Answering Christianity Research Center

@StardustyPsyche,

At this point I’m really confused about what you are actually trying to say.

From what I understand you are trying to say that because the Qur’an contradicts the Ptolemaic model or at-least part of it, it is a scientific mistake.
Using the analogy of a multilane road, in the Ptolemaic model the Sun, the moon and all planets are in a position to “overtake” each other from the perspective of a person on Earth, as would’ve been observed at the time of the solar eclipse. The moon would have “overtaken” or “passed-by” the Sun on that “multilane road”.

Or in other words, as Sahih International used the word “reach” instead of “overtake”, in that solar eclipse the sun would have had definitely from the perspective of a person on Earth “reached” the moon. But because of the difference of the “multilane roads” these two objects aren’t actually overtaking eachother.

For example, a ferry “orbiting” the Statue of Liberty and a car “orbiting” the Eiffel Tower cannot overtake each other because their “multilane roads” are different. From the perspective of a person to the east of these two buildings with the two objects (i.e. the ferry and the car) in his straight line of sight, who is able to look at only these objects, can theoretically say that, according to his line of sight, one is overtaking the other, but from the perspective of a person in space the question doesn’t even arises. Apologies for the confusing example.

-   “Note, the moon, mercury, venus, sun, mars, jupiter, and saturn were treated the same in terms of motion and were all considered planets of the earth”
What’s this got to do here? This kind of confirms the Qur’an.

-   “Also, note the position of the stars in a spherical shell outside the planets, hence the reference to spheres in the Qur'an.”

OK, so when a “celestial sphere” is used as a practical tool for “spherical astronomy”, are modern astronomers accepting the Ptolemaic model too? Additionally, out of the eight different (only talking about English here) translations of both the verses only “Shakir” is the one using the word “spheres” in each verse and from what I know about the meanings of the individual words none of them are individually translated as “spheres”. “Shakir”” probably used the word as what he deemed to be an explanation.

-   “So, brother Ahmad, we can see that the verses in the Qur'an are simply poetic and very simple words that describe the prevailing view of that day.”

The prevailing view of the day includes the sun and the moon “overtaking” or “passing-by” in the metaphorical “multilane road”.

-   “But, those words are in error to the extent that the planets do overtake each other as they move in their circular tracks, just like racers who stay in their own lanes but overtake by running faster.”
I don’t know if there are more verses talking about this matter or not, but where Qur’an 36:40 is concerned it is specifically talking about the sun and the moon and no other planets.

-   “It was Christian Europe that deduced the truth we all know today, and corrected the scientific errors of the Qur'an and nearly everybody else, thanks to Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton.”
More like the ones who got famous for deducing the truth, kind of like Christopher Columbus’ “discovery”. As with most historical discoveries no one can be sure who originally presented the idea.
George Saliba, a Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies in the Department of Middle East and Asian Studies at Columbia University, in his book ‘Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance’, “details the innovations (including new mathematical tools) made by the Islamic astronomers from the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries, and offers evidence that Copernicus could have known of and drawn on their work.”
Source: http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/islamic-science-and-making-european-renaissance

@StardustyPsyche,

“The Arabic word used in the above verse [Qur’an 21:33] is yasbahun . The word yasbahun is derived from the word sabaha. It carries with it the idea of motion that comes from any moving body. If you use the word for a man on the ground, it would not mean that he is rolling but would mean he is walking or running. If you use the word for a man in water it would not mean that he is floating but would mean that he is swimming.
Similarly, if you use the word yasbah for a celestial body such as the sun it would not mean that it is only flying through space but would mean that it is also rotating as it goes through space.”

Source: http://sunnahonline.com/library/the-majestic-quran/430-quran-and-modern-science-compatible-or-incompatible-the#h4-1-i-the-existence-of-subatomic-particles

-   “I would repeat my above statements with regard to these similar passages, but I would note a scientific error in the case of 36:40. The sun does reach the moon, in the sense that their positions do cross at new moon, which is from our point of view no moon.  In fact, when the sun and the moon align at new moon we get a solar eclipse, at which time the night does, in some sense, outstrip the day.”

At this point I have become pretty certain that you are trying hard to find any mistakes in the Qur’an. You could have used ‘possibly’ or ‘apparently’ in your claim of a “scientific error” but instead you chose to make an absolute statement.

A solar eclipse actually happened during the life of the Prophet. Calculated Astronomy data and the narrations of the Prophet’s life confirms that. By your own admission as “from our point of view” when the moon comes in front of the sun, it has, observationally speaking “overtaken” the sun, so doesn’t it mean that the verse was wrong with respect to the “Science” or observations of that time? In contrast, today’s science tells us that the moon doesn’t actually overtake the sun, simple observation may phrase it like overtaking but in reality that doesn’t happen.

Regards,

@StardustyPsyche,

-   “Sorry, but the old refrain of Muhammad the ignorant illiterate just doesn't work.  He undoubtedly had access to all the most learned men in Arabia, and undoubtedly conversed with knowledgeable men and ranking men from far away places.”

By ignorance I mean the state of knowledge and learning in Arabia. From what I know, there weren’t any libraries or universities in that part of the world at that time. Even if we assume that all the learned people of the world came to meet the Prophet, the fact remains that most of these “known” facts were theories and not in the form of empirically provable facts. How was the Prophet able to distinguish the right ones from the wrong? How was the Prophet able to differentiate which person was just spreading hearsay and which person was actually correct?
For me the observation is that two waters are meeting each other and because, one water does not start encroaching back on land there is probably some mixing going on too. What’s not an observation is that there are cline or any layers prohibiting mixing temporarily. It can be a guess but not an observation.

As I have been repeatedly trying to tell you a barrier is by definition something that is forbidden to be crossed. As long as the separating layer remains, mixing is “prohibited”. The Qur’an does not claim that the partition remains forever. This understanding is, in my opinion, an incorrect inference fallacy.

-   “ “Run” has a multitude of meanings.  A cold may run its course, a road runs North and South, water runs, my nose runs when I have a cold, a particular brand of shoe has sizes that run small.  We may run into difficulty, run for office, or run away from a problem. "Run" does not equal "fast motion" ”

Did you seriously use that argument? You do know that phrases used in English are not necessarily used in the same way in other languages, right? I can’t say much about Arabic but I definitely know at-least one language where the literal translation of these phrases will sound pretty stupid.

And as for ‘just a poetic description’ it would be more believable in the scenario that we didn’t know the sun was in rapid motion and Islam critics wouldn’t have been trying to use this as a mistake in the Qur’an. Why is that when a verse conforms to modern scientific knowledge it is vague or poetic or metaphorical but when it allegedly contradicts it there is no clearer verse in the Qur’an? Remember that from the confirmation of the heliocentric model to the confirmation of motion of all heavenly bodies this Qur’an verse was “contradicting” modern science of the time.
A person can call it an extraordinary co-incidence, sure, but how many “co-incidences” is it going to take to satisfy that person?

Regards,

@StardustyPsyche,

-   “Oh, but I did another solution!  This time I duplicated the exact numbers of the so called golden ratio supposedly created in code by Allah.  And I can assure you, I am not Allah, yet I produced these numbers.  There are no scientific miracles in the Qur'an”

Nice work. Now do this while not knowing what the golden ratio actually is.

-   “Yes, just go outside at night, there is nothing apparently holding up the “heavens”.  How obvious.  How is that supposed to be some kind of scientific miracle? … There is nothing scientific about that, it is a mere assertion of divine powers, just like thousands of other assertions made by all the other imagined gods. ‘... My Lord encompasses all things in His knowledge so will you not pay heed?’ Again, there is nothing scientific about that, it is a mere assertion of divine powers.”

Not every single word or term of the Qur’an is claimed to be a scientific miracle. Brother Dawud is simply writing the Qur’an verse 13:2 and in the end Qur’an verse 6:80.

-   “Now, if you want to say a “period” an undetermined length of time then that is no miracle.”
I don’t think anyone here is claiming that this is a scientific miracle in the first place.

As a final point, so that I can further gauge what you consider satisfactory evidence, I want to ask that if the Qur’an says something along the lines of one of your criticisms such as: “… man evolved from lower primates” or “…Actually it doesn’t settle, it mixes with the woman’s own fluids” would it then be satisfactory?

Regards,

I apologise beforehand for any unintentional mistakes that I may make in the following posts.

@Brother Osama,
I appreciate the link, it provided me with possible refutations to the claims of some Islam critics.

@StardustyPsyche,
I stayed away from commenting because I don’t believe there is much I can do to convince you.

-   “… I did not notice you make any specific claims of a scientific miracle in the Qur'an.”

Merriam-Webster Dictionary: “An extremely outstanding or unusual event, thing, or accomplishment”
Source: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/miracle

I belong to the group of Muslims who believe that the primary “miraculous” thing about the Qur’an, in the context of Science, is that modern science sustains the claims made in the Qur’an and does not contradict them. From what I know, no ancient text does that. The individual “scientific” claims are of a secondary nature because the Qur’an was never claimed to be a book of Science but rather a book of “signs”. For some people they are enough to validate Islam and for others, at the very least, they serve as points of interest or curiosity to make people perform deeper research into the religion.

-   “What is a scientific miracle in an ancient text?
First let me say what it is not:
A statement that could have been a simple observation available at that time…”

Who is to say what was a “simple observation” and what wasn’t? This is an especially subjective requirement. If it cannot be proven or disproven that a particular statement was a “simple observation”, the next step is to determine how likely it would’ve been for a person to make that “simple observation”. The discussion becomes a matter of probabilities.
As I mentioned before, all life created from water is not a simple observation. The observation that species known to 7th century humans, required water to survive does not naturally lead to the claim that all life is created from water.

-   “… A vague statement that is open to multiple interpretations as may be conveniently fit into facts found out later, as is commonly a tactic used by so called psychics…”
All living things are created from water, as I mentioned before, this is not a vague statement. From what I understand, probably the only two things it can mean is that either all living things have water as a constituent of their physical bodies or in some distant past water, probably along with some other constituents, was the starting point of life. The former point is proved by the existence of water in all living cells, the later possibility is something, if I understand correctly, the theory of evolution indirectly states (I’m among those Muslims who don’t see Islamic doctrine to be contradicting evolution, at-least not unequivocally).

Just in case, you still try to argue that this particular claim is vague, you will be committing the Special Pleading fallacy because you had no problem with its “vagueness” when you were trying to push it as a scientific mistake in the Qur’an. In other words, it would mean that the Qur’an is only vague when it confirms Science but not when it appears to contradict it.

-   “… Statements that are incorrect in their most direct meaning and can at most be considered possible if a very broad interpretation is used…”
What exactly is the “most direct meaning”? Again a very subjective requirement. If Islamic traditions are cherry-picked then I’m sure hundreds of “contradictions” can be found. This is not a fault with the Qur’an but with the subjective reasoning of the people trying to interpret it with their recognized or unrecognized biases.
As with the water example, the “most direct meaning” for some people is indeed a scientific mistake but for students of critical reasoning and logical arguments fallacies, it isn’t.

-   “… A statement written as a prediction but actually addressing events prior the writing of the earliest extant copy of the alleged prediction.”
This requirement has more to do with subjectivity in the present context than to being an objective requirement in all situations. The non-existence of the first copies of the Qur’an today does not mean that the Qur’an simply didn’t exist in that time. For example, if two editions of a book come out with a difference of a decade and after some time all the first editions are lost or destroyed and only the second edition remains in circulation it would be a fallacious argument to claim that the first edition never existed or that the author’s ideas belonged to the time of the second edition and not the first.

One has to have extensive knowledge on this issue before he/she can claim that the Qur’an came after the predicted events. Numerous arguments have been made in support of the concept of preservation of the Qur’an. A huge amount of literature has been penned down regarding it, so I won’t get into that. I will just quote Assistant Professor Joseph E. B. Lumbard on this:

…For the Sana’a manuscripts, it reveals occasional variations in the ordering of the sūrahs (or chapters) of the Quran, and slight variations in reading that correspond to the variations that had been preserved in the extensive Islamic material detailing variant readings of the Quran. But all of these variations had already been and recorded in the Islamic historiographical tradition. In other words, analysis of the “under text” confirms the accuracy of early Islamic historiography.
This changes the field of Quranic Studies because it provides empirical support for the accuracy of the traditional Islamic accounts that many western scholars have previously claimed to be anachronistic and unreliable, such as the existence of variant manuscripts of the Quran before the collation of the text in 650. Furthermore, statistical analysis of the variants within the earliest manuscripts suggests that the final version that came to be the accepted text of the Quran “is overall a better reproduction of the common source.” Even minor textual variations that were reported by early Islamic scholars and transmitted in the Quranic commentary tradition find substantiation in the “under text” of the earliest manuscripts of the Quran.
In addition, recent studies have demonstrated that the earliest Islamic literature on variant readings of the Quran is for the most part reliable and that the historicity of the received data is, as Michael Cook of Princeton University observes, “a testimony to the continuing accuracy of the transmission of the variants.” Such findings correspond with the most recent anthropological studies that confirm the historical reliability of oral transmission traditions.”

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-e-b-lumbard/new-light-on-the-history-_b_7864930.html

When you later on forwarded the idea that the Qur’an might not have been preserved, I was kind of astonished that, the reasoning you gave for this assertion is that this is a circular reasoning. Seriously? Do you actually believe that the only reason –  billions of Muslims throughout the centuries have, and still do, believe in the preservation of the Qur’an –  is just because the Qur’an says so?
As I said above, a huge amount of literature and scholarly work has been done on this, go through that before flat out rejecting things.

-   “… A numerological association that could have been intentionally constructed by human beings deeply dedicated to such a task.”

As I mentioned before, pretty much any numerical association that can be discovered can be claimed to have been intentionally inserted by humans, there isn’t much that can be done about that. In such cases, it becomes a matter of how likely such a happening was, in which case a higher level of understanding of surrounding factors is important. The ones I’ve mentioned already in addition to several others, in my opinion point towards these associations being: “An extremely outstanding or unusual event”.

Additionally, as Brother Osama pointed out the present Qur’anic text that has been used to calculate these numerical associations didn’t exist fourteen centuries ago. How could’ve Prophet Muhammad been able to insert sensitive numerical associations, like the ones based on the number of letters, in a text that was going to evolve over the centuries.

An example regarding this evolution of written text is in the obsolete spelling of the English word “sonne” for either “son” or “sun”.
Source: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sonne
As you can see the pronunciation and the meaning of the word remained the same but the spelling or the number of characters in the word changed. If I remember one particular article correctly, a similar evolution was also observed for the Arabic written text. The worst-case theory is that this is just a co-incidence which in-turn is contradicted by the fact of huge quantities of these associations. I personally haven’t compared the different written scripts so I can’t discuss how likely or unlikely is the “950 letters” association.

-   “Here are a few examples invented for the purposes of illustration:
Gabriel told me today to recite for all the world to hear that there are 92 fundamental atoms to be discovered on this Earth, and 5 of them are essential to the construction of a structure within our bodies too small for us to see, yet it contains the instructions needed to construct each of us.”

First of all, from what I’ve read and if I understand you correctly, there are definitely more than 92 fundamental (which I’m assuming means naturally occurring) elements on Earth. Regarding your point, whatever the number God would have told the Prophet it would’ve remained unprovable until all material from all over the world had been scientifically analysed which if I’m not mistaken is pretty much impossible at-least up till now. Also, again the argument could’ve been made on what is the definition of “essential” in the above paragraph. Does it include only elements that contribute directly, or are indirectly contributing substances also incorporated? Additionally, as we know that because of fission through the process of “Nuclear transmutation” atoms of one type can change to a different type, it can be argued that technically, in essence a lesser number of elements or even just one is “essential” for this purpose.
Furthermore, it can also be easily claimed that because all animals and plants come from previous animals and plants respectively, it was, what was that term you used, “a simple observation available at that time”.

-   “Gabriel told me to tell you folks that diseases such as smallpox and the common cold are caused, not by demons, but by tiny creatures that are too small for us to see.  When these tiny unseen creatures invade our bodies we become sick.”

First of all there is enough evidence to show that Prophet Muhammad didn’t believe diseases were caused by demons and neither did, at-least the majority of, his companions.
Abu Hurayrah narrates that The Prophet pbuh said:
“There is no disease that Allah has created, except that He also has created its remedy.”
Bukhari 7.582
Usamah ibn Shuraik narrated:
“… ‘O Allah’s Messenger! Should we seek medical treatment for our illnesses?’ He replied: ‘Yes, you should seek medical treatment, because Allah, the Exalted, has let no disease exist without providing for its cure, except for one ailment, namely, old age’.”
Tirmidhi
Source: http://www.fiqh.org/2009/04/every-illness-has-a-cure-the-islamic-perspective/

And it is interesting that you talked about smallpox because Muhammad ibn Zakariya ar-Razi (Rhazes) a Persian scientist’s “work on smallpox and measles was one of the first scientific treatments of infectious diseases.”
Source: http://www.infoplease.com/cig/dangerous-diseases-epidemics/smallpox-12000-years-terror.html

Moving on to your point, once again the argument of “a simple observation available at that time” can be made. A tapeworm in a human can range in length from 1/250 of an inch (.0063 cm) to an incredible 50 feet (15.23 meters).
Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/27/the_odd_body_tapeworm/

Furthermore, their eggs also find their way out of the bodies of animals through excretions. So, all a person had to do was examine the insides of some animal or their excretion to be able to deduce that tiny organisms can invade our bodies and make us sick. And using the incorrect inference fallacy, your “scientific miracle” would actually be a mistake because “when these tiny unseen creatures invade our bodies” it is not necessary for us to get sick. Sometimes we do, sometimes we don’t.

-   “Gabriel told me to say to everybody that the points of light in the night sky are just like our sun, but a thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand thousand paces distant, except the wandering lights that shine with a steady light, which are actually worlds like our own Earth.  All these worlds and our earth move around the sun in orbits with the fundamental shape of a curve that is expressed as x divided by a times x divided by a plus y divided by b times y divided by b all to equal one.”

Once again, I can claim things faraway look smaller and it would’ve been “a simple observation available at that time” to claim that stars are faraway “suns”. That there is a difference between the “twinkling” and “non-twinkling” dots in the night sky was also “a simple observation available at that time”.

“Planets, on the other hand, are observed to move in very complicated paths with respect to the background stars, sometimes even appearing to go "against the grain" and reverse their directions. Therefore, they are easily distinguishable from stars if you look at the sky night after night.
There are other observational differences between planets and stars too, by the way -- such as the fact that planets almost never twinkle.”
Source: http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/physics/58-our-solar-system/planets-and-dwarf-planets/planet-watching/255-what-is-the-observational-difference-between-a-star-and-a-planet-beginner

Brother Osama believes that the Qur’an does talk about the curved path of heavenly bodies in his article:
http://www.answering-christianity.com/detailed_meanings_of_scientific_words_in_verses.htm

-   “Gabriel gave me another message for you folks that energy equals mass times the speed of light times the speed of light.  I have no idea what that means but he said one day humanity will understand it and use it to build weapons of terrible destructive power.”

First of all God doesn’t have to include any scientific prediction in the Qur’an, as I mentioned before it is never claimed that the Qur’an is a book of Science. Besides even if this was included there would’ve still been lots of people who wouldn’t have believed.
Coming back to your point, this contradicts your own understanding of the Qur’an when you wrote “…the notion that Allah was presumably speaking eternal truths for all men of all times to come”. If people had absolutely no idea of what was being talked about wouldn’t that go against the concept of “for all men of all times”?

-   “As for what convinced me there is no god I would like to emphasize your well-chosen words, that I am convinced.  I do not make the strong claim of being able to absolutely prove there is no god, since I am unable to prove the universal negative… I was 12 and in the many years since I have continually reexamined my adolescent self-realization of the absence of any god…”

Atheism:
Merriam-Webster Dictionary: “A disbelief in the existence of deity” or “The doctrine that there is no deity”
Oxford Dictionary: “A person who disbelieves or lacks belief in the existence of God or gods” or “A person who believes that God does not exist”
Sources:
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/atheist
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/learner/atheist

Agnostic:
Merriam-Webster Dictionary: “A person who does not have a definite belief about whether God exists or not.”

Therefore, if you cannot prove that there is no God then, strictly speaking, logic dictates, if I’ve got my definitions correct, that you define yourself as more of an agnostic than an “atheist”.

-   “I am not sure if As'salamu Alaikum is the correct form as a valediction so I will close in my own vernacular…”
"Assalamu alaikum" means "Peace be with you". It is an Arabic phrase, from what I understand, there is nothing wrong in its use by non-Muslims.

-   “…you apparently agree with my fundamental claim…”
No, I don’t agree. What I am saying is that for essentially anything that could have been included in the Qur’an, there would’ve always been some person in the world who was going to say: not good enough. This is the reason creationists won’t believe that the Earth is billions of years old or why “HIV Truthers” won’t accept that AIDS is caused by HIV. No amount of evidence is going to be enough for them. Whatever evidence they are provided with, they just say that it’s just a co-incidence or that more proof is still required. For such people, I would suggest they follow the Occam’s Razor principle.

-   “… This seems an odd assertion given the notion that Allah was presumably speaking eternal truths for all men of all times to come…”
OK, I’m going to give an example for exactly this, but I’m pretty sure you are still not going to be satisfied. In the starting verses of the Qur’an’s 30th chapter, God talks about a major defeat that the Byzantines had suffered at the hands of the Persians and predicts decisive Byzantine victory within a period of the next three to nine years, which actually happened even though the Persians had reached up to Egypt. Now, the defeat of the Byzantines that the Qur’an was referring to had occurred in an area for which the Qur’an uses the term “adna al-ard”. This was understood to mean as “the nearest land” because the Roman defeat took place in the nearest Roman land to the Arab region. But this term can also mean “the lowest land” as this meaning is available in Arabic dictionaries and is used as such in several verses of the Noble Quran. Interestingly, now we know that the area of the Dead Sea basin, in addition to being the nearest Roman occupied land to the Arabian Peninsula, is also the lowest point of dry land on earth.
Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20140504150013/http:/www.onislam.net/english/health-and-science/faith-and-the-sciences/464520-the-fulfilled-prophecy-of-surat-ar-rum.html?the_Sciences=

Now again you are going to argue that this is just a co-incidence, but the fact remains, in terms of probability this possibility is extremely unlikely. Think of all the variables and possible permutations involved here.

-   “Your primary claim seems to be that when the words of the Qur’an are translated in their broadest sense they are at least not incompatible with our modem understandings of science.”
When the Qur’an talks about all living things made from water, or that the heavens and Earth were once joined together or that celestial bodies rotate or other similar instances, the similarity to actual science definitely does not appear to be in the “broadest sense”. For me, it is pretty specific.

On a final note, perhaps if you can explain exactly what is the evidence that has convinced you to believe that there is no God, might give me an idea of what evidence you actually deem as satisfactory or believable.

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-universe

Numerical Miracles

Although 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,