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Sunday, June 14, 2009

Miracles of Quraan (part 1)




In the name of Allah, the Most-Merciful, the All-Compassionate
"May the Peace and Blessings of Allah be Upon You"




01. Big Bang

Do not the Unbeliever see That the heavens and earth Were joined together (as one Unit of Creation), before We clove them as under ?....
Quran (21:30)

This explains the Big Bang


02. At the Beginning The Universe was smoke

Scientists agree that before the galaxies in the universe were formed, celestial matter was initially in the form of gaseous matter. In short, huge gaseous matter or clouds were present before the formation of the galaxies. To describe initial celestial matter, the word ‘smoke’ is more appropriate than gas. The following Quranic verse refers to this state of the universe by the word dukhaan which means smoke.

Moreover, He Comprehended in His design the sky, and it had been (as) smoke....
Quran (41:11)


03. Shape of The Earth is spherical

In early times, people believed that the earth was flat. For centuries, men were afraid to venture out too far, for fear of falling off the edge! Sir Francis Drake was the first person who proved that the earth is spherical when he sailed around it in 1597. Consider the following Quranic verse regarding the alternation of day and night:

“Seest thou not that Allah merges Night into Day and He merges Day into Night?”
Quran (31:29)


Merging here means that the night slowly and gradually changes to day and vice versa. This phenomenon can only take place if the earth is spherical. If the earth was flat, there would have been a sudden change from night to day and from day to night. The following verse also alludes to the spherical shape of the earth:

“He created the heavens and the earth in true (proportions): He makes the Night overlap the Day, and the Day overlap the Night.”
Quran (39:5)


The Arabic word used here is Kawwara meaning ‘to overlap’ or ‘to coil’– the way a turban is wound around the head. The overlapping or coiling of the day and night can only take place if the earth is spherical.



The earth is not exactly round like a ball, but geo-spherical, i.e. it is flattened at the poles. The following verse contains a description of the earth’s shape:

“And the earth, moreover, hath He made egg shaped.”
Quran (79:30)



The Arabic word for egg here is "dahaahaa" which means an ostrich-egg. The shape of an ostrich-egg resembles the geo-spherical shape of the earth. Thus the Quran correctly describes the shape of the earth, though the prevalent notion when the Quran was revealed was that the earth was flat.

The Arabic word "dahaahaa" can be translated as “vast expanse”, which also is correct. This word also means an ostrich-egg.


04. Moon is reflected Light

It was believed by earlier civilizations that the moon emanates its own light. Science now tells us that the light of the moon is reflected light. However this fact was mentioned in the Quran 1,400 years ago in the following verse:

“Blessed is He Who made Constellations in the skies, and placed therein a Lamp and a Moon giving (reflected) light.”
Quran (25:61)

The Arabic word for the sun in the Quraan, is shams. It is also referred to as siraaj which means a ‘torch’ or as wahhaaj meaning ‘a blazing lamp’ or as diya which means ‘shining glory’. All three descriptions are appropriate to the sun, since it generates intense heat and light by its internal combustion.



The Arabic word for the moon is qamar and it is described in the Quraan as muneer which is a body that gives noor i.e. reflected light.



Again, the Quranic description matches perfectly with the true nature of the moon which does not give off light by itself and is an inactive body that reflects the light of the sun.



Not once in the Quraan, is the moon mentioned as siraaj, wahhaaj or diya nor the sun as noor or muneer. This implies that the Quraan recognizes the difference between the nature of sunlight and moonlight.



The following verses relate to the nature of light from the sun and the moon:

“It is He who made the sun to be a shining glory and the moon to be a light (of beauty).”
Quran (10:5)

“See ye not how Allah has created the seven heavens one above another, “And made the moon a light in their midst, and made the sun as a (Glorious) Lamp ?”
Quran (71:15-16)


The Glorious Quraan and modern science, are thus in perfect agreement about the differences in the nature of sunlight and moonlight.


05. Sun rotates about its own axis and moves in an orbit

For a long time European philosophers and scientists believed that the earth stood still in the centre of the universe and every other body including the sun moved around it. In the West, this geocentric concept of the universe was prevalent right from the time of Ptolemy in the second century B.C.



In 1512, Nicholas Copernicus put forward his Heliocentric Theory of Planetary Motion, which asserted that the sun is motionless at the centre of the solar system with the planets revolving around it.



In 1609, the German scientist Yohannus Keppler published the ‘Astronomia Nova’. In this he concluded that not only do the planets move in elliptical orbits around the sun, they also rotate upon their axes at irregular speeds. With this knowledge it became possible for European scientists to explain correctly many of the mechanisms of the solar system, including the sequence of night and day. After these discoveries, it was thought that the Sun was stationary and did not rotate about its axis like the Earth. I remember having studied this fallacy from Geography books during my school days. Consider the following Qur’anic verse:

“It is He Who created the Night and the Day, and the sun and the moon: All (the celestial bodies) swim along, each in its rounded course.”
Quran (21:33)


The Arabic word used in the above verse is "yasbahoon". This word is derived from the word "sabaha". It carries with it the idea of motion that comes from any moving body. If you use this word for a person on the ground, it would not mean that he is rolling but would imply that he is walking or running. If you use this word for a person in water, it would not mean that he is floating but would imply that he is swimming. Similarly, if you use the word yasbah for a celestial body such as the sun, it would not only mean that it is flying through space but would also mean that it is rotating as it goes through space.



Most school textbooks have now incorporated the fact that the sun rotates about its axis. The rotation of the sun about its own axis can be proved with the help of an equipment that projects the image of the sun on the top of a table, so that one can examine the image of the sun without being blinded.



It is noticed that the sun has spots which complete a circular motion once every 25 days i.e. the sun takes approximately 25 days to rotate round its axis. The sun travels through space at roughly 240 km per second, and takes about 200 million years to complete one revolution around the centre of our Milky Way Galaxy.

“It is not permitted to the Sun to catch up the Moon, nor can the Night outstrip the Day: Each (just) swims along in (its own) orbit (according to Law).”
Quran (36:40)


This verse mentions an essential fact discovered only recently by modern astronomy, i.e. the existence of the individual orbits of the Sun and the Moon, and their journey through space with their own motion. The ‘fixed place’ towards which the sun travels, carrying with it the solar system, has been located preirsely by modern astronomy. It has been given a name, the Solar Apex. The solar system is indeed moving in space towards a point situated in the constellation of Hercules (alpha Lyrae) whose exact location is now firmly established. The moon rotates around its axis in the same duration that it takes to revolve around the earth. It takes approximately 29½ days to complete one rotation. One cannot help but be amazed at the scientific accuracy of the Quranic verses. Should we not ponder over the question: “What is the source of knowledge contained in the Quraan?”

more contd ...(Insha Allah)

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