Quran and the modern science
By: Faizan Mushtaq
The first thing to understand about the Quran is its form. The Arabic word Quran literally means both ‘recitation’ and ‘reading’ .similarly the Quran was both recited orally and written down in book form.
The true power of Quran remains in the oral recitation, as it is meant to be read aloud and melodiously, but still the verses were written down on available materials as an aid to memorizing and guarding it, and these were collected and ordered in book form both privately and, at a later stage institutionally.
The Quran was not meant to tell chronological story, and thus the Quran should not be viewed as sequential narrative like the book of Genesis. The Arabic book that glows by the name Quran is about as long as the New Testament. In most editions it is about600 pages in length.
So, the main theme of writing this article is to spread the message to all people that there is nothing in this world that is not mentioned in our Quran and today we are going to look at one of the miracles or we can say the scientific fact that is mentioned in our Quran.
Human body is known as the crown of all the creations [ashraf-ul-makhlukat] because of its complexity and advancement; let’s start by the origin of human body called ‘Embryology’ in science. A few years ago a group of Arabs collected all the information about embryology from the Quran and was then translated into English by Dr. Keith Moore, who was the professor of embryology at university of Toronto in Canada.
After going through the information he said that the most of the information concerning embryology mentioned in Quran is perfect. It is obvious that he could not say whether the statements were true or false, since he himself was not aware of the information mentioned in the Quran.
There was no mention of this information in modern writings and studies on embryology. One such verse is: PROCLAIM! [OR READ!] IN THE NAME OF THE LORD AND CHERISHER, WHO CREATED MAN,OUT OF A [MERE]CLOT OF THE CONGEALED BLOOD.'{Al Quran 96:1-2}
The word ALAQ besides meaning a congealed clot of blood also means something that clings, a leech-like substance. Dr. Keith Moore had no knowledge whether an embryo in the initial stages appear like a leech. To check this out he studied the initial stages of the embryo under a very powerful microscope in his laboratory and compared what he observed with a diagram of a leech and he was astonished at the striking resemblance between the two!
In the same manner, he acquired more information on embryology that was hitherto not known to him, from the Quran. Dr.Keith answered about eighty questions dealing with embryological data mentioned in the Quran and Hadith. Nothing that the information contained in the Quran was in full agreement with the latest discoveries in the field of embryology
Dr. Keith said ‘If I was asked these questions thirty years ago, I would not have been able to answer half of them for lack of information.
Dr. Moore had earlier authored the book, ‘The Developing Human’ After acquiring new knowledge from the Quran he wrote in 1982,the third edition of the same book and was then recipient of an award for the best medical book written by a single author. This book has been translated into several major languages of the world and is used as a textbook of embryology in the first year of medical studies.
In 1981, during the Seventh Medical Conference in Dammam, Saudi Arabia, Dr. Keith said, It has been a great pleasure for me to help clarify statements in the Quran about human development. It is clear to me that these statements must have come to Muhammad [PBUH] from almighty ALLAH, because almost all of this knowledge was revealed until many centuries later. This proves to me that Mohammad [PBUH]must have been a messenger of ALLAH. So, these Hadiths, sayings of Mohammad[PBUH] could not have been obtained on the basis of the scientific knowledge which was not available at that time.
It follows that not only is there no conflict between genetics and religion [ISLAM] but in fact Islam may guide science by adding revelation to some of the traditional scientific approaches. Thus the Quranic description matches with the discoveries in modern embryology.
KV News
