The Challenge
of the Quran

Summary

This section explains the challenge made in the Quran around fourteen hundred years ago to produce a book, or even a chapter, which is its equal: “And if you are in doubt of what we have revealed to Our servant, produce one chapter comparable to it. Call upon your helpers besides God to assist you, if what you say be true.” (Quran, 2:23)

The above challenge of the Quran has yet to be answered. Centuries have rolled by without anyone ever having been able to match it. The Quran states: “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’. The Quran itself claims to be free of inconsistencies, whereas no work of human origin can be free of inconsistencies or claim to be so. This chapter shows that the Quran is free from inconsistencies, which are found in all other Scriptures and books, and every prediction given in it of natural phenomenon and of examples of astronomy, geology, biology and modern physics have come true, thus testifying to the veracity of the Quran.

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 Pharoah that came into the sea after them; there remained not so much as one of them’. (Exodus, 14:28)

Amazingly, when this was all the world knew about 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. (Quran, 10:92)

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. Professor Loret was the first person to find the mummified remains of the Pharaoh who lived in Moses’ day wrapped in a sheet in the Tomb of the Necropolis at Thebes in 1898. On July 8, 1907, Elliot Smith uncovered it and subjected it to proper scientific examination. In 1912, he published a book, entitled The Royal Mummies, confirming that 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, 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. (Maurice Bucaille, The Bible, The Quran and Science, p.241) 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 the above.

Giving innumerable evidences, the section concludes that the Quran itself undoubtedly proves that it is of divine origin. If man has the ability to think objectively, this should be enough to convince him that the Quran must be superhuman in origin.

‘All of the prophets were given such miracles as inspired people to believe. And the miracle that I have been given is the Quran.’

These words of the Prophet recorded by Bukhari in the third century of Islam, give proper direction to our quest. They make it clear that the Quran, which he presented to the people as having been revealed to him, word by word, by God is itself, a compelling proof of his being a true prophet.

What are those features of the Quran which prove it to be the word of God? There are many, but I shall refer briefly to only a few.

The one which is bound to make the immediate impact upon a student of the Quran is the challenge it made fourteen hundred years ago to produce a book, or even a chapter, which is its equal.

And if you are in doubt of what we have revealed to Our servant, produce one chapter comparable to it. Call upon your helpers besides God to assist you, if what you say be true.¹

Needless to say, this challenge has not to this day been met. Those who feel that the authorship of the Quran was human and not divine should consider also that no ordinary mortal would deliver himself of such a challenge for fear of being instantly proved a posturer and a braggart. Neither the Quran, nor the challenge it flings down to humanity, can be of human origin, for no human work is ever complete; it can always be added to, improved upon and emulated. Purely human standards are always re-attainable. This, however, has proved the Quran to be quite unique in that it is both definitive and inimitable.

Attempts were, of course, made to meet this challenge. The first was that of Labid Ibn Rabiyah, a contemporary of the Prophet and the last of a series of seven renowned poets of the time. He was so eloquent that once, when he recited a poem at the famous annual fair of Ukaz, the other poets present fell in prostration before him — they were so enchanted by his verses. In pre-Islamic days, outstanding poets used to be honoured after annual gatherings by having their works hung on the wall of the entrance to the Kabah, so that the public could read them, the whole year round.

Before his acceptance of Islam, Labid once composed a poem in reply to the Quran which was thus displayed. Shortly after this, a Muslim brought some verses from the Quran and hung them alongside Labid’s poem. The following day, when Labid read them, he was so moved that he declared that they must be the work of some superhuman mind, and, without further ado, he embraced Islam. But this was not the end of the matter. Famous as he was as an Arabian poet, he was so greatly impressed by the literary excellence of the Quran that he decided to give up writing poetry altogether. When asked why he did not continue to write poetry, he replied, ‘What? After the Quran?’ Once, when asked by Umer, the Second Caliph, to recite a poem, he said, “When God has given me such compositions as are enshrined in the Quran, it does not behove me to recite poems.”

Stranger still is the case of Ibn-al Muqaffa (died 727 A.D.), a great scholar and celebrated writer of Persian origin, who was called upon by the unbelievers to counteract the widespread influence the Quran was having on great throngs of people. A man of extraordinary genius, he felt quite confident that he could produce such a work in one year’s time, provided that all his practical requirements were taken care of, so that he could give his undivided attention to the composition. Six months passed and, naturally, certain people were eager to know how much work had been accomplished. When they went to see him, they found him sitting, pen in hand, staring at a blank sheet of paper. Around him were scattered innumerable pieces of paper. This great, learned and eloquent writer had done his best to write a book comparable to the Quran, but had failed pathetically. Highly embarrassed, he admitted that even after working for all these six months, he had not been able to produce even a single sentence which could match up to the excellence of the Quran. Ashamed and hopeless, he gave up the task he had been entrusted with. This incident was recounted by the Orientalist Wollaston, in his book, Muhammad, His Life and Doctrines, (p.143) to show that ‘Muhammad’s boast as to the literary excellence of the Quran was not unfounded.’

The challenge of the Quran has yet to be answered. Centuries have rolled by without anyone ever having been able to match it. This uniqueness of the Quran undoubtedly proves that it is of divine origin. If man has the ability to think objectively, this should be enough to convince him of the truth. Such was the miraculous nature of the Quran that the Arabs, who had no peers in eloquence and fluency, were so proud of their rhetoric that they called all non-Arabs dumb—ajamis were compelled to bow before the superior qualities of the Quran.

Predictions

Another factor which testifies to the divinity of the Quran is its predictions which, astonishingly enough, came true in the course of time. We come across many intelligent and ambitious people in the pages of history who have dared to predict their own or other’s futures. But seldom has time confirmed their predictions. Favourable circumstances, extraordinary capabilities, a host of friends and supporters and initial successes have often singly, or together, deluded people into thinking that nothing could stop them from attaining certain cherished goals, and so they have ventured to prophesy that they were destined to scale great pinnacles of success. But history has almost refused to fulfill their predictions. On the other hand, in spite of totally unfavourable and quite unthinkable circumstances, the words of the Quran have come true, time and time again, and in such a manner that no human science is able to offer an explanation for it. These events can never be understood in the light of human experience. The only way to rationalize them is to attribute them to a super human being.

Napoleon Bonaparte was one of the greatest generals of his time. His initial successes showed signs of his surpassing even such renowned conquerors as Caesar and Alexander. It was not unnatural that his phenomenal success should foster the idea that he was the master of his own destiny. He then became so over-confidant that he stopped consulting even his closest advisers. He believed that nothing short of total victory was to be his lot in life: but how did his career end? On June 12, 1815, Napoleon set off from Paris with a huge army, which was intended to annihilate the enemy. Just six days later, Napoleon and his army were given a thorough trouncing at the Battle of Waterloo by the Duke of Wellington who was leading the forces of Britain, Holland and Germany. His hopes and aspirations shattered, he abandoned his throne and attempted to flee to America to seek asylum. But no sooner had he reached the harbour than he was arrested by enemy guards and forced to board a British ship. He was subsequently taken to the Island of St. Helena in the Southern Atlantic, where he was compelled to live in isolation, bitter and frustrated, till he breathed his last on 5th of May 1821.

Another example of the hazards of human prophecy is the Communist Manifesto of 1848 in which it was presaged that Germany would be the first country to witness a communist revolution. But even after one hundred and thirty eight years, this prophecy has still to be fulfilled. Karl Marx wrote, in May 1849, that in Paris, red democracy was just around the corner. More than a century has passed, but the dawn of red democracy has yet to rise over that city.

Another important, but ill-fated prophecy was made in 1798 by the British economist, Robert Malthus (1766-1834), more than a thousand years after the Quran was revealed. In his book, An Essay on the Principle of Population as it Affects the Future Improvement of Society, 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 1-2-4-8-16-32, 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. If it did, the number of people on earth would become greater than the amount of sustenance available, ushering in an age of famine in which countless people would starve to death.

Malthus’s book made a powerful impression on human thought, 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 Dyer has summarised this research in an article which appeared in The Hindustan Times (New Delhi) on December 28, 1984. The provocative headline read: ‘Malthus: The False Prophet.’ In it he wrote:

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.’ Fourteen hundred years before this, the Quran had said: ‘And fearing hunger, do not slay your own offspring. We provide for them and for you. Surely, it is a great error to slay them.²

Where Malthus’ 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.

Nearer to our times, one of the most famous unfulfilled prophecies was that which the German dictator, Adolf Hitler made about himself.

In a famous speech delivered in Munich on the 14th of March, 1936, he declared that he was marching ahead with full confidence that victory would come his way. The world knows, however, that after several brilliant victories, the destiny that awaited him was a final crushing defeat, and an ignominious death by suicide.

If we look at the historic prophecies which have been made in this world, those made in the Quran stand out from all the rest in that they all came quite literally true. This fact is ample proof that their origin was a superhuman mind which, with its eternal knowledge, controls the course of cosmic events—in short, they were the words of God.

Of particular interest are the predictions concerning the victories respectively of the Prophet of Islam over his antagonists and of the Romans over the Persians.

When the prophet Muhammad began propagating the message of Islam, almost the whole of Arabia turned against him. On the one hand were the idolatrous tribes, who were thirsty for his blood and, on the other, were the rich and powerful Jews who were determined to foil every attempt on his part to propagate his message. A third group consisted of Muslims who made a public show of having embraced the faith, while concealing their intention to infiltrate the ranks of the genuinely faithful in order, without arousing any suspicion, to bring about the downfall of the Islamic cause.

Thus the Prophet was carrying on his mission in the face of three inimical groups, two of which openly displayed their power and resources, while the third, the conspirators, donned the mask of hypocrisy. Leaving aside a small band of slaves and few people from the lowest rungs of society, no one was willing to rally to his cause. Out of all the highly placed people of Makkah, those who answered his call were almost negligible in number, and when they converted, they too incurred the wrath of their people, so that, in spite of having come from the nobility, they were destined to become just as helpless as the Prophet was.

The Islamic mission went on, however, irrespective of the obstacles placed in its path. But a time came when circumstances became so critical that the Prophet and his companions were forced to leave their home town, Makkah. These neo-converts were already defenceless and almost without resources, but their situation became even worse when they emigrated to Madinah, for whatever their meagre possessions, they had all to be left behind in Makkah. The helpless state in which they reached Madinah can be imagined from the fact that some of the emigrants did not even have so much as a roof over their heads. They had to live out in the open with only a curtain stretched above their heads to make a kind of shed. Because of this they were known as ‘the companions of the shed.’ The number of those who lived in this shed from time to time has been placed at four hundred. Abu Huraira, one of their members said he had seen seventy of them together. All they owned was one piece of coarse cloth, which they wore from neck to knee. He himself was reduced to a pitiable state during those days. He would often lie so still in the Prophet’s mosque that people thought he was unconscious. But the truth was that continuous starvation had weakened him so much that he was hardly fit to do anything else but just lie motionless.

When this forlorn little caravan was camping of Madinah, there was the danger that at any moment their enemies, who were all around them, would suddenly swoop down on them and there would be a massacre. But God repeatedly gave them the good tidings that they were His representatives and that, therefore, no one could overcome them.

They seek to extinguish the light of God with their mouths; but God will perfect his light, much as the unbelievers may dislike it. It is He who has sent His apostle with guidance and the Faith of Truth, so that He may exalt it above all religions, much as the Pagans, may dislike it.³

Shortly after this prediction, the whole of Arabia surrendered before him. The believers, who were far fewer in number and completely lacking in resources, overpowered the unbelievers, who greatly exceeded them in numbers and in material resources.

In material terms, no explanation can be offered as to how, exactly according to the prediction, the Prophet came completely to dominate Arabia and the neighbouring countries. The only explanation possible is that he was God’s emissary, and that purely on the strength of God’s assistance, he was able to gain a victory over his enemies. And such was the victory granted by God to his mission that all his enemies came over to his side and became his helpers. The fact that, in face of extraordinary opposition and enmity, this unlettered prophet’s mission bore fruit, is sound evidence that he was a representative of the Lord of the Universe. Had he been an ordinary man, it would have been impossible for his words to have made the impact that they did, and they would certainly never have made history—and history which, till today, has no parallel. J.W.H. Stobart, in his book, Islam and its Founder, underlines the fact that, when seen in terms of the scarcity of resources at his disposal, his far-reaching and permanent achievements make his name stand out as the most radiant and prominent in the whole of human history (p.228). There is such compelling evidence of his being a messenger of God that even Sir William Muir, the distinguished Orientalist, has accepted him as such, albeit indirectly. In his book, The Life of Mahomet he speaks of how ‘Muhammad, thus holding his people at bay, waiting, in the still expectation of victory, to outward appearance defenceless, and with his little band, as it were, in the lion’s mouth, yet trusting in His Almighty power whose messenger he believed himself to be, resolute and unmoved—presents a spectacle of sublimity paralleled only in the sacred records by such scenes as that of the Prophet of Israel, when he complained to his Master, “I, even I only, am left.’”⁴

Another prediction of the Quran worth mentioning here is the overpowering of the Iranians by the Greeks (who at that point formed part of the eastern Roman Empire). This is recorded in the thirtieth chapter of the Quran. “The Greeks have been defeated in a neighbouring land. But after the defeat, they shall themselves gain victory within a few years.” The Persian empire, known as the Sassanid empire, lay to the east of Arabian peninsula on the other coast of the Persian Gulf, while the Roman empire, known as the Byzantine empire, was situated on the western side, stretching from the shores of the Red Sea to the Black Sea. The frontiers of both the empires met on the banks of the Tigris and the Euphrates in the north of Arabia. These empires were the super powers of their times and Edward Gibbon, the noted historian, holds that the Roman empire, whose history dates back to the early part of the second century B.C., was the most civilized empire of its time.

More than any other civilization, the Roman Empire has attracted the attention of historians, one of the most famous historical works being Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. The second chapter of the fifth volume is of particular concern to us. Constantine, a former Roman emperor, having embraced Christianity in the year 325 A.D. made this new faith the state religion. Thus the majority of the Romans became Christians, following in the footsteps of their king. The Persians, on the contrary, were worshippers of a sun-god. Eight years before Muhammad, may peace be upon him, attained prophethood, Maurice, who was the head of this Roman Empire, thanks to his lack of administrative ability, suffered an insurrection of his army, lead by Captain Phocas, in the year 602 A.D. This coup being successful, he was usurped by Phocas, who then acceded to the throne of Rome. Once in power, Phocas, brutally assassinated the Roman emperor and other members of his family. After consolidating his hold, he deputed one of his envoys to proclaim his recent coronation in the neighbouring state of Persia. At that time, Nao Sherwan Adil’s son, Chosroes II, was the emperor of Persia. Once in 590-91 A.D., Chosroes had had to flee from Persia because of an uprising of his own people. During this period, the Roman emperor, who had been so brutally murdered, had given him asylum, helped him to regain his throne, and given his daughter to him in marriage. Maurice, therefore, was like a father to him, and he was greatly enraged when he learnt of the overthrow and assassination of his father-in-law. He therefore imprisoned the Roman envoys, refused to recognize the new government and promptly declared war against the Roman Empire.

In the year 603, his troops crossed the Euphrates and entered Syrian cities. Phocas failed to arrest this unexpected advance and the Persian troops continued their march until they had finally captured the city of Antioch and seized the sacred city of Jerusalem. Within no time, the boundaries of the Persian Empire were extended up to the Nile Valley. Because of the policy of inquisition pursued by the erstwhile Roman State, the anti-Church sects like the Nestorians, the Jacobites and the Jews were already simmering with discontent, so they supported the Persian conquerors in over-throwing the Christian regime—a factor which was of considerable help in the Persian conquest. On seeing the failure of Phocas to combat the Persians, some nobles of the Roman Court sent a secret message to the Roman governor of the empire’s African colony, begging him to save the empire. The governor, therefore, appointed his son, Heraclius, to lead the military campaign. He marched with his troops from Africa in such secrecy that no hint of their approach was received until, from his castle, Phocas, himself could see their ships approaching the coast. Heraclius captured the capital, Constantinople, after a minor battle and Phocas was killed.

Although Heraclius succeeded in eliminating Phocas, he failed to counteract the Persian menace, which eventually proved insuperable. By 616, the Romans had lost the entire territory in the east and west, save the capital, to the Persian emperor. In Iraq, Syria Palestine, Egypt and Asia Minor, the Zoroastrian flag replaced the Christian flag. Heraclius was besieged on both sides by these implacable enemies and the Roman Empire was eventually reduced to what lay within the walls of Constantinople. After the loss of Egypt, the capital was afflicted by famine and pestilence. Thus the situation was worsening day by day. Only the trunk of the Roman Empire’s huge tree had survived, and even that had begun to wither away. The public lived in fear and horror of the Persians who might lay siege to Constantinople at any moment. Normal transactions came to a standstill and public places, which at one time had been bustling with activity, now wore a deserted look.

After capturing the Roman territories, the fire-worshippers’ regime took a series of oppressive measures to eradicate Christianity. The offerings of the devout over a period of three hundred years were rifled in one sacrilegious day, the patriarch Zachariah and the true cross were transported into Persia and ninety thousand Christians were massacred. The Christians of the East were scandalized by the worship of fire and the impious doctrines of the conquerors. Gibbon comments: ‘If the motives of Chosroes had been pure and honourable he must have ended the quarrel with the death of Phocas, and he would have embraced as his best ally the fortunate African who had so generously avenged the injuries of his benefactor Maurice. The prosecution of the war revealed the true character of the barbarian; and the suppliant embassies of Heraclius, to beseech his clemency, that he would spare the innocent, accept a tribute, and give peace to the world, were rejected with contemptuous silence or insolent menace.’⁵

What a marked difference there now was in the balance of strength between the Roman and Persian empire, and how far superior the Persian conqueror supposed himself to be to his Roman counterpart we may judge from the tone in which Chosroes II addressed a letter to Heraclius from Jerusalem: ‘From Chosroes, the supreme god of all gods, the lord of the earth, to his mean and block-headed slave, Heraclius. Thou sayest that thou hast confidence in God. Why did not thy God save Jerusalem from my hands.⁶

Heraclius, incapable of resistence and hopeless of relief, had resolved to transfer his person and government to the more secure residence of Carthage. His ships were already laden with the treasures of the palace, but the flight was arrested by the Patriarch, who armed with the powers of religion in the defence of his country, led Heraclius to the altar of St. Sophia, and extorted a solemn oath that he would live and die with the people whom God had entrusted to his care.⁷

‘During this time, the friendly offer of Sain, the Persian general, to conduct an embassy to the presence of the Great King, was accepted with the warmest gratitude…but the lieutenant of Chosroes had fatally mistaken the intentions of his master. When Chosroes learnt about this peace mission, he said: ‘It was not an embassy’, said the tyrant of Asia; ‘It was the person of Heraclius bound in chains that he would have brought to the foot of my throne. I will never give peace to the emperor of Rome till he has abjured his crucified God and embraced the worship of the sun.⁸

‘However, a six-year long battle finally inclined the Persian monarch to make peace on certain conditions: ‘A thousand talents of gold, a thousand silk robes, a thousand horses and a thousand virgins.’⁹

Gibbon rightly describes these terms as ignominious. Heraclius would definitely have accepted these terms, but, in view of how circumscribed and depleted the territory was and considering in how short a time he was expected to meet these terms, it was preferable for him to employ those very resources in preparation for a final decisive battle with the enemy.

These events that were taking place in Rome and Persia, the greatest empires of the time, had their repercussions in Makkah, which occupied a central place in Arabia. The Iranians worshipped a sun god and fire, whereas the Romans believed in revelation and prophethood. It made sense psychologically for the Muslims to side with the Christian Romans, whereas the Makkan idolaters sided with the Zoroastrians, they too being nature worshippers. The conflict between the Romans and Persians, therefore, took on a symbolic value for the believers and unbelievers of Makkah, in the sense that both looked to the outcome of this transfrontier war as a precursor to their own future.

In 616 A.D., the Iranians emerged victorious and all the territories of the Roman Empire were annexed to Persian territory. When this news reached Madinah, the opponents of Islam made capital out of it and began to demoralize the Muslims. They taunted the Muslims with the fact that their Persian brothers had prevailed over the Romans who were adherents of a religion which was similar to Islam. They claimed that in the same way they would uproot the Muslims and their religion. In the weak and helpless state the Muslims were in, these sardonic words from the non-believers were like salt to their wounds. It was at this time that the Prophet had a highly significant revelation made to him:

The Greeks have been defeated in the neighbouring land. But after their defeat they shall themselves gain victory within a few years. God is in command before and after. On that day the believers will rejoice in God’s help. He gives victory to whom He will. He is the Mighty one, the merciful. That is God’s promise. He will never be untrue. Yet most men do not know it.¹⁰

At the time this prediction was made, no series of events could have been more inconceivable for, according to Gibbon, ‘the first twelve years of Heraclius were proclaiming the dissolution of the empire.

Clearly, this prediction had come from a Being both omniscient and omnipotent. No sooner had the Prophet received God’s message, than pronounced changes in Heraclius began to become evident. Writes Gibbon, ‘Of the characters conspicuous in history, that of Heraclius is one of the most extraordinary and inconsistent. In the first and last years of a long regime, the emperor appears to be the slave of sloth, of pleasure, of superstition, the careless and impotent spectator of public calamities. But the languid mists of the morning and evening are separated by the brightness of the meridian sun: the Arcadius of the palace arose the Caesar of the camp; and the honour of Rome and Heraclius was gloriously retrieved by the exploited trophies of six adventurous campaigns. It was the duty of the Byzantine historians to have revealed the causes of his slumber and vigilance. At this distance we can only conjecture that he was endowed with more personal courage than political resolution; that he was detained by the charms, and perhaps the arts, of his niece Martina, with whom, after the death of Eudocia, he contracted an incestuous marriage’ (p.82).

The same Heraclius who had abandoned all hope and courage, and whose mind had become so confused, then planned a military expedition which was entirely successful. Since the days of Scipio and Hannibal, no bolder enterprise has been attempted than that which Heraclius achieved for the deliverance of the empire. In Constantinople, all the might and power which he could muster went into preparations for war. In the year 622, however, when Heraclius set sail with a select band of five thousand soldiers from Constantinople to Trebizond, people felt they were witnessing the final acts of the grand drama of the Roman Empire.

Heraclius, knowing that the Persian navy was weak, first deployed his own fleet to take the enemy from the rear. Charting a perilous course through the Black Sea and braving the hazards of the mountains of Armenia, he penetrated into the very heart of Persia, to the very point where Alexander the Great had defeated the Persians in the course of his famous march from Syria to Egypt. This surprise attack played havoc with the Persian army, and before they could counter-attack with a strong reserve force of theirs positioned in Asia Minor, Heraclius launched another unexpected offensive from the northern coast. Subsequently to this attack, Heraclius returned by a sea route to Constantinople. On the way, he entered into a pact with the Avars, who then helped in arresting the advance of the Persian troops beyond their own capital. These two Roman attacks were followed by three more expeditions between 623 and 625 A.D. Invading from the southern coast of the Black Sea, the Romans penetrated into the heart of the Persian empire and went as far as Mesopotamia. The Persian aggression had by now received a deathblow, and all the occupied territories were vacated. The conclusive battle, however, was fought at Nineveh, on the banks of the River Tigris, in December 627.

By this time, Chosroes II had no fight left in him. He planned to flee from Dastgard, his favourite palace, but his flight was rudely arrested by rebellion against him from within his own palace. Eighteen sons were massacred before his very eyes, and he was thrown into a dungeon by his own son, Siroes, where he expired on the fifth day. The glory of the house of Sassan ended with the death of Chosroes; his unnatural son enjoyed the fruits of his crimes for only eight months, and in the space of four years, the regal title was assumed by other pretenders to the throne, who disputed with the sword or the dagger the last remnants of an exhausted monarchy. In such a state of anarchy, the Persians were clearly in no position to launch another expedition against the Romans. Cabades II, the son of Chosroes II, entered into a peace treaty with the Romans and handed over all Roman territories. The wood of the Holy Cross was restored at the urgent entreaties of Constantine’s successor. Chosroes’ son abandoned the conquests of his father with no apparent regret.

‘The return of Heraclius from Tauris to Constantinople was a perpetual triumph. After a long impatience, the senate, the clergy, and the people went forth to meet their hero, with tears and acclamations, with olive branches and innumerable lamps; he entered the capital in a chariot drawn by four elephants’.¹¹

Thus the Quranic prediction about the Romans regaining their lost territories came true, to the letter, within the specified period of ten years. Gibbon expressed astonishment at this prediction but at the same time, in order to lessen its importance, he has quite wrongly related it to the epistle sent by the Prophet Muhammad to Chosroes II. Gibbon observes: ‘While the Persian monarch contemplated the wonders of his art and power, he received an epistle from an obscure citizen of Makkah inviting him to acknowledge Mahomet as the apostle of God. He rejected the invitation, and tore up the epistle. It is thus, exclaimed the Arabian Prophet, that God will tear the kingdom, and reject the supplications of Chosroes. Placed on the verge of the two great empires of the East, Mahomet observed with secret joy the progress of their mutual destruction; and, in the midst of the Persian triumphs, he ventured to foretell that, before many years should elapse, victory would again return to the banners of the Romans. At the time when this prediction is said to have been delivered, no prophecy could be more distant from its accomplishment, since the first twelve years of Heraclius announced the approaching dissolution of the empire’.¹²

But other historians are in agreement that his prediction does not relate to the epistle addressed to Chosroes II, because this having been sent to the emperor of Persia in the seventh year of Hijrah, in 628 A.D., whereas the prediction of the Roman victory had been made in 616 A.D. in Makkah, before the emigration.

The Mummy of Merneptah

One of the most intriguing predictions made by 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 Pharoah that came into the sea after them; there remained not so much as one of them’.¹³

Amazingly, when this was all the world knew about 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.¹⁴

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 person 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, 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.¹⁵

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!¹⁶

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.

Survival of Arabic Language

The very language Arabic in which it is written 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 crystallised at a particular point in time—in fact, at the moment of divine revelation, so also does sciences 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.

It is interesting to note how this theory of the origin of the universe affected a group of Chinese graduate students who were pursuing their studies at the University of California under government sponsorship. Some twelve members of this group went to the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley and asked to have a Sunday School Class arranged for them—not that they wished to become Christians, as they explained quite frankly, but because they wanted to learn to what degree Christianity had influenced American culture. This being a rather special type of class, the pastor arranged for the mathematician and astronomer, Peter W. Stoner, to organize and instruct it. Just four months later, all of those young students accepted Christianity! What could have been the reason for his extraordinary response? Peter W. Stoner explains it is this way: “I was immediately faced with the problem as to what should be presented to a group of this type. Since these young men had no faith in the Bible, ordinary Bible teaching seemed useless. Then I hit upon an idea. I had noticed in my undergraduate work a very close relation between the first chapter of Genesis and the sciences, and decided to present this picture to the group.

‘The students and I naturally were aware of the fact that this Genesis material had been written thousands of years before science had any of its present-day knowledge and concepts regarding the universe, and the earth, and the life upon it. We realized that many of the teachings of people back in the days of Moses and for thousand of years thereafter were very absurd when looked at in the light of modern knowledge available also to this group of students. Nevertheless, we “tackled” the subject with a will.

We spent the whole winter in Genesis I. The students took assignments to the university library, and then brought back papers marked by thoroughness such as a teacher usually only dreams of. At the end of that winter the pastor invited me to his office and told me that the entire group had come to him saying that they wished to become Christians. It has been proved to them, they had said, that the Bible was the inspired Word of God.”¹⁷

One sentence of the Book of Genesis regarding the beginning of the world reads: ...and darkness was upon the face of the deep.’

According to recent discoveries, this gives the best description of the time when the earth was still hot and all water had evaporated. All throughout that time all our seas were suspended in the atmosphere in the form of dense clouds, as a result of which light was not able to penetrate to the surface of the earth. As A. Cressy Morrison says in his book, Man Does Not Stand Alone:

“Can science pick a flaw in this briefest story ever told? We must accord our homage to the writer, unknown and unheralded, in complete humility bow to his wisdom and admit his inspiration. In the face of the simple truth here told, let us not quarrel over details due to translation and human interpolation or over the question of how God did His work or the time it took. Who knows? The facts as told have come down through the ages and are facts.”

It is our belief that the Old and New Testaments were originally divine, as the Quran still is today and that they still contain sparks of divine knowledge, but the scriptures have lost their pristine qualities in the process of translation and interpolation.

As Dr. Maurice Bucaille writes in his book The Bible, the Quran and Science. ‘A revelation is mingled in all these writings, but all we possess today is what men have seen fit to leave us. These men manipulated the texts to please themselves, according to the circumstances they were in and the necessities they had to meet.

‘When these objective data are compared with those found in various prefaces to Bibles destined today for mass publication, one realizes that facts are presented in them in quite a different way. Fundamental facts concerning the writing of the books are passed over in silence, ambiguities which may mislead the reader are maintained, facts are minimalised to such an extent that a false idea of reality is conveyed. A large number of prefaces or introductions to the Bible misrepresent reality in this way. In the case of books that were adapted several times (like the Pentateuch), it is said that certain details many have been added later on. A discussion of an unimportant passage of a book is introduced, but crucial facts warranting lengthy expositions are passed over in silence. It is distressing to see such inaccurate information on the Bible maintained for mass publication (pp. 9,10).

Later, on p. 42, he says, ‘At a time when it was not yet possible to ask scientific questions, and one could only decide on improbabilities or contradictions, a man of good sense, such as Saint Augustine, considered that God could not teach man things that did not correspond to reality. He therefore put forward the principle that it was not possible for an affirmation contrary to the truth to be of divine origin, and was prepared to exclude from all the sacred texts anything that appeared to him to merit exclusion on these grounds.

‘Later, at a time when the incompatability of certain passages of the Bible with modern knowledge has been realized, the same attitude has not been followed. This refusal has been so insistent that a whole literature has sprung up, aimed at justifying the fact that, in the face of all opposition, texts have been retained in the Bible that have no reason to be there.’

This certainly can never be said of the Quran. In the more ancient scriptures we find only glimpses of the truth, whereas in the Quran the truth is enshrined in all its original glory. Had the Quran been the work of man, and not of God, its assertions would certainly have been proved wrong, or irrelevant, in the light of modern scientific discoveries.

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 that can only be found in God. It is beyond any human being to compose a work of absolute consistency. For a work to be free of inconsistency, the composer has to command knowledge which 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.

Only God can possess all these extraordinary qualities. For this reason, only His Word will remain perennially free of all inconsistency and contradiction. The work of man, on the other hand, is always marred by imperfection, for man himself is imperfect; it is beyond him 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 thought. Such is the nature of creation that it accepts only the Thought of its Creator. Any theory that is not in consonance with His thought cannot find its place in the universe. It will contradict itself, for it stands in contradiction to the universe at large; it will be inconsistent, for it is not in accord with the pattern of nature.

For this reason, intellectual inconsistency is bound to afflict any theory conceived 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 stood up on its two hind feet, 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 has 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 vegetables 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 gain an idea 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. Let us 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 the 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 thousand billion times! Even if there were a hundred million members of the species all producing offspring, it would still take 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-Darwinian 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 favored 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—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 a firm root. It is indeed significant that eminent scholars from various fields have thought it 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 has been the case with political philosophy. According to the 1984 edition of 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 towards 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 tyrannise the entire population of a country or countries. Although democracy had wide popular support, it has also been subjected to sharp criticism on a theoretical plane. The entire basis of democracy is the belief that people are born equal, with equal rights and that they are free. But the problems afflicting democracy are alluded to in the very first lines of Rousseau’s Social Contract: ‘Man was born free and everywhere he is in chains.’

The literal meaning of democracy—a word of Greek origin—is rule by the people. But in practice it is impossible to establish rule by all the people. How can all the people govern and be governed at the same time? Furthermore, man is said to be a social animal. Far from being alone in this world with the liberty to live as he pleases, he is part of the body of society. One philosopher puts it like this: ‘Man is not born free. Man is born into society, which imposes restraints of him.’

How, then, can a popular government be formed, when all the people cannot have power at the same time? 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. So, in effect, government by the people becomes 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. Rousseau explained this by saying: To follow one’s impulse is slavery, but to obey the self-prescribed law is liberty.’¹⁸

Clearly, this leaves much unanswered. Seeing how easily democratic systems deteriorated into elective monarchies, people were not satisfied with Rousseau’s explanation. Once they had secured people’s votes, democratically elected rulers began to assume the same role as monarchs had before them.

All political philosophers have been caught up in contradictions of this nature. And there appears no way out of the impasse. In theory, all of them cherish the ideal of human equality. Yet human equality, in the true sense, is forthcoming neither in monarchies nor in democracies. If the one is a dynastic monarchy, the other is an elective oligarchy. In the 18th and 19th centuries, people rose in great rebellion against monarchic government. But free of the yoke of kingly rule, they found that they were not much better off in that they had to resign themselves to rule by a select group of ‘representatives of the people’, while the old monarchs had laid claim to being ‘representatives of God on earth.’ This was the only difference between the two.

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%) has 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 plain that modern political philosophy is still faced with the basic problems.”¹⁹

In both democratic and despotic systems of government, power is handed over to a single or a few select individuals. In neither system, then, can men be said to be equal, not even under democracy, which has failed to produce equality although formulated in its name. Due to inherent contradictions, this system had likewise produced the opposite of what was intended.

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 division between ruler and subjects. Yet no human system, whatever its nature, has been able to do this. In both the democratic and despotic 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.

Quran

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 outward realities, the book is externally inconsistent. 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 beset by human failings and there would have been inconsistencies in it of the type so frequently found in the works of man.

Contradictions within a work arise basically from the deficiencies of its author. If inconsistencies 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 being 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 maturer age are proved wrong after his death. Truth is not arrived at purely through experience and reasoning.

Human beings, in addition to making inadvertent and unwitting errors (for the simple reason that they are humans, and not God!) 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. One such notorious instance in which the entire western scientific establishment were made dupes of for about half a century was that of the “discovery” of the Piltdown Man, a supposedly “missing link” (according to the evolutionists) between man and his ancestor, the ape. 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 textbooks 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. Well’s 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 fireproof 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 has received was totally unfounded. What had actually happened was that someone, who wished to discredit a rival by playing a trick on him, and 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 has been taken by the entire body of western scientists, he was afraid to own up, and his silence then perverted positive thinking on evolution for several decades.

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 wilfulness, 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

It is unfortunate that the same cannot be said for 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 generation 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 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 contradictions. 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 another extraordinary contradiction in order to explain away this contradiction 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 out number the sons of the Prophet.’²⁰

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 which enables them to plunder the lower laboring class.

The solution prescribed by Marx consisted of confiscating the properties of the capitalist class and putting them under the administration of the laboring class. Thus, he claimed, a classless society would come into being. But herein lies the basic contradiction of 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 administration. 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 did not 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 discourses. Yet, even so, opponents of the Quran have tried to prove that there are contradictions in it. All the examples they cite in this regard, however, have absolutely no connection 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. On the one hand, Islam says that men and women are equal, yet at the same time women are allotted an inferior position in Islamic society. They then cite the fact that the testimony of two women is considered equal to that of one man. This is a total misunderstanding. It is true that in Islam the testimony of two women is, under normal circumstances, considered equal to that of one man. But the basis of this rule is not discrimination between the sexes. It is something quite different, as is made clear in the verse of the Quran where it has been laid down. The verse 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.”²¹

The wording of the verse shows quite clearly that the basis of this rule is—not discrimination between the sexes—but rather the memorizing ability of women. The verse alludes to a biological fact—that women are not as good at remembering things as men. This is why, if one is going to accept women’s testimony in loan cases, there should be two of them: so that if at any time in the future, they are required to give evidence, one of them should be able to compensate for the other’s poor memory.

It is good to remember here that modern research has confirmed what the Quran said—that women’s memory is weaker than that of men. Russian scientists have gone into this matter in great detail, and their conclusions have been published in book form. A summary appeared in the New Delhi edition of the Times of India on January 18, 1985, under the caption, ‘Memorizing Ability’:

‘Men have a greater ability to memorize and process mathematical information than women, but females are better with words, a Soviet scientist says, reports UPI. ‘Men dominate mathematical subjects due to the peculiarities of their memory,’ Dr. Vladimir Knovalov 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 nature. He sees things from every angle, and so is in a position to issue commandments that are in total harmony with nature.

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. It is illuminating in this connection to make comparisons of the differing accounts of historical facts given by the Quran and the Bible.

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 Jews’ entrance into Egypt and their exodus from that country. 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, used the term ‘Pharaoh’.

As everyone acquainted with the period knows, this nomenclature is historically incorrect. The reign of the kings known as Pharaohs only began in Moses’ time; 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 ruled there. They were ethnically Arabs, and had usurped the Egyptian throne, ruling in that country from 2000 BC until the end of the 15th century BC. The indigenous population then rebelled against foreign rule and the Hyksos dynasty came 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 choice but to do so, 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.

Yet despite this, we hear mention in the Quran of the Egyptian monarch who was a contemporary of Joseph. For him, the Quran uses the title ‘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 is written by One who had direct recourse to true facts, without dependence on human sources of knowledge.

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 heaven, 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 re-evaluated 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 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 have been made on the basis of 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 is ever evinced 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.

At this point, I propose to give some examples from different disciplines to show how, while dealing with any given science, the Quran surprisingly encompassed truths which were to be discovered and confirmed much later. Before launching upon this discussion, it should be borne in mind that the correspondence between modern research and Quranic words is based on the presumption that modern research has, indeed, succeeded in finding out the truth of the facts in question, thus, providing us with the necessary material to make an up-to-date and correct interpretation of Quranic assertions about the material universe. Now, if further research proves our contemporary research wrong, even in part, it will amount in no way to proving the Quran at fault. It will simply mean that, that particular interpretation of the Quran in the light of scientific discoveries was wrongly angled, or inadequate. I feel certain that with the more accurate information which will be available in the future, an interpreter of the Quran will feel better equipped to explain those verses which contain scientific truths; correct information about any given fact can never be contrary to Quranic assertions, whatever they may be.

Assertions of this sort, fall into two separate categories, one relating to matters on which there existed no prior information whatsoever at the time the Quran was written, and the other to matters on which the information available was either superficial or inadequate.

Dr. Maurice Bucaille, in his The Bible, the Qur’an and Science, describes as ‘bizarre’ the notion that ‘if surprising statements of a scientific nature exist in the Quran, they may be accounted for by the fact that Arab scientists were so far ahead of their time and Muhammad was influenced by their work. Anyone who knows anything about Islamic history is aware that the period of the Middle Ages which saw the cultural and scientific upsurge in the Arab world came after Muhammad and would not therefore indulge in such whims’ (p.121).

There were many aspects of the universe about which ancient peoples had only partial knowledge, this having been demonstrated by modern scientific findings, but it should be made clear at this point that the main purpose of the Quran was not to expound scientific theories in order to explain natural phenomena, but to elucidate the divine symbolism of the workings of nature in order that people should be purified in mind and soul and become so imbued with feelings of awe and reverence of God’s will, that a veritable moral revolution would ensue. The Quran was never meant to be just a book about the physical sciences. And had it disclosed totally new and unheard of scientific facts to the people, this would have sparked off unending and quite irrelevant discussions about the nature of these facts, while the real aims of the Quran would have been thrust into the background. It is little short of miraculous that, centuries before science had made such gigantic leaps forward, the Quran clarified for the common people such scientific facts as illustrated the highest moral principles without using terminology which would in any way confuse them or obscure the issue. And it is those very facts that we now find are entirely consistent with the results of modern investigations.

An interesting example of this is the Quran’s description of the behavior of water so as to illustrate the particular physical law that governs it.

He has let loose the two seas: they meet one another. Between them stands a barrier which they cannot overrun. (55:19-20)

Two rivers meeting and flowing onwards together without their waters mingling with each other was a phenomenon which had obviously been observed and partially understood by ancient peoples. We can observe this today in the waters of the two rivers which flow together from Chatagam in Bangladesh to Arakan in Burma. All along their course the waters are quite distinct from one another, a ‘stripe’ being visible between them dividing salt water from fresh. This same phenomenon can also be seen at the confluence of the Ganges and the Jamuna at Allahabad. Both the rivers course onwards together, yet are distinctly separated from one another. Rivers which flow down to coastal areas and are affected by the ebb and flow of the sea, have large quantities of salt-water gush upstream at high tide but, again the waters do not mix. The salt water forms an upper layer, the fresh water remaining below it. At ebb tide, the salt water recedes, leaving the fresh water, as it was before.

Man had observed such natural phenomena from ancient times, but he did not know the laws of nature which governed them. It has recently been discovered by modern research that the way liquids flow is governed by a difference in salinity and thus density because saline water is denser than fresh water; when two water bodies converge, the more saline of the two flows beneath the less saline. Thus, a river flowing into the sea flows on the surface, sometimes for great distances; the Mississippi, for example, appears as a brown, fresh-water stream in the blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Salinity variations in the oceans and seas are partially responsible for large-scale seawater circulation.

A well-known example is the flow to the Mediterranean Sea, which is separated from the North Atlantic by a sill, 320 metres (1,050 feet) deep, at the Strait of Gibraltar. The Mediterranean is saltier than the North Atlantic because its evaporation exceeds its replenishment by rivers; the more saline water of the Mediterranean thus flows at depth over the sill into the North Atlantic, where it sinks to a depth of 1,000 metres; and less saline water from the North Atlantic flows near the surface. Current speeds as high as two metres per second have been recorded.²²

It is as if there were a barrier between the waters of different densities, and ‘barrier’ is the exact expression used by the Quran.

Examples From Astronomy

The firmament is another aspect of the universe which is described in the Quran in terms which are quite consistent with modern science: ‘It was God who raised the heavens without visible pillars’ (13:2).

Such was human observation in ancient times. Man could see that above his head the sun, moon and stars had no visible supports. And these words are equally meaningful for the scientific man of today, because the latest observations show that the celestial bodies exist in an infinite space with the invisible pull of gravity that holds them in position. Of the sun and other celestial bodies, the Quran says, “Each floats freely in an orbit of its own” (21:33).

Ancient man was familiar with the movement of celestial bodies, so he was not confused by this, “floating” being the most appropriate term to describe the movement of celestial bodies in a vast and subtle space. And how much more significance had been lent to this word by recent discoveries. Day and night, the results of such movement by a celestial body, are depicted thus in the Quran: ‘He throws the veil of night over the day. Swiftly they follow one another’ (7:54).

Dr. Maurice Bucaille, in his The Bible, the Quran and Science, lists a number of similar extracts from the Quran, which gave accurate descriptions of the alternation of day and night, long before modern deductions or the observations of cosmonauts bore this out. He then makes the important point that at a time when it was held that the Earth was the center of the world and that the Sun moved in relation to it, how could anyone have failed to refer to the sun’s movement when talking of the sequence of night and day? This is not however referred to in the Quran (p. 163). He then discusses the special significance of the Arabic verb kawwara, (Quran 39: 5), the original meaning of which is to coil or wind a turban round the head, when describing the change from night to day, evidently conveying the idea of the rotation of the earth (Most translators seem to have misinterpreted this). ‘This purpose of perpetual coiling, including the interpretation of one sector by another is expressed in the Quran just as if the concept of the earth’s roundness had already been conceived at the time—which was obviously not the case’ (p.164).

There are many descriptions in the Quran of a similar nature, some of them being scientific statements about phenomena of which seventh century men had no knowledge whatsoever. I should now like to present recent examples from a variety of disciplines which bear out the truth of these Quranic assertions.

Up until barely a century ago, the concept of this material universe as having a beginning and an end was something which appeared to have its origin in religiously inspired texts, but which did not seem to have any scientific basis in fact. Of the origin of the universe, the Quran said:

“Do not the disbelievers see that the heavens and the earth were one solid mass which was tore asunder, and that we made every living thing of water? Will they not have faith?” (21:30).

But now we find that 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 favored 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 center, 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 Sura 51, verse 47, “The heaven, We have built it with power. Verily 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 systems, 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. That is, 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 neighbor 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 lunar 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.”²³

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!’²⁴

The Quran Explains Geology

Geology is another field in which the Quran is truly the forerunner of modern scientific discovery.

In several parts of the Quran, it is stated that the mountain were raised in order to keep the earth in equilibrium, “He raised the heavens without visible pillars and set immovable mountains on the earth lest it should shake with you” (31:10).

Fifteen hundred years ago, at the time these words were recorded, man had no understanding of the importance of the mountains. It is only recently that geographers have formulated the concept of isostasy, which is defined by the Encyclopaedia Britannica as the “theoretical balance of all large portions of the Earth’s crust as though they were floating on a denser underlying layer, about 110 kilometers (70 miles) below the surface. Imaginary columns of equal cross-sectional area that rise from this layer to the surface are assumed to have equal weights everywhere on Earth, even though their constituents and elevations of their upper surfaces are significantly different. This means that an excess of mass seen as material above sea level, as in a mountain system, is due to a deficit of mass, or low-density roots, below sea level.

“In the theory of isostasy a mass above sea level is supported below sea level, and thus there is a certain depth at which the total weight per unit area is equal all around the world; this is known as the depth of compensation” (V/458).

The apparent unchangeability of the mountains—the ‘immovable mountains’ of the Quran—is explained by the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1984) in terms of this naturally occurring balance:

“Most of the Earth’s crust is approximately in hydrostatic equilibrium in this way, so that when erosion occurs and rivers transport large quantities of weathered material away from the upland areas to be deposited in the oceans, there is a tendency for the hinterland to rise isostatically, and for the adjacent ocean floor to sink” (6/44).

O.R. Von Engeln gives perhaps the most direct explanation of this phenomenon:

“Geologists hold that the lighter matter on the surface of the earth emerged in the form of mountains, and heavier matter got depressed in the form of deep trenches which are now filled with sea water. Thus this elevation and depression together maintain the balance of the earth.”²⁵

Similarly it is said in the Quran that the earth had passed through a stage when God has caused the landmasses to drift apart:

And the earth He extended after that; and then drew from it water and pastures (79:30-31).

These words from the Quran correspond exactly to the latest theory of drifting continents. This means that all our continents at one time were parts of one consolidated landmass, then, following an explosion, they were scattered all over the surface of the earth and a world of continents emerged from the sea and oceans.

This theory was first properly expounded in the year 1915 by a German geologist, Alfred Wegener. Together, they could be fitted into one another like a Jigsaw puzzle. For instance, the eastern coast of South America joins with the western coast of Africa, etc.

There are several other such resemblances to be found on opposite coasts of vast oceans, e.g. mountains of the same kind, rocks dating back to the same geological period, animals, fishes and plants of the same type and so on.

Professor Ronald Good, in his book entitled, Geography of the Flowering Plants, writes that botanists are almost unanimous in their view that the presence of certain types of plants in various regions of the earth cannot be explained unless we suppose that, at some point in the past, these tracts of land were joined together.

Some fossil magnetism having supported this theory, it has become an established scientific doctrine. A study of the particular direction of stone particles reveals the altitude and latitudes of the rock of which they formed a part in ancient times. This study thus reveals that, in the past, certain tracts of land were not situated where they are today; on the contrary, they were situated exactly at places where the theory of drifting continents would suggest. P.M. Blacket, Professor of Physics at the Imperial College, London, writes that measurements of Indian stones definitely show that seventy million years ago, India was situated south of the equator and that examination of South African rocks reveals that the African continent split off from the land mass at the South Pole three hundred million years ago.

The word which is used in the Quranic verse to describe this phenomenon of drift and dispersal is dahw. It has the same connotations as the English word ‘drift’ in, for example, “The rain water caused the sand particles to drift away from the land. “Such a wonderful similarity between this version, from the remotest past, of major geological changes and the discoveries of the present day cannot be explained in any other way than that the Quran springs from a Being whose knowledge far surpasses the limitations of time and space.

The Evidence of Biology

In the field of biology, Quranic descriptions of embryonic development are truly remarkable. These were headlined in the newspapers towards the end of 1984. The Canadian newspaper, The Citizen (22 November, 1984) published this news under the heading: Ancient Holy Book 1300 Years Ahead of its Time.

Similarly The Times of India, New Delhi (10 December, 1984) published this news under this headline: Koran Scores Over Modern Sciences.

Dr. Keith More, a famous embryologist and professor at Toronto University, Canada, has studied some verses from the Quran (23:14, 39:6), making a comparative study of the Quranic verses with modern research. In this connection he also visited the King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, several times, along with his colleagues. He found that the statements of the Quran, astonishingly corresponded in full with modern discoveries. He was very surprised that facts contained in the Quran were brought to light by the Western World as late as 1940. In a paper written in this connection, he says: “The 1300 year 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 Qur’anic description of certain stages in the development of the embryo corresponds exactly to what we today know about it, and the Qur’an 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 Qur’an 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’).

“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.” (23:14)

‘Chewed flesh’ is the translation of the word mudga; ‘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 mukallaq which signifies ‘shaped in proportion’ as used in verse 5, sura 22 to describe this phenomenon.

“We fashioned …  into something which clings…  into a lump of flesh in proportion and out of proportion.”

More than a thousand years before our time, at a period when whimsical doctrines still prevailed, men had a knowledge of the Qur’an. The statements it contains express in simple terms truths of primordial importance which man has taken centuries to discover (pp. 205-06).

Dietetics in the Quran

In the Quran, certain foodstuffs are declared unfit for human consumption and are, therefore, prohibited. One of these items is blood. At the time of revelation, man had no idea of the dietetic importance of this law. Much later, when laboratory research had isolated the components of blood, the wisdom of this prohibition became clear. Far from refuting the law, scientific investigation illustrated its benefits.

The analysis showed that blood contains an abundance of uric acid, a pernicious substance the intake of which is injurious to human health. This is the reason for the special method of slaughter prescribed in Islam. The wielder of the knife, having taken the name of God, makes an incision in the jugular vein; leaving the other veins of the neck intact. This causes death by a total loss of blood from the body, rather than by injury to any vital organ. Were the animal’s brain, heart, liver or any other vital organ to be crippled, the animal would die immediately, and its blood would congeal in its veins and eventually permeate the flesh. The animal’s flesh would thus be contaminated with uric acid and would become poisonous.

Pork has also been prohibited in the Quran. At that time the reasons for this prohibition were not fully understood. Nowadays, people are much more well informed about its harmful effects. Uric acid, as we have seen, is present in all animals. The human body too has its share, which is extracted by the kidneys and excreted by means of urination. Ninety per cent of the uric acid collected in the human body is extracted in this way. But the pig’s biochemistry is such that it excretes only two percent of its uric acid. The rest remains an integral part of the body. It is this factor which causes the high rate of rheumatism found in pigs, and those who eat pork are also especially prone to this disease.

Another matter of considerable medical importance touched on by the Quran is the utility of honey.

We are told that in honey ‘there is a healing for men’ (16:69). In the light of this verse the Muslims made much use of honey while preparing medicine. But to the western world its medical importance was unknown.

Up till the 19th century in Europe, honey was considered only a liquid food. It was as late as the 20th century that European scholars discovered that honey contained antiseptic properties. We shall quote here in brief what an American magazine has to say about modern research on honey:

“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 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 inflammation, lived 48 hours. A hardy germ which causes broncho-pneumonia and septicemia held out for four days. Bacillus coil 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.”26

The account which modern physiology gives of how milk is produced has led to a reinterpretation of a Quranic verse on this subject which early translators had found difficult to render for the lack of scientific knowledge. Modern translation, backed up by science, now gives us this interpretation: ‘Verily, in cattle there is a lesson for you. We give you to drink of what is inside their bodies, coming from a conjunction between the contents of the intestine and the blood, a milk, pure and pleasant for those who drink it.”27

In The Bible, the Quran and Science, (p. 196,197) Dr. Maurice Bucaille explains that “the constituents of milk are secreted by the mammary glands. These are nourished as it were by the product of food digestion brought to them via the bloodstream. Blood therefore plays the role of collector and conductor of what has been extracted from food and it brings nutrition of the mammary glands, the producers of milk, as it does to any other organ. He writes:

“Here the initial process which sets everything in motion is the bringing together of the contents of the intestine and blood at the level of the intestinal wall itself. This very precise concept is the result of discoveries made in the chemistry and physiology of the digestive system. It was totally unknown at the time of the Prophet Muhammad and has been understood only in recent times. Harvey made the discovery of the circulation of the blood roughly ten centuries after the Quranic revelation.

“I consider that the existence in the Quran of the verse referring to these concepts can have no human explanation on account of the period in which they were formulated.”

Modern Physics and The Quran

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 Issac 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 over 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 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.”²⁸

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 behavior 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 sub-atomic 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 bonafides 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?²⁹

When the Quran specifically states that God is the absolute Sovereign Lord of this universe, that He “accomplishes what He pleases” (14:27) and that He is the Executor of His own will (85:16), we need not even ask ourselves the kind of question Ian Roxburgh put. For thousands of years, this concept of God was an established one, quite beyond dispute. Now, from the point of extreme materialism the pendulum of belief has swung back to the immutable and unassailable laws of the Quran.

There are innumerable examples in the Quran and in the Traditions of the Prophet, which are extremely strong indications that the Quran’s inspiration is superhuman. To sum up, here is an incident which occurred in England, as related by Inayat-ullah Mashriqi. “It was Sunday,” he writes, “the year 1909. It was raining hard. I had gone out on some errand when I saw the famous Cambridge University astronomer, Sir James Jeans, with a Bible clutched under his arm, on his way to Church. Coming closer I greeted him, but he did not reply. When I greeted him again, he looked at me and asked, ‘What do you want? ‘Two things, I replied. ‘Firstly, the rain is pouring down, but you have not opened your umbrella. ‘Sir James smiled at his own absent-mindedness and opened his umbrella. ‘Secondly’, I continued, ‘I would like to know that a man of universal fame such as yourself is doing—going to pray in Church?’ Sir James paused for a while, then, looking at me, he said, ‘Come and have tea with me this evening.’ So I went along to his house that afternoon. At exactly 4 o’clock, Lady James appeared. ‘Sir James is waiting for you’, she said. I went inside, where tea was ready on the table. Sir James was lost in thought. ‘What was your question again?’ he asked, and without waiting for an answer, he went off into an inspiring description of the creation of the celestial bodies and the astonishing order to which they adhere, the incredible distances over which they travel and the unfailing regularity which they maintain, their intricate journeys through space in their orbits, their mutual attraction and their never wavering from the path chosen for them, no matter how complicated it might be. His vivid account of the Power and Majesty of God made my heart begin to tremble. As for him, the hair on his head was standing up straight. His eyes were shining with awe and wonder. Trepidation at the thought of God’s all-knowing and all-powerful nature made his hands tremble and his voice falter. ‘You know, Inayat-ullah Khan’, he said, ‘when I behold God’s marvellous feats of creation, my whole being trembles in awe at His majesty. When I go to Church I bow my head and say, “Lord, how great you are,” and not only my lips, but every particle of my body joins in uttering these words. I obtain incredible peace and joy from my prayer. Compared to others, I receive a thousand times more fulfillment from my prayer. So tell me, Inayat-ullah Khan, now do you understand why I go to Church?”

Sir James Jeans’s words left Inayat-ullah Mashriqi’s mind spinning. “Sir,” he said, “your inspiring words have made a deep impression on me. I am reminded of a verse of the Quran which, if I may be allowed, I should like to quote.” “Of course.” Sir James replied. Inayat-ullah Khan then recited this verse:

“In the mountains there are streaks of various shades of red and white, and jet-black rocks. Men, beasts and cattle have their different colours, too. From among His servants, it is the learned who fear God” (35:27-28).

“What was that?” exclaimed Sir James. “It is those alone who have knowledge who fear God. Wonderful! How extraordinary! It has taken me fifty years of continual study and observation to realize this fact. Who taught it to Muhammad? Is this really in the Quran? If so, you can record my testimony that the Quran’s an inspired Book. Muhammad was illiterate. He could not have learnt this immensely important fact on his own. God must have taught it to him. Incredible! How extraordinary!”³⁰

And how significant that Sir James Jeans should have concluded his book, The Mysterious Universe with these words:

“We cannot claim to have discerned more than a very faint glimmer of light at the best; perhaps it was wholly illusory, for certainly we had to strain our eyes very hard to see anything at all. So that our main contention can hardly be that the science of today has a pronouncement to make, perhaps it ought rather to be that science should leave off making pronouncements: the river of knowledge has too often turned back on itself” (p.138).

Notes

1.        Quran, 2:23.

2.        Quran, 17:31.

3.        Quran, 61:8-9.

4.        Life of Mahomet, Vol.II. p. 228.

5.        The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, p. 80.

6.        Ibid, p. 76.

7.        The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, pp. 80-81.

8.        Ibid, p. 76.

9.        Ibid, p. 82.

10.      Quran 30: 2-6.

11.      The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, p. 94.

12.      Ibid, pp. 79-80.

13.      Exodus, 14:28.

14.      Quran, 10:92.

15.      Maurice Bucaille, The Bible, The Quran and Science, p.241.

16.      Ibid, p. 241.

17.      The Evidence of God, pp. 137-38.

18.      Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol.15, p. 1172.

19.      Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol.14, p. 695.

20.      John Kenneth Galbraith, The Age of Uncertainty, p. 77.

21.      Quran, 2:282.

22.      See Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol. VIII, p. 811.

23.      A.C. Morrison, Man Does Not Stand Alone, p. 19.

24.      Quran, 54:1,2.

25.      O.R. Von Engeln, Geomorphology, (New York, 1948), p. 262.

26.      Rosicrucian Digest, September, 1975, p. 11.

27.      Quran, 16:66.

28.      Encyclopaedia Britannica 1984, Vol. 19, p. 665.

29.      Sunday Times, London, 4 December, 1977.

30.      Nuqoosh Shakhsiyat, (Impressions of Personalities), pp. 1208-1209.