Brother Osama has apparently spent enough of his time in writing articles and debating with other people, so probably for this reason, he prefers to give links to his articles and let critics argue on specific points from those articles instead of just making blanket statements of denial.
Although, I don’t agree with the way Brother Osama “welcomed” you because he himself advises to “not insult or offend any non Muslim members”, he probably drew those conclusions because of the kind of arguments that you made, some of which, if I’m not missing something, were blatant fallacies.
The following is from my limited understanding and reasoning which can be flawed.
- “The heavens and the earth were not created in 6 days. Qur'an 50:38”
The word translated as ‘days’ in this verse: “Ayyam”, can also mean ‘Periods’. The ‘Shakir’ translation of the Qur’an uses the word ‘Periods’. Whether you term this as convenient or not it does not disprove the Qur’an.
- “A clot of blood is not a stage in human development. Qur’an 23:13-14”
“Clot of blood” is not the only way this part of the verse can be translated. Others have translated it to a “clinging clot”. The article Brother Osama Abdullah linked to above, goes into more detail on this:
http://www.answering-christianity.com/bones_then_muscles_wrapping.htm- “Living things are not made from water. Qur’an 21:30”
You are committing the fallacy of incorrect inference here. It’s like if I say that humans have a brain, a heart and a stomach; it doesn’t mean I’m saying that humans don’t have a liver, pancreas or intestines.
The Qur’an doesn’t say that living things are made of ONLY water, meaning that other things are possibly included but water is a certainty, which was proved (from what I’ve read) by the discovery of water in all living cells. Also, the Qur’an claims that human beings are also made of clay, not just water which would fulfil the requirement for “Carbon, Nitrogen, and Phosphorous for DNA”. This particular “Clay” claim is too ambiguous for most people to consider a miracle, so it is usually not included under the heading of “Scientific Miracles”.
- “The skies and the earth were not once one mass, they were not split asunder. Qur’an 21:30”
Because of accumulated empirical evidence the Big Bang Theory is considered the likely explanation of the fact of expanding universe. Because of cosmic expansion it is highly likely that “an expanding universe might be traced back in time to an originating single point” of extreme density and temperature. In other words, all of the universe (the present skies and the earth) at some point in the past accumulated together at a single point.
“… If galaxies are moving away from us, reasoned Hubble, then at some time in the past, they must have been clustered close together.”
Source:
http://home.cern/about/physics/early-universe- “Suggesting something is smaller than an atom is not atomic theory. Quran 43.3”
When the Qur’an talks about knowledge people probably knew in the 7th century, the critics argue that there is nothing significant here, even though, according to scholarly consensus, Muhammad didn’t know how to read or write, probably didn’t travel much – in which case all of this “common” knowledge (like the merging of two seas) would have been stories that he heard from others – therefore, if Muhammad was a person who so casually used to include stories that he himself had no observational proof for and for which he only had the word of strangers, there would’ve been an extremely high probability that “his” book would have included many obvious mistakes, not like the equivocal ones, critics come up with, which are mostly, if not always straw man fallacies.
And on the other hand, when the Qur’an makes a claim that 7th century Arabia didn’t know about (like the smaller than an atom claim) the critics argue that it was an “obvious suggestion” or “it is simple human logic”. It is pertinent to note here, that if science hadn’t discovered smaller particles than an atom then the very same critics would have been claiming that this is a mistake in the Qur’an. Call it a guess or whatever, but it turned out to be true. A “guess” more improbable for a 7th century, illiterate Arab tribesman.
These “guesses” individually are not representative of the divine nature of the Qur’an but act only as hints . Only when they are collectively considered does the probability of them being a mere co-incidence becomes highly unlikely.
- “The universe was not made from smoke. Quran 41:11”
Shakir’s Qur’an translation has translated the word as vapour. Google translate also translates the word to “fume” which can easily mean “Vapour” “Smoke” or “Gas”.
“In the first moments after the Big Bang, the universe was extremely hot and dense. (…) It took 380,000 years for electrons to be trapped in orbits around nuclei, forming the first atoms. These were mainly helium and hydrogen, which are still by far the most abundant elements in the universe. 1.6 million years later, gravity began to form stars and galaxies from clouds of gas.”
Source:
http://home.cern/about/physics/early-universeNumerical MiraclesAlthough unlike some other Muslims, I don’t believe that the numerical “miracles” of the Qur’an are absolute proofs for the divinity of the Qur’an, I don’t deny that they are still of huge importance. As with many things in history there is some degree of uncertainty, in such cases the Occam’s Razor principle is helpful: “Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected.”
The Qur’anic revelation happened in parts. Simultaneously, different verses belonging to various chapters of the Qur’an were getting revealed to Muhammad. Therefore, at the same time different chapters remained incomplete. During that same time, Muhammad’s followers were being tortured, he was experiencing the loss of his loved ones (family and friends), himself facing persecution, migrating from his home, constantly being a teacher for his followers, creating a new legal and spiritual system, fighting wars with the disbelievers, sending missionaries to foreign lands and kings, spending a lot of time on his prayers and fasting, being a constant political leader, judge, educator, ambassador and labourer for his community. In all that, Muhammad who couldn’t read or write created these mathematical novelties and the most amazing thing for me to believe is that he forgot to tell anyone about them.
Furthermore, the interesting relationship between some words and their related words (by being opposites or some other obvious relationship) also would have been extremely difficult to pull off in such circumstances. From what I’ve read these relationships were found only after the Qur’an’s index was made available in 1945 due to years of work by a man and his students.
Additionally, the most significant of these numerical happenings is the fine, fragile relation between the chapter numbers, their verse numbers and the total number of verses in the Qur’an. One hypothesis would be that Muhammad intentionally somehow designed this (keeping all the above mentioned difficulties in mind) and chose not to tell anyone about it. Muhammad could have easily told his followers about it and told them that it was a fine divinely inspired relationship which was supposed to help them make sure that not a single verse of the Qur’an is missing or extra. Why would a person risk such a finely designed relationship, which undoubtedly would have required huge amounts of effort, to be so easily forgotten? In-fact, if I’m not mistaken, it took about thirteen centuries for this connection to be finally found.
Moreover, there are scholars (non-Muslim) of Muhammad’s life, like William Montgomery Watt, who assert that even although they are not in a position to conclude whether Muhammad’s inspirations were divinely inspired or just a product of his own unconscious functioning, what they do believe in, is that Muhammad was indeed a sincere person.
“Only a profound belief in himself and his mission explains Muhammad's readiness to endure hardship and persecution during the Meccan period when from a secular point of view there was no prospect of success. Without sincerity how could he have won the allegiance and even devotion of men … His sincerity in this belief must be accepted by the modern historian, for this alone makes credible the development of a great religion.”
Source: Watt, Montgomery, Muhammad: Prophet and Statesman. Oxford University Press, 1961. From p. 232 + The Cambridge History of Islam (1970), Cambridge University Press, p.30
In such a situation, if there is indeed a divine being and if that being wanted to leave a sign for His believers regarding the preservation of His book, a thousand years after His prophet had died, the above mentioned mathematical relationship would have been a pretty nice way to do it. Keeping all the information we have about Islam, this appears to be the most likely or believable hypothesis.
Regards,
