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| Malcolm X’s (al-Hajj, Malik al-Shabazz) letter to his assistants in Harlem during his pilgrimage to Makkah in April of 1964:
America needs to understand Islam, because this is the one religion that erases from its society the race problem. Throughout my travels in the Muslim world, I have met, talked to, and even eaten with people who in America would have been considered white - but the white attitude was removed from their minds by the religion of Islam. I have never before seen sincere and true brotherhood practiced by all colors together, irrespective of their color.” |
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The Quran and Science
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The suggestion that religion is at odds with science is, and always has, been alien to Islam. Nevertheless, it is a notion that has become prevalent within society today, largely due to historical experience of the Church during Medieval Europe.
A long battle was fought between those who claimed to be custodians of Christianity (the ruling elite) and those who challenged their power in the name of progress and enlightenment. They questioned whether religion and science can co-exist?
There were many thinkers who questioned the authority of the church and indeed, Christianity itself. Their doubts arose after the realisation that church dogman contradicted contemporary scientific discoveries.
The rise of science flew in the face of Church authority. Great thinkers, such as Galileo, were suppressed - he spent the last days of his life under house arrest, being forced to retract his findings that the Earth revolved around the Sun and not vice-versa, as the Church held. Papal decrees were issued, forbidding the study of nature and even supporting the punishment of death for disobedience. However, just as medieval Europe plunged into an era of darkness, the Islamic civilization was thriving with knowledge.
Not only did the Quran confirm modern day discoveries, it in fact presented detailed scientific facts centuries before their discovery - a firm testimony to its divinity. Embryology, Geology, Geography and astronomy are a few of the fields of science whose details are mentioned in the Quran. From the water cycle to the Earth’s orbit, it encouraged mankind to marvel at the Creator of such wonders. science progressed in unison with Islam, which did not stifle the spirit of scientific enquiry, as was the case in Europe. Enthused their deen ( religion ), Muslim scientists embarked upon a journey that saw the Islamic World catapulted forward as the most advanced civilization of its time - an envy to the rest of the world, who looked on in wonder.
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Allah  describes the water cycle in the Quran, yet the first clear formulation of the water cycle is attributed to Barnard Palissy in 1580 – nearly one thousand years after this verse was revealed.
"In the 7th century CE, Thales of Miletus held the theory whereby the waters of the oceans, under the effect of winds, were thrust towards the interior of the continents; so the water fell upon the earth and penetrated into the soil. Plato shared these views and thought that the return of the waters to the oceans was via a great abyss, the 'Tartarus'. Until the 18th century, this theory had many supporters, one of whom was Descartes. Aristotle imagined that the water vapour from the soil condensed in cool mountain caverns and formed underground lakes that fed springs. …" [1]
Yet in the Quran we read:
"(Allah) is the One Who sends forth the winds like heralds of His Mercy. When they have carried the heavy-laden clouds, We drive them to a dead land. Then We cause water to descend and thereby bring forth fruits of every kind. Thus We will bring forth the dead. Maybe you will remember." (Quran chapter 7, verse 57)
"Have you not seen that Allah sent water down from the sky and led it through sources into the ground? Then He caused sown fields of different colours to grow." (Quran chapter 39, verse 21)
"Therein We placed gardens of palm-trees and vineyards and We caused water springs to gush forth." (Quran chapter 36, verse 34)
"It was not until the Renaissance that purely philosophical concepts gave way to research based on the objective observation of hydrologic phenomena. .... Bernard Palissy, in his 'Wonderful Discourse on the Nature of Waters and Fountains both Natural and Artificial' gives a correct interpretation of the water cycle and especially of the way springs are fed by rainwater." [2]
This last statement is surely exactly what is mentioned in the Quran above (chapter 39, verse 21).
The Quran also detailed the human embryological stages over 1400 years ago. Yet scientists have only very recently discovered such detail through the aid of powerful microscopes.
"We created man from an extract of clay. Then We made him as a drop in a place of settlement, firmly fixed. Then We made the drop into an alaqah ( suspended thing and blood clot,) then We made the alaqah into mudghah (chewed-like substance)." (Quran chapter 23, verse 12-14)
The Arabic word alaqah meaning 'leech', 'suspended thing' and 'blood clot', matches closely with the current description of how an embryo appears in the early stages. It is leech-like in its shape and also feeds off the blood of its mother, just as a leech feeds. It is suspended in the womb and contains large amounts of blood which does not circulate initially, similar to a blood clot.
The Arabic word mudghah meaning 'chewed-like substance' matches closely with the appearance of an embryo at the next stage. The embryo has somites on its back which resemble teeth marks. Professor Keith Moore, a prominent embryologist, stated at a Medical conference in 1981 that he believed, "...these statements must have come to Muhammad from God, because all of this knowledge was not discovered until many centuries later." [3]
Professor Emeritus Frank Press, a former science Advisor to US President Jimmy Carter, describes in his book entitled "Earth," how mountains have underlying roots which are deeply embedded in the ground and thus, mountains have a shape like a peg. [4] The Quran describes the mountains as pegs:
"Have We not made the earth as a bed, and the mountains as pegs?" (Quran chapter 78, verses 6-7)
Mountains also stabilise the crust of the Earth and hinder shaking. The Quran states:
"And He has set firm the mountains in the earth that it would not shake with you..." (Quran chapter 6, verse 15)
This knowledge is relatively new to geologists, only being understood within the framework of plate tectonics since the late 1960's.
The aforementioned are but a few examples the Quran has to offer, revealed at a time where the society was largely illiterate and nomadic.
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| [1] G. Gastany and B. Blavoux, in their entry in the Encyclopedia Universalis under the heading ‘Hydrogeology’.
[2] M.R. Remenieras’ entry on Hydrology in the Encyclopedia Universalis.
[3] Said in 1981, during the Seventh Medical Conference in Dammam, Saudi Arabia
[4]
Earth, Press and Siever, p. 435. Also see Earth Science, Tarbuck and Lutgens, p. 157.
[5] For more details on the subject of the The Quran on Human Embryonic Development visit http://www.islam-guide.com/ch1-1-a.htm
[6] For more details on the subject of The Quran on Mountains visit http://www.islam-guide.com/ch1-1-b.htm |
| Categories: Islam Explained,
| Tags: science,
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