach Muslims
need to take with those who doubt the Qur'an's authenticity,
because the Qur'an itself offers the same challenge.
An inevitably, after accepting its challenge and discovering
that it is true, these people will come to believe it because
they could not disqualify it. In essence, the Qur'an earns their
respect because they themselves have had to verify its
authenticity. An essential fact that cannot be reiterated enough
concerning the authenticity of the Qur'an is that one's
inability to explain a phenomenon himself does not require his
acceptance of the phenomenon's existence or another person's
explanation of it.
Specifically, just because one cannot explain something does not
mean that one has to accept someone else's explanation. However,
the person's refusal of other explanations reverts the burden of
proof back on himself to find a feasible answer. This general
theory applies to numerous concepts in life, but fits most
wonderfully with the Qur'anic challenge, for it creates a
difficulty for one who says, "I do not believe it." At the onset
of refusal one immediately has an obligation to find an
explanation himself if he feels others' answers are inadequate.
In fact, in one particular Qur'anic verse which I have always
seen mistranslated into English, Allah mentions a man who heard
the truth explained to him. It states that he was derelict in
his duty because after he heard the information, he left without
checking the verity of what he had heard. In other words, one is
guilty if he hears something and does not research it and check
to see whether it is true.
One is supposed to process all information and decide what is
garbage to be thrown out and what is worthwhile information to
be kept and benefited from at a later date. One cannot just let
it rattle around in his head. It must be put in the proper
categories and approached from that point of view. For example,
if the information is still speculatory, then one must discern
whether it's closer to being true or false. But if all of the
facts have been presented, then one must decide absolutely
between these two options. And even if one is not positive about
the authenticity of the information, he is still required to
process all of the information and make the admission that he
just does not know for sure.
Although this last point appears to be futile, in actuality, it
is beneficial to the arrival at a positive conclusion at a later
time in that it forces the person to at least recognize,
research and review the facts. This familiarity with the
information will give the person "the edge" when future
discoveries are made and additional information is presented.
The important thing is that one deals with the facts and does
not simply discard them out of empathy and disinterest.
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The
Amazing Qur'an (2 of 2)
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