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 Prophet Moses in the Red Sea. When the Quran was revealed, the only other mention of Pharaoh was in the Bible, the sole reference to his having drowned being in the book of Exodus; ‘And the waters returned, and covered the ‘chariots, and the horsemen, and all the host of Pharaoh that came into the sea after them; there remained not so much as one of them.’

Amazingly, when this was all the world knew 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.

How extraordinary this verse must have appeared when it was revealed. At that time no one knew that the Pharaoh’s body was really intact, and it was nearly 1400 hundred years before this fact came to light. It was a Professor Loret who, in 1898, was the first to find the mummified remains of the Pharaoh who lived in Moses’ day. For 3000 years the corpse had remained wrapped in a sheet in the Tomb of the Necropolis at Thebes where Loret had found it, until July 8, 1907, when Elliot Smith uncovered it and subjected it to proper scientific examination. In 1912 he published a book entitled The Royal Mummies. His research had proved that the mummy discovered by Loret was indeed that of the Pharaoh who ‘knew Moses, resisted his pleas, pursued him as he took flight, and lost his life in the process.’ His earthly remains were saved by the will of God from destruction to become a sign to man, as is written in the Quran.

In 1975, Dr. Bucaille made a detailed examination of the Pharaoh’s mummy which by then had been taken to Cairo. His findings led him to write in astonishment and acclaim:

Those who seek among modern data for proof of the Holy Scriptures will find a magnificent illustration of the verses of the Quran dealing with the Pharaoh’s body by visiting the Royal Mummies Room of the Egyptian Museum, Cairo!

As early as the seventh century A.D., the Quran had asserted that the Pharaoh’s body was preserved as a sign for man, but it was only in the 19th century that the body’s discovery gave concrete proof of this prediction. What further proof is needed that the Quran is the Book of God? There is no book like it, among the works of men.

Source: Quran: An Abiding Wonder

The Quranic description of certain stages in the development of the embryo corresponds exactly to what we know about it today, and the Quran does not contain a single statement that is open to criticism from modern science. That is why we can say that the Quran is the Book of God.

After ‘the thing which clings’ (an expression which is well-founded, as we have seen) the Quran informs us that the embryo passes through the stage of ‘chewed-flesh,’ then osseous tissue appears and is clad in flesh (defined by a different word from the preceding which signifies ‘intact flesh’). (23: 14)

“We fashioned the thing which clings into a chewed lump of flesh and We fashioned the chewed flesh into bones and We clothed the bones with intact flesh.”

‘Chewed flesh’ is the translation of the word mudgha; ‘intact flesh’ is lahm. This distinction needs to be stressed. The embryo is initially a small mass. At a certain stage in its development, it looks to the naked eye like chewed flesh. The bone structure develops inside this mass in what is called the mesenchyma. The bones that are formed are covered in muscle; the word lahm applies to them.

It is known how certain parts appear to be completely out of proportion during embryonic development with what is later to become the individual, while others remain in proportion.

This is surely the meaning of the word mukhallaq, which signifies ‘shaped in proportion’ as used in verse 5, surah 22 to describe this phenomenon.

“We fashioned ... into something which clings ... into a lump of flesh fashioned and unfashioned.”

More than a thousand years before our time, at a period when whimsical doctrines still prevailed, those who were privileged to have a knowledge of the Quran were fortunate, for the statements it contains express in simple terms truths of primordial importance which man has taken centuries to discover.

Source: Quran: An Abiding Wonder

“Do not those who deny the truth see that the heavens and the earth were joined together (ratq) and that We then split them asunder (fatq)? (The Quran, 21:30) 

Ratq means wholesomeness and compactness; while fatq is the opposite, that is, disintegration. Modern studies in astronomy have confirmed the truth of this concept, various observations have led scientists to postulate that the universe was formed by an explosion from a state of high density and temperature (the ‘big-bang’ theory) and that the cosmos evolved from the original, highly compressed, extremely hot gas, taking the form of galaxies of stars, cosmic dust, meteorites, and asteroids. The present outward motion of the galaxies is a result of this explosion.

According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1984), this is ‘the theory now favoured by most cosmologists.’ Once the process of expansion had set in – about six billion years ago – it had to continue, because the more the celestial bodies moved away from the centre, the less attraction they exerted over one another. Estimates of the circumference of the original matter place it at about one thousand million light years and now, according to Professor Eddington’s calculations, the present circumference is ten times what it was originally. This process of expansion is still going on. Professor Eddington explains that the stars and galaxies are like marks on the surface of a balloon that 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: “We built the universe with Our might, giving it its vast expanse.” (The Quran 51:47)

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.

Only the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe, God Almighty could have known these facts. This proves beyond doubt that the Quran is the Word of God.

Source: Quran: An Abiding Wonder