The Quran:
The Book of God
When Prophet Muhammad, may peace be upon him, claimed that the Quran was a divine book revealed to him by God for the guidance of man, there were many who did not believe him. The scriptures to them were a human rather than a divine composition. The Quran then gave a challenge to these sceptics, asking them to produce “a scripture similar to it,” if what they said were true. (52:34)
It declared, moreover, in no uncertain terms that, even if all the human beings and the jinns made collective and concerted efforts to produce a book like the Quran, they would all fail miserably in their attempt. (17:88)
The Quran, being an eternal book, poses a perennial challenge, addressed to every human being under the sun until Doomsday.
Now the question arises as to the characteristics this sacred book possesses which render it inimitable. Several aspects of its uniqueness are mentioned in the Quran, one of which is its consistency:
“Do they not ponder over the Quran? If it had not come from God, they would have found in it many contradictions (ikhtilaf).” (4:82)
(Professor Arberry has translated the Arabic word ikhtilaf as ‘inconsistency’. Other renderings of the word include contradiction, disparity and difference.)
Total consistency is an extremely rare quality, one which is an exclusive attribute of God. It is, therefore, beyond any human being to compose a work in which there are no disparities. For a work to be quite flawless, the composer has to have a command of such knowledge as encompasses the past and the future and extends also to all objects of creation. There must be no shadow of doubt in his perception of the essential nature of things. Furthermore, his knowledge must be based on direct acquaintance, not on information indirectly received from others. And there is another unique quality he must possess: he must be able to see things, not in a prejudiced light, but as they actually are.
God and God alone can possess all these extraordinary qualities. For this reason, only His Word will remain perennially free of all inconsistency. The work of man, on the other hand, is always marred by imperfection, for man himself is imperfect; it does not lie within his power to compose a work free of contradiction.
Contradictions in Human Reasoning
It is not by chance that the work of man is fraught with contradictions. It is inevitable, given the inherent limitations of human cerebral activity. Such is the nature of creation that it accepts only the Thought of its Creator. Any theory which is not in consonance with His thinking can find no place in the universe. It will contradict itself, for it stands at variance with the universe at large; it will be inconsistent, for it does not run true to the pattern of nature.
For this reason, intellectual inconsistency is bound to mar any theory conceived of by man. We shall illustrate this point by several examples.
Darwinism
Charles Darwin (1809-1882), and other scientists after him, developed the theory of Evolution from their observations of living creatures. They saw that the various forms of life found on earth outwardly appeared different from one another. Yet, biologically, they bore a considerable resemblance to each other. The structure of a horse, for instance, when standing up on its two hind legs, was not unlike the human frame.
From these observations they came to the conclusion that man was not a separate species, and that along with other animals, he had originated from a common gene. All creatures were involved in a great evolutionary journey through successive stages of biological development. While reptiles, quadrupeds and monkeys were in an early stage of evolution, man was in an advanced stage.
For a hundred years this theory held sway over human thought. But then further investigations revealed that it had loopholes. It did not fully fit in with the framework of creation. In certain fundamental ways, it clashed with the order of the universe as a whole. For instance, there is the question of the age of the earth. By scientific calculation, it has been put at around two thousand million years old. Now this period is far too short to have accommodated the process of evolution envisaged by Darwin. It has been shown scientifically that for just one compound of protein molecule to have evolved, it would have taken more than just millions and millions of years. There are over a million different forms of animal life on earth and at least two hundred thousand fully developed vegetable species. How could they all have evolved in just two thousand million years? Not even an animal low down in the evolutionary scale could have developed in that time, let alone man, an advanced life form which could have developed only after passing through countless evolutionary stages.
A mathematician, by the name of Professor Patau, has made certain calculations concerning the biological changes postulated by the theory of evolution. According to him, even a minor change in any species would take one million generations to be completed. From this, one can have an idea of how long a period would elapse before a dog, for example, turned into a horse. The multiple changes involved in such a complicated evolutionary process would have taken much too long for them to have happened during the human lifespan of the world.
As Fred Hoyle puts it, in The Intelligent Universe: Just how excruciatingly slowly genetic information accumulates by trial and error can be seen from a simple example. Suppose, very conservatively, that a particular protein is coded by a tiny segment in the DNA blueprint, just ten of the chemical links in its double helix. Without all ten links being in the correct sequence, the protein from the DNA doesn’t work. Starting with all the ten wrong, how many generations of copying must elapse before all the links—and hence the protein—come right through random errors? The answer is easily calculated from the rate at which DNA links are miscopied, a figure which has been established by experiment.
‘To obtain the correct sequence of ten links, by miscopying, the DNA would have to reproduce itself on an average, about a hundred million members of the species all producing offspring, it would still take a million generations before even a single member came up with the required rearrangement. And if that sounds almost within the bounds of possibility, consider what happens if a protein is more complicated and the number of DNA links needed to code for it jumps from ten to twenty. A thousand billion generations would then be needed, and if one hundred links are required (as is often the case), the number of generations would be impossibly high because no organism reproduces fast enough to achieve this. The situation for the neo-Darwinism theory is evidently hopeless. It might be possible for genes to be modified slightly during the course of evolution, but the evolution of specific sequences of DNA links of any appreciable length is clearly not possible.’ (p. 110)
And in any case, as Hoyle had earlier stated, ‘Shufflings of the DNA code are disadvantageous, because they tend to destroy cosmic genetic information rather than to improve it.’
To solve this problem, another theory, called the Panspermia Theory, was formed. It held that life originated in outer space. From there it came to earth. But as it turned out, this theory created new problems of its own. Where in the vastness of space was there a planet or a star with the conditions needed for life to develop? For example, there is nothing more essential to life than water. Nothing can come into existence or continue to survive without it. Yet no one knows of anywhere in the entire universe, except the earth, where it exists. We then had a certain body of intellectuals who favoured a theory of Emergent Evolution, according to which life—or its various forms—came into being all of a sudden. But this theory is empty of meaning. How can there be sudden appearance of life without the intervention of an outside force? So, we are back to where we started, with the Outside Force—or Creator—to discount which all these theories were originally invented.
The fact of the matter is, without taking a Creator into account, one cannot give a valid explanation of life. There is simply no other theory which fits in with the pattern of the universe. Being inconsistent with the nature of life, other theories fail to take firm root. It is indeed significant that eminent scholars from various fields have thought fit to contribute to an Encyclopaedia of Ignorance, which has been published in London. The book has the following introduction:
‘In the Encyclopaedia of Ignorance some 60 well-known scientists survey different fields of research, trying to point out significant gaps in our knowledge of the world.’
What this work really amounts to is an academic acknowledgement of the fact that the Maker of the world has fashioned it in such a way that it just cannot be explained by any mechanical interpretation. For instance, as John Maynard Smith has written, the theory of evolution is beset with certain ‘built-in’ problems. There appears to be no solution to these problems, for all we have to go by are theories. And without concrete evidence, there is no way we can back up our theories.
According to the Quran, man and all other forms of life have been created by God. The theory of evolution, on the other hand, holds that they are all the result of a blind mechanical process. The Quranic interpretation explains itself, for God can do as He wills. He can create what He wishes without material resources. Such is not the case with the theory of evolution, which demands that there should be a cause for everything that happens. Such causes cannot be found, with the result that the theory of evolution is left without an explanation,—in an intellectual vacuum, one might say, while the same cannot be said of the explanation of life offered by the Quran.
Political Philosophy
The same is true of political philosophy. According to the 1984 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica: ‘Political philosophy and political conflict have evolved basically around who should have power over whom.’ (14/697)
For five thousand years, eminent human brains have addressed their efforts toward finding an answer to this question. Yet they still have not been able to produce what Spinoza termed a ‘scientific base’ on which to form a coherent political philosophy.
Altogether, there are more than twelve schools of political thought, which fall into two broad categories: despotism and democracy. The first is strongly objected to on the grounds that no good reason can be found for one single individual to tyrannize the entire population of a country or countries. Although democracy, as opposed to despotism, has wide popular support, it has not provided fool-proof solutions either to philosophical or practical problems. The literal meaning of democracy—a word of Greek origin—is rule by the people. This notion has been widely hailed as a panacea of all ills, but, in practice, it has proved impossible to establish rule by the entire population of any given country. If all of the people are to govern, how can they—at the same time—be governed? If all the people cannot have power simultaneously, how can a popular government be formed? Various theories have been propounded, the most popular of which is Rousseau’s, i.e. that it should be left to the General Will, which can be determined by plebiscite. But this being a time-consuming and cumbersome process (not to speak the expense involved), government by the people becomes, in effect, government by a few elected individuals. People may be free to vote as they please, but after they have voted, they are once again subjected to the rule of a select group. Democratically elected rulers over the world are now seen to assume the same role as the monarchs of former times.
The notion of freedom is traditionally associated with democracy, but there, too, as a political system it does not necessarily make people more liberated than they were under overtly oppressive regimes. Although the entire basis of democracy is the belief that people are born equal, with equal rights and that they are free, Rousseau expresses the more immediate reality with the very first lines of his Social Contract, “Man was born free and everywhere he is in chains.” Then, too, there is man’s very nature to be considered. He is a social animal. Far from being an independent entity in this world with the liberty to live as he pleases, he is an integral part of the corpus of society. Another philosopher goes so far as to say that “Man is not born free. Man is born into society which imposes restraints on him.”
Clearly, democracy, although in large measure an improvement on despotism, does not automatically provide the key to solving the problems of restricted individual liberty and social inequality. Often, in the name of democracy, a dynastic monarchy is supplanted by an elective oligarchy, leaving the individual still feeling that he is no more than a pawn in the struggle for power. In the 18th and 19th centuries, people rose in rebellion against monarchical systems of government, but, once free of the yoke of kingly rule, they had to resign themselves to rule by an elite group calling themselves ‘representatives of the people’—which did not seem much of an improvement on life under the old monarchs, who had laid claim to being ‘representatives of God on earth.’
All political philosophers have been caught up in contradictions of this nature. And there appears no way out of the impasse. Even the so called “representation” of the people is open to question. Take the example of the British conservatives who, in one year, won a decisive victory, winning an overall majority of 144 seats. In terms of votes, however, the conservative share of the vote (43%) had fallen since 1979, i.e. as far as seats were concerned the conservatives had won a massive overall majority. But, as far as votes were concerned, they could muster only 43%. Could this be said to be truly representative of the people? Man’s failure in this field has been summed up in these words: ‘The history of political philosophy from Plato until the present day makes it plain that modern political philosophy is still faced with the basic problems.
In fact, there is only one political philosophy that does not contradict itself, and that is the philosophy put forward by the Quran. The Quran says that only God has the right to rule over man: ‘“Have we any say in the matter?” they ask. Say to them: “All is in the hands of God,’” (3:154).
The idea of God as Sovereign makes for a coherent system of thought, free from all forms of contradiction. But when man is considered sovereign, there are bound to be contradictions and inconsistencies in the political theories that evolve. The aim of all political theories has been to eradicate the divisions between ruler and subjects. Yet no human system, whatever its nature, has been able to do this. In both the democratic and totalitarian systems, human equality has remained an unattainable ideal, for power has always had to be put in the hands of a few individuals, with others becoming their subjects. This disparity can only disappear when God is considered Sovereign. Then the only difference that remains is between God and man. He is the Ruler, all are His subjects. All men are equal before Him. There is no division and no distinction, between man and man.
Twofold Inconsistency
If the different parts of a book contradict each other, the book is inconsistent within itself. If the contents of a book, as a whole, or in part, contradict known facts, the book is inconsistent with external realities. The Quran claims—with justice—to be free of either type of inconsistency, whereas no work of human origin can be free of either. It follows, therefore, that the Quran must be superhuman in origin. Had it been written by a human being, it would have been flawed by inconsistencies of the type so frequently found in the works of man.
Contradictions within a work arise basically from the deficiencies of its author. If such imperfections are to be avoided, two things are essential: absolute knowledge and total objectivity. There is no human being who is not sadly deficient in both of these areas. It is only God who is omniscient, and flawless as a Being, and while works wrought by the human hand are invariably marred by inconsistencies, His book, and His book alone never contradicts itself.
Because of man’s inherent limitations, there are many things which, intellectually, he cannot grasp. He is forced, therefore, to speculate, and this frequently leads him into making erratic judgements and unfounded contentions.
Every human being graduates from youth to old age, and when a man grows old, he often contradicts things he asserted as facts when he was young and immature. With age, his knowledge and experience increase, hence his final verdict stands at variance with his initial judgements. But even when death finally comes to take him away, he still has much to learn, and often the assertions of his mature age are proved wrong after his death. The truth is not arrived at purely through experience and reasoning.
Human beings, in addition to making inadvertent and unwitting errors are all too prone to make deliberate misrepresentations of facts when they are motivated by the base emotions of greed, envy, jealousy, revenge and fear.
Human moods and passions are often to blame for people turning a blind eye to the truth and falling a prey to faulty reasoning. Love and hate, friendship and hostility all have their influence on human thinking. A man’s inability to be dispassionate, his elation or depression, his triumph or despair, his successes and frustrations all colour the quality of his thought. Such fluctuations of mood, caprice and willfulness, can deflect the very best minds from the truth.
The only one who is free of all such caprice and all such limitations is the Almighty. That is why His word is of an impeccable consistency.
Biblical Inconsistency
To illustrate this point, let us take the example of the Bible, which, as a book of revelation was the forerunner of the Quran.
Initially, the Bible was the word of God, but in later years it suffered from human interpolations, with the result that many internal contradictions began to sully its pages. A case in point is the genealogy of the Messiah, which has been given in several places in that part of the Bible known as the Injil, or New Testament. The Gospel according to Matthew begins with this abridged genealogy: “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” (Matt. 1:1)
The genealogy of Christ is then given in detail, beginning with Abraham and ending with Joseph who, according to the New Testament was “the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus.” (Matt. 1: 16)
When the reader turns to the Gospel according to Mark, he finds these words: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” (Mark. 1:1)
According to one chapter of the New Testament, Jesus was the son of a person named Joseph, while another chapter of this very New Testament says he was the son of God.
Undoubtedly, in its original form, the Injil was the Word of God and free of all inconsistencies. It was only in later years, that human beings made additions of their own, introducing contradictions into a formerly consistent text. The Christian Church has evolved yet another extraordinary contradiction in order to explain away this discrepancy in its sacred book. The description given of Joseph in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1984 edition) is as follows: ‘Christ’s earthly father, the Virgin Mary’s husband.’
Secular Contradictions
For an instance of serious internal contradiction in secular writings, I turn to the works of Karl Marx, who commands an immense following in the modern world. The famous American economist, John Galbraith, has written of him:
‘If we agree that the Bible is a work of collective authorship, only Mohammad rivals Marx in the number of professed and devoted followers recruited by a single author. And the competition is not really very close. The followers of Marx now far outnumber the sons of the Prophet.’
But Marx’s enormous popularity does not change the fact that his work is little better than a collection of glaring contradictions. For example, Marx considers the existence of class as the root of all evil in the world. According to his philosophy, class distinction is derived from the system of private ownership, and the control
exercised by the bourgeoisie over the means of production enables them to plunder the lower labouring class.
The solution prescribed by Marx consisted of confiscating the properties of the capitalist class and putting them under the administration of the labouring class. Thus, he claimed, a classless society would come into being. But herein lies the basic flaw in Marx’s philosophy. For what comes into existence as a result of this transfer is not a classless society, but a society in which one class takes over where the other leaves off where one class previously controlled the economy by virtue of ownership, another class now controls it by virtue of its right to administer. Marx’s so-called classless society, was, in fact, one in which capitalist ownership was replaced by communist ownership.
What Marx had condemned in one place, he condoned in another. But due to his great antipathy for and antagonism towards the capitalist class, he was unable to see his own contradiction in thought. He was in favour of taking the control of economic resources away from capitalists and entrusting it to officials. But, blinded by prejudice, he failed to see what he was doing. He gave separate names to two different forms of the very same phenomenon: in the one case, he called it plunder of the many by the few, in the other, he termed it ‘social order.’
The Quran, on the other hand, is completely free of self-contradiction of this nature, and there is absolute harmony in its content. Even so, opponents of the Quran have tried to prove that contradictions do occur in it. All the examples they cite in this regard, however, have no connection whatsoever with the case they are trying to prove. They say, for instance, that in the sermon of his Farewell Pilgrimage, the Prophet stated that all men were from Adam, and Adam was from the earth. According to this principle women should enjoy the same status as men. In practice, however, this is not the case, say opponents of the Quran, who point to the inferior position women have been allotted in Islamic society. They then cite the fact that the testimony of two women is equated in law with that of one man. It is true that this is so, but only in special sets of circumstances, as is made clear in the verse of the Quran where this rule has been laid down. The verse in question deals with the written recording of debts:
‘And take two male witnesses. If there are not two men, then one man and two women—you may select the witnesses of your choice. If one woman forgets, the other will be able to remind her.’
The wording of the verse shows quite clearly that the basis of this rule is—not discrimination between the sexes—but rather allowances being made for the inferior memorizing ability of women. What is alluded to is a biological fact—that women are not as adept at remembering things as men. This is why, if women’s testimony is to be accepted in loans cases, there should be two of them: so that if at any time subsequently, they are required to give evidence, one of them should be able to compensate for the other’s poor memory.
It should be borne in mind that any other interpretation of this rule shows a total
misunderstanding of the scriptures. It should be borne in mind that modern research has confirmed what the Quran asserts—that women’s memory is weaker than that of men. Russian scientists have gone into this matter in great detail, and their conclusion has been published in book form. A summary, entitled ‘Memorizing Ability’, appeared in the New Delhi edition of the Times of India on January 18, 1985:
‘Men have a greater ability to memorize and process mathematical information than women, but females are better with words,’ says a Soviet scientist. (UPI) ‘Men dominate mathematical subjects due to the peculiarities of their memory,’ Dr. Vladimir Konovalov told the Tass news agency.
The Quranic rule, far from evincing any contradiction, proves in fact that the Quran has come from One who has absolute knowledge of the facts of existence. He sees things from every angle, and so is in a position to issue commandments that are in total harmony with nature.
External Inconsistency
Now we turn to external inconsistency. External inconsistency in a literary work occurs when what it asserts is contradicted by some reality in the outside world. Since man’s speech and writing occur within the sphere of his own knowledge, which is marked by human limitations, what he writes or says fails to conform to the external reality. We produce here a few comparative examples to illustrate this point.
Certain ancient Arab tribes sometimes killed their children, in most cases female babies, for fear of being unable to feed a large family. It was in this context that the following verses were revealed:
Do not kill your children for fear of want: We shall provide sustenance for them as well as for you. Truly, the killing of them is a great sin. (17:31)
Inherent in this pronouncement of the Quran was the claim that the growth in population, whatever its extent and degree, would not create a problem of sustenance for man on the earth; that there would be a constant favourable balance of sustenance and human population; that there would be an adequate provision of sustenance tomorrow just as there is today.
Throughout the ages, Muslims have been endorsing this claim as a matter of faith. They have left this matter to God, the great Provider.
One thousand years after this claim made by the Quran, the British economist, Robert Malthus
(1766–1834) published in 1798 his book, An Essay on the Principle of Population as it Affects the Future Improvement of Society, in which he set forth his famous theory on the growth of population. ‘Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence only increases in an arithmetical ratio.’
Simply stated, growth in population and growth in sustenance are not naturally equal. Human population grows geometrically, that is at a ratio of 1 - 2 - 4 - 8 - 1 6 - 32, while the growth of food supplies maintains an arithmetical ratio: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8. Sustenance, therefore, cannot keep up with the astronomical growth in human population. The only solution to this problem, according to Malthus, was for mankind to control its birth-rate. The population should not be allowed to exceed a certain limit, failing which the number of people on earth would become disproportionate to the amount of sustenance available, thereby ushering in an age of famine in which countless people would starve to death.
Malthus’s book made a powerful impression, winning substantial support among writers and thinkers, and leading to the launching of birth control and family-planning schemes. Recently, however, researchers have come to the conclusion that Malthus was quite wrong in his calculations. Gwynne Dwyer has summarized this research in an article, provocatively entitled ‘Malthus: The False Prophet,’ which appeared in The Hindustan Times (New Delhi) on December 28, 1984:
It is the 150th anniversary of Malthus’ death, and his grim predictions have not yet come true. The world’s population has doubled and redoubled in a geometrical progression as he foresaw, only slightly checked by wars and other catastrophes, and now stands at about eight times the total when he wrote. But food production has more than kept pace, and the present generation of humanity, is on average the best fed in history.
Malthus was born in an age of ‘traditional agriculture.’ He was unable to envisage the approach of an age of ‘scientific agriculture,’ in which amazing advances in production would become possible. Over the 150 years since Malthus’s death, methods of cultivation have been radically altered. Crops under cultivation are chosen for their particularly high yield. Cattle are able to produce a far higher amount of dairy food than before. New methods have been discovered to increase the fertility of land. Modern machinery has brought vast new areas under cultivation. In technologically advanced countries of the world there has been a 90% fall in the number of farmers: yet at the same time a tenfold increase in agricultural produce has taken place.
As far as the third world is concerned, 3 billion people inhabit these under-developed countries, but the third world also possesses the potential to produce food for 33 billion—ten times the present population. According to F.A.O. estimates, if the increase in the population of the third world continues unabated, reaching over the 4 billion mark by the year 2000 A.D., there will still be no cause for alarm. The increase in population will be accompanied by an increase in production: the means will be available to provide food for 1½ times more than the number of people who have to be fed. And this increase in food production will be possible without deforestation. So, there is no real danger of a food crisis, either on a regional or on a universal scale. Gwynne Dwyer concludes his report with the following words: ‘Malthus was wrong. We are not doomed to breed ourselves into famine.’
Where Malthus’s book on population and sustenance—the work of a human mind working within the confines of time and place—was very far out in its predictions for the human race, (and this was proved to the world just 150 years after the author’s death) the Quran, on the other hand—the work of a superhuman mind—still bears out external realities to this very day.
Historical Inaccuracy
In the 20th century B.C., during the time of the Prophet Joseph, the Children of Israel entered Egypt. Seven centuries later they left Egypt along with Moses, crossing over into the Sinai Peninsula. These events are mentioned in both the Bible, and the Quran. But, while the account in the Quran is entirely consistent with external history, the Bible relates several incidents which do not correspond to historical records. This has created problems for believers in the Bible. Should they accept what is written in the Bible, or should they go by history? Since the two contradict one another, they cannot accept both at the same time.
On January 12, 1985, a gathering was held in the Indian Institute of Islamic Studies at Tughlaqabad in New Delhi, which was addressed by Ezra Kolet, president of the Council of Indian Jewry. His topic was: ‘What is Judaism?’ Naturally, he dealt with Jewish history in his talk, mentioning, among other things, the Jew’s entrance into and exodus from Egypt. The names of both Joseph and Moses figured in his talk as well as the kings who were ruling in Egypt in their respective times. For both kings, the contemporaries of Joseph and Moses, he used the term ‘Pharaoh.’
As everyone acquainted with the period knows, this nomenclature is historically incorrect. The reign of the kings known as Pharaohs did not begin until the time of Moses: in Joseph’s day, a different line of monarchs ruled in Egypt.
When Joseph entered Egypt, the kings of a dynasty known as the Hyksos were in power. They were ethnically Arabs, and had usurped the Egyptian throne, reigning from 2000 B.C. until the end of the 15th century B.C. at which time the indigenous population rebelled against foreign rule, thus bringing the Hyksos dynasty to an end.
Home rule was then established in Egypt. The clan that took over sovereignty chose for itself the name of Pharaoh, which literally means son of the sun-god, for in those days Egyptians worshipped the sun, and in order to vindicate their right to rule over the Egyptians, they made themselves out to be incarnations of the sun-god.
In effect, Mr. Kolet was calling the Hyksos Kings, Pharaohs. He had no option in this, for that is what they are called in the Bible, with reference to both Joseph’s and Moses’ respective periods. The Jewish speaker could either accept the Bible or history, but not both simultaneously. Since he was speaking in his capacity as president of the Jewish Council, he put history aside and based his talk on biblical accounts.
But in the Quran, we do not find accounts which clash with history in this way, and those who follow the Quran are not compelled to forsake history in order to uphold their Holy Book. When the Quran was revealed, people had no knowledge of ancient Egyptian history. Only in later years did archeological excavations make it possible for Egyptologists to compile a record of the history of that country’s ancient kings.
Even so, the Quran mentions the Egyptian monarch who was a contemporary of Joseph, and refers to him by the title, of ‘King of Egypt.’ As for the king who ruled in Moses’ day, the Quran repeatedly calls him Pharaoh. We thus have a Quranic account that corresponds exactly with historical facts, unlike the biblical account which is historically inaccurate. This shows that the Quran was written without recourse to human sources of knowledge, by One who had direct access to the Truth.
An Example from History
According to the theory of evolution, both man and animals are descended from a common ancestor. That is, a single animal species passed through many gradual stages of evolution, ultimately developing into the chimpanzee, and finally, homo sapiens.
Even if we take for granted the theory of evolution, there are ‘missing-links’ between these evolutionary stages between animal and man which have still to be accounted for. Where are the species still in the process of evolution possessing both animal and human features? Though no such real middle link has yet been discovered, evolutionists believe that such species did exist and will one day be discovered.
In 1912, the English newspapers trumpeted the news that a fragment of an ancient skull, half, ape and half man, dating back to some nebulous, pre-historic period, had been found at Piltdown, thus providing material evidence which confirmed Darwin’s theory of evolution.
This Piltdown Man achieved instant popularity. The name appeared in standard text, books such as R.S. Lull’s Organic Evolution. Leading intellectuals counted the discovery among the great triumphs of modern man. In authoritative works such as H.G. Wells’ Outline of History and Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy, it was mentioned as though there was no doubt about the Piltdown Man’s existence.
For nearly half a century, scholars remained enthralled with this “great discovery.” It was only in 1953 that some scientists became doubtful. They extracted the Piltdown man from its iron, fire-proof box in the British Museum and subjected it to detailed, modern, scientific analysis, studying it from every relevant angle. Their final conclusion was that the Piltdown Man was a forgery. The great acclaim it had received was totally unfounded. What had actually happened was that someone, who wished to discredit a rival by playing a trick on him, had taken the jaw of a chimpanzee and dyed it to make it look ancient, and had then filed its teeth to make them look human. He then submitted his “find” to the British Museum, saying that he had come across it in Piltdown, England. He intended at a later stage to reveal the whole affair as a hoax, in order to make his rival look foolish, but when he saw the seriousness with which his trick had been taken by the entire body of western scientists, he was afraid to own up, and his silence then prevented positive thinking on evolution for several decades. (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1984, Piltdown Man.)
The Mummy of Merneptah
One of the most intriguing predictions made by the Quran concerns a Pharaoh of Egypt, called Merneptah, who was the son of Rameses II. According to historical records, this king was drowned in pursuit of Moses in the Red Sea. When the Quran was revealed, the only other mention of Pharaoh was in the Bible, the sole reference to his having drowned being in the book of Exodus; ‘And the waters returned, and covered the chariots, and the horsemen, and all the host of Pharaoh that came into the sea after them; there remained not so much as one of them.’
Amazingly, when this was all the world knew abou1 the drowning of Pharaoh, the Quran produced this astounding revelation: ‘We shall save you in your body this day, so that you may become a sign to all posterity.’
How extraordinary this verse must have appeared when it was revealed. At that time no one knew that the Pharaoh’s body was really intact, and it was nearly 1400 hundred years before this fact came to light. It was a Professor Loret who, in 1898, was the first to find the mummified remains of the Pharaoh who lived in Moses’ day. For 3000 years the corpse had remained wrapped in a sheet in the Tomb of the Necropolis at Thebes where Loret had found it, until July 8, 1907, when Elliot Smith uncovered it and subjected it to proper scientific examination. In 1912 he published a book entitled The Royal Mummies. His research had proved that the mummy discovered by Loret was indeed that of the Pharaoh who ‘knew Moses, resisted his pleas, pursued him as he took flight, and lost his life in the process.’ His earthly remains were saved by the will of God from destruction to become a sign to man, as is written in the Quran.
In 1975, Dr. Bucaille made a detailed examination of the Pharaoh’s mummy which by then had been taken to Cairo. His findings led him to write in astonishment and acclaim:
Those who seek among modern data for proof of the Holy Scriptures will find a magnificent illustration of the verses of the Quran dealing with the Pharaoh’s body by visiting the Royal Mummies Room of the Egyptian Museum, Cairo!
As early as the seventh century A.D., the Quran had asserted that the Pharaoh’s body was preserved as a sign for man, but it was only in the 19th century that the body’s discovery gave concrete proof of this prediction. What further proof is needed that the Quran is the Book of God? Certainly, there is no book like it, among the works of men.
Natural Phenomena
The Quran was revealed at a time when little was known about nature. Rainfall, for example, was believed to come from a river in heaven which gushed down on to the earth. The earth was thought to be flat and the heavens a kind of vault resting on the hilltops which provided a roof over the earth. Stars were considered to be shining silver nails set in the vault of heavens or thought of as tiny lamps which were swung to and fro at night by means of a rope. The ancient Indians held that the earth rested upon the horns of a cow and when the cow shifted the earth from one horn to the other, this caused earthquakes. Up till the time of Copernicus (1473–1543 A.D.) it was generally believed that the earth was stationary and that the sun revolved around it. (Two thousand years earlier, Aristarchus of Samos had anticipated this theory, but his ideas did not gain ground).
With the advances made in the field of science and technology, the range of human observation and experiment were vastly increased, opening up great vistas of knowledge about the universe. In all spheres of existence and in all disciplines of science, previously established concepts were proved wrong by later research and were discarded. This means that no human work dating back 1500 years can boast of total accuracy, because all ‘facts’ must now be reevaluated in the light of recent information. No such book has, in fact, been found to be totally free of errors, with the notable exception of the Quran, whose authenticity has withstood all challenges over the centuries. This constitutes conclusive evidence of the Quran having had its source in an Omnipresent and Eternal Mind—one which knows all facts in their true forms and whose knowledge has not been conditioned by time and circumstances. Had it been a human fabrication, it could not have withstood the test of time, human vision being, by contrast, narrow and limited.
The basic theme of the Quran is salvation in the life hereafter. That is why it does not fall into the category of any of the known arts and sciences of the world.
But since it addresses itself to man, it touches on almost all the disciplines which concern him. In spite of the breadth of its scope, none of its statements has ever been shown to stem from inadequate knowledge. Bertrand Russell, in his Impact of Science on Society makes the point that, renowned philosopher as he was, Aristotle, while ‘proving’ the inferiority of women to men, stated that ‘women have fewer teeth than men,’ thus revealing his ignorance of the fact that men and women have an equal number of teeth. No such ignorance or misconception has ever been detected in the Quran. This clearly shows that the origin of this work is a superior Being whose knowledge pre-dates time itself and goes infinitely far beyond present knowledge, no matter how advanced the latter may appear to be.
Examples from Astronomy
Referring to the sun and the moon, the Quran tells us that both these heavenly bodies are moving in their own circular courses (falak) (36:40). Dr Maurice Bucaille, discussing these verses in detail, says that falak here has the scientific meaning of ‘orbit,’ while, ‘floating’ is the most appropriate term to describe the movement of celestial bodies in a vast and subtle space.
Dr Bucaille further writes:
It is shown that the sun moves in an orbit, but no indication is given as to what this orbit might be in relation to the Earth. At the time of the Quranic Revelation, it was thought that the Sun moved while the Earth stood still. This was the system of geocentrism that had held sway since the time of Ptolemy, in the second century B.C., and was to continue to do so until Copernicus in the sixteenth century A.D. Although people supported this concept at the time of Muhammad, it does not appear anywhere in the Quran, either here or elsewhere (p. 159).
The Development of Biology
An interesting example of the Quran’s fore knowledge of biology was highlighted in the press towards the end of 1984. The Canadian newspaper, The Citizen, (22 November,1984) published it under the heading:
Ancient Holy Book 1300 Years Ahead of its Time.
The Times of India, New Delhi (10 December,1984) stated with equal drama:
Koran Scores Over Modern Sciences.
This new light on ancient Quranic verses was shed by Dr. Keith More, a famous embryologist and professor at Toronto University, Canada. In order to make a comparative analysis of the assertions of the Quran and the findings of modern research on embryology, he made an in-depth study of the descriptions of the development of the foetus as given in certain verses such as 23:14 and 39:6. In this connection he also visited the King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on several occasions, along with his colleagues. He found, astonishingly, that the statements of the Quran corresponded in every detail with modern discoveries. He was very surprised that facts contained in the Quran had been brought to light by the Western World as late as 1940. In a paper written on this subject, he says: “The 1300 years old Koran contains passages so accurate about embryonic development that Muslims can reasonably believe them to be revelations from God.”
Convincing supportive details can be had from the analysis Maurice Bucaille makes in his book, The Bible, The Quran and Science which was published in 1970. We reproduce here some excerpts from the chapter entitled ‘Human Reproduction.’
Evolution of the Embryo inside the Uterus
The Quranic description of certain stages in the development of the embryo corresponds exactly to what we know about it today, and the Quran does not contain a single statement that is open to criticism from modern science.
After ‘the thing which clings’ (an expression which is well-founded, as we have seen) the Quran informs us that the embryo passes through the stage of ‘chewed-flesh,’ then osseous tissue appears and is clad in flesh (defined by a different word from the preceding which signifies ‘intact flesh’).
—Surah 23, verse 14:
“We fashioned the thing which clings into a chewed lump of flesh and We fashioned the chewed flesh into bones and We clothed the bones with intact flesh.”
‘Chewed flesh’ is the translation of the word mudgha; ‘intact flesh’ is lahm. This distinction needs to be stressed. The embryo is initially a small mass. At a certain stage in its development, it looks to the naked eye like chewed flesh. The bone structure develops inside this mass in what is called the mesenchyma. The bones that are formed are covered in muscle; the word lahm applies to them.
It is known how certain parts appear to be completely out of proportion during embryonic development with what is later to become the individual, while others remain in proportion.
This is surely the meaning of the word mukhallaq, which signifies ‘shaped in proportion’ as used in verse 5, surah 22 to describe this phenomenon.
“We fashioned ... into something which clings ... into a lump of flesh fashioned and unfashioned.”
More than a thousand years before our time, at a period when whimsical doctrines still prevailed, those who were privileged to have a knowledge of the Quran were fortunate, for the statements it contains express in simple terms truths of primordial importance which man has taken centuries to discover.
Origin of the Universe
The Quran says:
“Do not the disbelievers see that the heavens and the earth were one solid mass (ratq) which we tore asunder (fatq) …” (21:30)
Ratq means wholesomeness, compactness, while fatq is the opposite, that is, disintegration.
Modern studies in astronomy have confirmed the truth of this concept, various observations having led scientists to postulate that the universe was formed by an explosion from a state of high density and temperature (the ‘big-bang’ theory) and that the cosmos evolved from the original, highly compressed, extremely hot gas, taking the form of galaxies of stars, cosmic dust, meteorites and asteroids. The present outward motion of the galaxies is a result of this explosion. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1984), this is ‘the theory now favoured by most cosmologists.’ Once the process of expansion had set in—about six billion years ago—it had to continue, because the more the celestial bodies moved away from the centre, the less attraction they exerted over one another. Estimates of the circumference of the original matter place it at about one thousand million light years and now, according to Professor Eddington’s calculations, the present circumference is ten times what it was originally. This process of expansion is still going on. Professor Eddington explains that the stars and galaxies are like marks on the surface of a balloon which is continuously expanding, and that all the celestial spheres are getting further and further apart. Ancient man supposed quite wrongly, that the stars were as close to one another as they appeared to be. How significant that the Quran should state in Surah 51, verse 47, ‘The heaven, We have built it with power. Truly, We are expanding it.’ Now science has revealed that since the universe came into existence 90 thousand million years B.C., its circumference has stretched from 6 thousand to sixty thousand million light years. This means that there are inconceivably vast distances between the celestial bodies. And it has been discovered that they revolve as part of galactic systems, just as our earth and the planets revolve around the sun.
Just as within the Solar System, many planets and asteroids are situated at great distances from each other, yet revolve according to one system, likewise every material body is composed of innumerable ‘Solar Systems’ on an infinitesimally small scale. These systems are called atoms. While the vacuum of the Solar System is observable, the vacuum of the atomic system is too small to be visible. All things, however solid they appear, are hollow from the inside. For instance, if all the electrons and protons present within the atoms of a six foot tall man were to be squeezed in such a manner that no space were left, his body would be reduced to such a tiny spot as would be visible only through a microscope.
The farthest galaxy that has been observed is situated several million light years away from the sun. Yet it is held that if the total quantum of cosmic matter as worked out by astrophysicists—and it is enormous—were to be compressed so as to eliminate all space, the size of the universe would be only thirty times the size of the sun. In view of how recently these calculations have been made, it is quite extraordinary that 1500 years ago the Quran asserted that not only had the universe expanded from a condensed form but that its original quantum of matter had remained constant, so that it could conceivably be re-condensed into a relatively small space. It describes the end of the universe thus: “On that day, we shall roll up the heaven like a scroll of writing.” (21:104)
The moon is our nearest neighbour, in space, its distance from the earth being just two lakh and forty thousand miles. Due to this proximity, its gravitational force affects the sea waves, causing an extraordinary rise in the water level twice a day. At certain points these waves rise as high as sixty feet. The land surface too is affected by this lunary pull, but only in terms of a few inches. The present distance between the earth and moon is optimal from man’s point of view, there being several advantages. If this distance were reduced, for example, to only fifty thousand miles, the seas would be so stormy that a major part of the earth would be submerged in them and, moreover, the continual impact of the stormy waves would cut the mountains into pieces and the earth’s surface, more fully exposed to the moon’s gravitation, would start to crack open.
Astronomers estimate that at the time the earth came into existence, the moon was close to it and the surface of the earth had, therefore, been exposed to all kinds of upheavals. In the course of time, the earth and the moon drew apart, to their present distance from one another, according to astronomical laws. Astronomers hold that this distance will be maintained for a billion years, then the same astronomical laws will bring the moon back closer to the earth. As a result of conflicting forces of attraction, the moon will ‘burst when close enough and glorify our dead world with rings like those of Saturn.’
This concept bears out the Quran’s prediction to a remarkable degree. The following lines, in addition to presenting this phenomenon as a physical fact, explain its religious significance:
The Hour of Doom is drawing near, and the moon is cleft in two. Yet, when they see a sign, the unbelievers turn their backs and say, ‘Ingenious magic’.
The Healing Property of Honey
The Quran tells us about the healing property of honey (16:69). In the light of this verse Muslims attached great importance to the medicinal aspect of honey, and it became an important ingredient in their pharmacology. But the western world remained unaware of its medical value for centuries; they treated it as merely a liquid food, item. It was not before the twentieth century that the European physicians discovered the antiseptic properties of honey.
Here is a summary of modern researches on honey published in an American journal.
Honey is a powerful destroyer of germs which produce human diseases. It was not until the twentieth century, however, that this was demonstrated scientifically. Dr. W.G. Sackett, formerly with the Colorado Agricultural College at Fort Collins, attempted to prove that honey was a carrier of disease much like milk. To his surprise, all the disease germs he introduced into pure honey were quickly destroyed. The germ that causes typhoid fever died in pure honey after 48 hours’ exposure. Enteritidis, causing intestinal inflation, lived 48 hours. A hardy germ which causes bronchopneumonia and septicemia held out for four days. Bacillus coli Communis which under certain conditions causes peritonitis, was dead on the fifth day of experiment. According to Dr. Bodog Beck, there are many other germs equally destructible in honey. The reason for this bactericidal quality in honey, he said, is in its hygroscopic ability. It literally draws every particle of moisture out of germs. Germs, like any other living organism, perish without water. This power to absorb moisture is almost unlimited. Honey will draw moisture from metal, glass, and even stone rocks (Rosicrucian Digest, September 1975, p. 11).
Superiority of the Quran
The very language in which it is written—Arabic—is a kind of miracle, being an astonishing exception to the historical rule that a language cannot survive in the same form for more than 500 years. In the course of five centuries, a language changes so radically that the coming generations find it increasingly difficult to understand the works of their distant predecessors. For instance, the works of Geoffrey Chaucer (1342-1400), the father of English poetry, and the plays and poetry Of William Shakespeare (1564-1616), one of the greatest writers of the English language, have become almost unintelligible to twentieth century readers, and are now read almost exclusively as part of college curricula with the help of glossaries, dictionaries and ‘translations.’
But the history of the Arabic language is strikingly different, having withstood the test of time for no less than 1500 years. Wording and style have, of course, undergone some development, but not to such an extent that words should lose their original meaning. Supposing someone belonging to the Quranic times of ancient Arabia could be reborn today, the form of language in which he would express himself would be as understandable to modern Arabs as it was to his own contemporaries.
It is as if the Quran had placed a divine imprint upon Arabic, arresting it in its course so that it should remain understandable right up to the last day. This being so, the Quran is never just going to collect dust on some obscure ‘Classical Literature’ shelf, but will be read by, and give inspiration to people for all time to come.
In the field of science, despite the great and rapid advances in knowledge in recent years, we come back to what was asserted in the Quran, so many centuries
ago, as having arrived at the quintessence of the matter. Just as the Arabic language seems to have been crystallized at a particular point in time—in fact, at the moment of divine revelation, so also does science seem to have been arrested in its course, the Quran having the final say on matters which for centuries lay beyond man’s knowledge and which still, in many important cases, elude man’s intellectual grasp. The most significant of these is the origin of the universe.
Newton’s Theory of Light
Another point on which human intelligence appeared to have arrived at a major scientific truth was that of the true nature of light. It was Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) who put forward the theory that light consisted of minute corpuscles in rapid motion, which emanated from their source and were scattered in the atmosphere. Owing to the extraordinary influence of Newton, this corpuscular theory held sway in the scientific world for a very long time, only to be abandoned in the middle of the nineteenth century in favour of the wave theory of light. It was the discovery of the action of the photon which delivered the final blow to Newton’s theory. “Young’s work convinced scientists that light has essential wave characteristics in apparent contradiction to Newton’s corpuscular theory.”
It had taken only 200 years to prove Newton wrong. The Quran, on the contrary, gave its message to the world in the 7th century, and even after a lapse of 1400 years its truth emerges unscathed. The reason for this is that it is of divine, not human origin: the absolute truth of its statements can be proved at all times—an extraordinary attribute that no other work can claim.
Einstein’s theory of relativity declares that gravity controls the behaviour of planets, stars, galaxies and the universe itself, and does so in a predictable manner.
This scientific discovery had already been developed into a philosophy by Hume (1711-1776) and other thinkers, who declared that the whole system of the universe was governed by the principle of causation, and that it had only been when man had not been aware of this, that God had been supposed to control the universe. The principle of cause and effect was then thought logically to dispense with the idea of God.
But later research ran counter to this purely material supposition. When Paul Dirac, Heisenberg and other eminent scientists bent their minds to analysing the structure of the atom, they discovered that its system contradicted the principle of causation which had been adopted on the basis of studies made of the solar system. This theory, called the quantum mechanics theory, maintains that at the subatomic level, matter behaves randomly.
The word ‘principle’ in science means something which applies in equal measure throughout the entire universe. If there is even one single instance of a principle failing to apply to something, its academic bona fides have to be called in question. It followed then that if matter did not function according to this principle of causation in an exactly similar manner at the subatomic level as it did in the solar system, it should have to be rejected.
Einstein found this idea unthinkable and spent the last 30 years of his life trying to reconcile these seeming contradictions of nature. He rejected the randomness of quantum mechanics, saying, “I cannot believe God plays dice with the universe.” Despite his best efforts, he was never able to resolve this problem, and it seems that the Quran has the final word on the reality of the universe. The fact that the universe cannot be explained in terms of human knowledge is aptly illustrated by Ian Roxburgh when he writes:
The laws of physics discovered on earth contain arbitrary numbers, like the ratio of the mass of an electron to the mass of a proton, which is roughly 1840 to one. Why? Did a Creator arbitrarily choose these numbers?
Science seems to recognize the fact that the universe can never be encompassed by human knowledge. The Universe it must be conceded is the awesome manifestation of the will of the Almighty. Hence no true explanation can be arrived at unless it is based on, the concept of the Will of God.
