Talking to an expert

Try talking to a scientist about a fight you had with a friend last night. I'm talking about a really smart scientist, the type who loves his research and is always up-to-date with latest developments, but also one who's willing to sit and listen to your problem and discuss it in detail. What do you think it will be like?

If he's a chemist, he'll use words like "reaction" and "bonding". If he's a psychologist, it won't be long before he starts analyzing your personality. If he's a physicist, he'll probably relate to the fact that you're alike in character causing a repulsion between you. A historian, he could compare your fight to the battle of Troy! If he's a sailor, he might mention how you should detect a storm on the horizon and avoid it by going in a different direction. If you talk to a computer person like me, I will definately mention something about compatibility and how you need a device driver to be able to interact with your friend! Everyone relates to their field of knowledge and expertise, borrowing words from it, drawing analogies and analyzing within their context. This is part of what we may call our diction, the way in which we choose our words and how we explain things and relate to our background, and it is what makes talking to each different person a unique and interesting experience.

God's diction

What about God , the all-knowing expert in everything? After all He created this world, controls it to His will and knows every detail. And God loves science and the seeking of knowledge, and has praised scientists very highly, telling us that they are the ones who know and fear Him most.

[Qur'an 35:28]

You will find that in the Holy Qur'an, every few verses, God relates to a scientific fact, a phenomenon of nature, or an event in history. These references are so abundant that if each of the phycist, historian, sailor, etc. mentioned earlier and many others were to pick up the Qur'an, they could each write a small book about the references to their field of interest made in it. The references are mentioned subtly enough that a lot of them can only be noticed by an expert in the field. Some are probably so subtle that we still have not found them. Since the Qur'an has and will exist eternally, some of these facts are things that we already knew, but some are things which nobody knew at the time the Qur'an was inspired to Muhammad (around the year 630 AD), and that we have only discovered recently. And some facts are still there which we still do not understand and are yet to discover through science.

The diction of the Qur'an is a study in itself which will probably never be exhausted, and it has many aspects far beyond our scope on these pages. Here we are focusing only on the repeated reference to scientific and historical facts. But how can we use this feature to support the originality and accuracy of the Holy Qur'an? There are several ways in which we can benefit from these references in our study of authenticity:

• Upon examining the level of detail with which God describes things in the Qur'an, each of us verifying the accuracy of the description in his/her field, we are bound to wonder how any human being can be so familiar with such a diverse number of fields that he includes it so smoothly in his writing. We would then have to conclude that this Qur'an is from no other but God .
• We will find facts mentioned in the Qur'an several hundred years before science uncovered them, and this foreknowledge is another indication that the Qur'an is from God .
• Given the abundance and frequency of mentioning such facts in the Qur'an, we can also use this feature to contribute to our confidence in the accuracy of transmission of the Qur'an. Had anybody attempted to change any part of the text, he would have had to change the meaning of surrounding verses and would have lost the scientific references in it. Thus we can confirm that at least the few verses in the vicinity of each such reference are intact.

The universe, creation and the end

The universe was a connected cloud of hot gas and dust (smoke) in the beginning. The description of the Qur'an of the universe as having been shaped out of a cloud of smoke: “And He who turned [His design] to the skies when it had been smoke...” is now an undisputed principle of modern cosmology. The term “smoke” is most befitting to explain the opaque, highly dense and hot gaseous composition that existed prior to the universe's expansion. New stars are in fact still forming, as astronomers explain, from the remnants of that primary “smoke”. It is virtually inconceivable that a person of seventh century Arabia could have known such information about the beginnings of the universe.

[Qur'an 41:11]

Scientists have postulated for a long time now that the universe was originally a single primary mass of nearly infinite density that subsequently split into multiple fragments after a tremendous explosion, called the “Big Bang.” It has also been established that all living cells consist mostly of water, which is the essential element for the existence of life as we know it. The word “maa'a” is commonly translated as “water” but refers to both water in the sky and in the sea, and in fact any sort of liquid. The verse above therefore is in agreement with scientific observations.

Jeffrey Lang also notes that “the more interesting observation is that this challenge to unbelievers was proclaimed in the seventh century. We may ask ourselves: Which unbelievers are being addressed here? For the contemporaries of Muhammad, this revelation had many compelling aspects, but this question could not have made much sense to them unless there was some ancient, and presently unknown, Arabian mythology to which they could relate it. Was it then meant to be understood by people of a much later era who would be familiar with modern scientific findings?”

[Qur'an 21:30]

By studying the galactic spectrum, scientists have recently established that the universe is expanding. In the Qur’an, we read: “The firmament, We have built it with power. Verily, We are expanding it.” The word “samaa‘a” means firmament or heaven in the sense of the extra-terrestrial world, and the word “musi‘un” is the present plural participle of the verb “awsa‘a”, which means “to widen, to extend, to expand.” This fact is confirmed in Stephen Hawking's classic book “A Brief History of Time”.

[Qur'an 51:47]

The speed of light and relativity

There is a relation in the Qur'an that accuarately gives the well-known value for the speed of light.

[Qur'an 32:5]

The Earth

In several places, the Qur’an directs us to consider the alternation of night and day as another sign from the Almighty. For example, the verse 39:5 states: “…He wraps the night around the day and He wraps the day around the night.” The Arabic verb “kawwara” means “to coil or wrap around” and has the connotation of wrapping or winding something around a spherical object, such as winding a strand of yarn around its ball, or a turban cloth around a person's head. From the perspective of the planet Earth, this is exactly what takes place in that a half sphere of night followed by a half sphere of day is continually being wound around its surface. An observer from space, looking at Earth from a distance, would see in fact what appears to be the winding of day and night around the planet in a circular motion. When observing from a stationary angle, the light of the day appears to merge into the night and vice versa. This is due to the earth’s rotation and the sun’s relatively stationary position in relation to the earth. The Qur’an’s use of words in this description is thus remarkable.

[Qur'an 7:54]
[Qur'an 36:37]
[Qur'an 31:29]

Seas and rivers

When two seas meet, one with higher salinity and warmer than the other, they do not mix or transgress.

[Qur'an 55:19-20]

Also, when fresh water from a river meets salty sea water in an estuary, there is a partition between them of different salinity separating them.

[Qur'an 25:53]

There are internal waves deep in the sea which occur on density interfaces between layers of different densities. These waves can even break like surface waves.

[Qur'an 24:40]

The mountains

In a textbook entitled Earth, one of whose two authors is Professor Emeritus Frank Press (Science Advisor to former US President Jimmy Carter, and President of the National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC for 12 years), it is explained how mountains have underlying roots. These roots are deeply embedded in the ground, reaching several times their elevations above the surface of the ground, thus giving the mountains a shape like a peg.

[Qur'an 78:6-7]

Mountains also play an important role in stabilizing the crust of the earth. They hinder the shaking of the earth. The modern theory of plate tectonics holds that mountains work as stabilizers for the earth.

[Qur'an 16:15]

This knowledge about the shape of the mountains was introduced only in the latter half of the nineteenth century, and their role as stabilizers for the earth has just begun to be understood in the framework of plate tectonics since the late 1960s.

Plant respiration

[Qur'an 81:17-18]

The moon

[Qur'an 54:1]

Human anatomy

Prefrontal area of the brain (nasiyah) used for lying and motivation and planning for aggression and sins.

[Qur'an 96:15-16]

Human embryology

Human embryo described as "alaqah", which means leech/suspended thing/blood clot, all of which are true. Then it becomes a "mudghah" resembling a chewed substance.

[Qur'an 23:12-14]
[Qur'an 96:1-2]
[Qur'an 22:5]

Reproduction and genetics

[Qur'an 6:98]

Bees and honey

A swarm of bees comprises three types: a queen, the worker bees who collect honey and build the hive, and the male drones, whose sole purpose is to impregnate the queen and are then killed off by the worker bees. These worker bees are all females with underdeveloped sex organs. Thus the phrasing of this command in the Qur’an is in perfect correspondence with the fact that male bees do not participate in the construction of the hive or “dwelling”, which is the sole work of the females.

[Qur'an 16:68]

The city of Iram

[Qur'an 89:7]

The Roman empire

[Qur'an 30:2-4]