While all the prophets
have their signs, Moses had the competition with the magicians and the Pharaoh,
Jesus healed the sick and raised the dead and so on, one Sign was given to the
last of the prophets. According to the Muslims, this is the Quran. And this one
Sign is still with us. Does not that after all seem fair, that if prophethood
is to end that the last prophet should bring something that stays with us so
that, in fact, a Muslim who takes his religion seriously suffers no
disadvantage to Muslims who lived fourteen centuries ago?
Those people who kept
company with the Prophet had access to no more of the necessary information
than we have today. It is still a sign to us today, the same miracle.
Well, let us test the
Quran. Suppose that if I say to a man, ‘I
know your father’. Probably he is going to examine the situation and see if
it seems likely that I have met his father. If he is not convinced, he will
start asking me questions like, ‘You know
my father, you say, is he a tall man? Does he have curly hair? Does he wear
glasses?’, and so on. If I keep giving him the right answers to all these
questions, pretty soon he is going to be convinced. ‘Well, I guess this man did meet my father like he said’. You see
the method.
The Big Bang Theory
Here in the Quran we have
a book which claims that its author is one who was present at the beginning of
the universe, at the beginning of life. So, we have a right to address that
author and say, ‘Well, tell me something,
prove to me that you were there when the world began, when life began’. The
Quran gives us an interesting statement. It reads:
‘Have not the disbelievers seen that the Heaven and the Earth were one
piece and We parted them? And We made every living thing from water. Will they
not then believe?’ (21: 30)
There are three key
points here. First of all, it is the disbelievers who are mentioned as being
those who would see that the heavens and the earth were one piece and then
parted and would see that all life came to be made from water.
As it happens, the
universally accepted theory of the origin of the universe is now the Big Bang
theory. It maintains that at one time all of the heavens and the earth were one
piece, the monoblock as it is called.
At a particular point in time, this monoblock
burst and it continues to expand. This give us the universe we have today. This
was a recent discovery, a recent confirmation.
The Nobel prize in Physics
was awarded only a few years ago to those who confirmed the Big Bang origin of
the universe. It was only about two hundred years ago that Leeuwenhoek and
others perfected the microscope and discovered for the first time that living
cells are composed of about eighty percent water.
Those Noble prize winners
and the Dutchman who invented the microscope were not Muslims. And yet they
confirmed the vital statement that at one time the universe was on piece, that
life was made from water, just as this verse says:
‘Have not the disbelievers seen that the Heaven and the Earth were one
piece and We parted them? And We made every living thing from water. Will they
not then believe?’ (21: 30)
Well, this sounds
like an answer to the question we started with when we ask the author: ‘Tell me something that shows me you were
present when the universe began, when life began?’
The Expending Heavens
Let me first show more of
our examination of the Quran, and then an exmination of convergence. In chapter
fifty one, verse forty seven, it is mentioned that the heavens are expending.
As I mentioned earlier, this is in connection with the Big Bang origin of the
universe, as it is usually called, and it was in 1973 that the Nobel prize was
awarded to three men who were confirming that, after all, the universe is
expending.
The comments of
Muslims over the centuries on this verse which speaks of the heavens doing
exactly that is very interesting. The wisest among them had started that the
words are very clear, that the heavens are expending, but they could not
imagine how that could be so. But they were content to leave words as they
were, to say: ‘Allah knows best’.
The City of Iram
The Quran mentions a city
by the name of Iram (89: 7). The city of Iram
In 1973 the excavation in
Syria at the site of the
ancient city of Eblus
Interestingly enough, you
will fine the details in the National Geographic of 1978 which confirms that in
those tablets the city of Iram
Those Muslims who may
have offered their comments, trying to explain away this reference that they
were uncomfortable with, were outsmarted by the author of the Quran. They are
those who would outsmart the author of the Quran. They would attempt it.
Primarily, their activity would involve trying to produce the evidence that the
author of this book had a primitive understanding of the world around us.
The Smallest Matter
For example, there is a
word which is translated today usually in Arabic as zarrah. This is usually translated as atom, and it is usually thought of in Arabic as being the smallest
item available at one time. Perhaps the Arabs thought it was an ant or a grain
of dust. Today the word is usually translated as atom.
Those who would
outsmart the author of the Quran have insisted that, well, the atom is not
after all the smallest piece of matter because in this century it has been
discovered that even the atom is made of still smaller pieces of matter. Is it
then possible to outsmarted the author who chose to use this word? Well, there
is an interesting verse, in chapter ten, verse sixty one, which speaks of items
the size of a zarrah, (atom) or
smaller. There is no possibility that on this subject someone is going to say a
new discovery has outdated the words of the Quran on the issue of the size of
matter or the ultimate particles. The verse talks about items the size of a zarrah (atom) or smaller.
Forgiveness
Speaking of outsmarting
the author of the Quran, the Islamic point of view is that when a man embraces
Islam, his past is forgiven from the very beginning. This has been the
invitation to Islam: come to Islam and all is forgiven from the past.
But consider this. There
is only one enemy of Muhammad, peace be upon him, who is mentioned by name in
the Quran: one Abu Lahab. In a short chapter of this book, he is condemned to
punishment for his sins.
As it happens, the man
himself was alive for many years after this revelation. He could therefore have
finished Islam very easily. He needed only to go to the Muslims to announce his
conversation. They had in their hands the revelation which said that this man
is doomed to punishment. He could have gone to the Muslims and say: ‘I accept Islam, and I forgiven or not?’.
He could have confused
them so much as to finish this small movement because he would have been
pointing out to them that they were now in confusion. The policy was instant
forgiveness of the past but their own revealed scripture announced that he was
not forgiven. As it was, Abu Lahab died without accepting Islam.
Predictions
In fact, the Quran
confidently predicted a number of things only a few hears before they came to
pass. The fall of the Persian empire , for
example, was predicted in spite of the fact that it had just suffered a serious
military reverse. The evidence was all to the contrary. But in the chapter
entitled Rum, the fall of the Persians empire who were recently victors over
the Romans was predicted.
When all the Muslims
in the world could meet in one room, the revelations were already discussing
their future successes. In confidence, they were planning for the day when they
would be in charge of the city where they were forced at that time to hide for
their very lives.
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