Hello,

I give weekly Dawah (Calling people to Islam) in my local town centre. We don't generally get many die hard atheists. So im doing some, as you would say, market research to see what the rebuttals are to a question i have.


The Quran was revealed in the 7th century in the deserts of Arabia to a man called Muhammad who could neither read nor write. At this time scientific knowledge was little and the telescope and microscope hadnt even been invented.

The Universe is Expanding

In 1925, an American astronomer by the name of Edwin Hubble, provided observational evidence that all galaxies are receding from one another, which implies that the universe is expanding. The expansion of the Universe is now an established scientific fact. Stephen Hawking, in his book, 'A Brief History of Time', says, “The discovery that the universe is expanding was one of the great intellectual revolutions of the 20th century.” The Encyclopaedia Britannica says “The implications of the discovery were immense. The Universe, long considered static, was expanding.”

The Expanding Universe in the Quran

In Surah Adh-Dhariyat Verse 47 it says:

والسماء بنيناها بايد وانا لموسعون

Waalssamaa banaynaha bi-aydin wa-inna lamoosiAAoona

And the heaven We constructed with strength, and indeed, We are [its] expander. [Saheeh International]


AND IT IS We who have built the universe with [Our creative] power; and, verily, it is We who are steadily expanding it. [Muhammad Asad]


And the heaven with its regions, spheres and realms of space did We skillfully, powerfully and authoritatively construct and We are expanding the universe. [Al-Muntakhab]


And We constructed the universe using matter, and We will expand it. [Progressive Muslims]


And the heaven, We have constructed it mightily, and it is surely We Who have vast power, and keep expanding it. [Ali Ünal]

And the sky was built by Us with might; and indeed We are the expanders. [Muhammad Taqi Usmani]


We have built the sky with might, and indeed it is We who are its expanders. [Ali Quli Qara'i]


And the heaven, We raised it high with power, and it is We that expand the vastness of space (or We are the expanders of it). [Hamid S. Aziz]



And it is We Who have built the Universe, and behold, We are steadily expanding it. [Shabbir Ahmed]


With Our power and prowess, We brought into being the universe. And indeed, We expand it (steadily)! [Dr. Munir Munshey]


And We built the heavenly universe with great might. And surely, We are expanding (this universe) more and more. [Dr. Mohammad Tahir-ul-Qadri]

And the heaven: We constructed it with (Our Own) hands; and surely We are indeed those Who make expansion and create vastness. [Dr. Kamal Omar]

We constructed the universe with power, and We are expanding it. [Talal A. Itani]


I (God) have created the universe myself and will continue to expand it [confirmation of the expansion theory of the universe after the Big Bang.] [Bijan Moeinian]

We constructed the sky with our hands, and we will continue to expand it. [Rashad Khalifa]

The Arabic word used is موسع (mūsi). So what does this mean? Well موسع (mūsi) is one who is engaged in the act of أوسع (Awsa'). So what does أوسع(Awsa') mean? أوسع(Awsa') means to expand.

So موسع (mūsi) is the one who is engaged in أوسع (Awsa') – The Expander.

موسع (mūsi) is an active participle rather than a verb. The active participle indicates one who engages in an act continuously. Now a verb is an action that has a beginning and an end. Whereas an active participle is an act that is done continuously.

This means موسع (mūsi) can be translated two ways:

1. Expander- One who causes continual expansion.
2. Expanding.

So the Quran clearly states that the Universe is expanding.

This means that the Expansion of the Universe is clearly described in the Quran. This leaves a real question that one must ask. How did an illiterate man who lived in the desert from the 7th century know that the universe is expanding? The answer is - he couldn’t have - demonstrating the true miraculous nature of the Quran and that infact the Quran is the word of God.

Further Reading : http://expanding-universe-quran.blogspot...ct-or.html

So what are your views on this?

My thoughts are that you give no context for those quotes.

Without context, it's all word play.

My thought is that shortly, you'll be making an appearance in this topic.

What currently unknown scientific discoveries does the Koran predict?

(August 6, 2013 at 9:47 am)ThatMuslimGuy2 Wrote:

---

Hello,

I give weekly Dawah (Calling people to Islam) in my local town centre. We don't generally get many die hard atheists. So im doing some, as you would say, market research to see what the rebuttals are to a question i have.

The Quran

The Quran was revealed in the 7th century in the deserts of Arabia to a man called Muhammad who could neither read nor write. At this time scientific knowledge was little and the telescope and microscope hadnt even been invented.

The Universe is Expanding

In 1925, an American astronomer by the name of Edwin Hubble, provided observational evidence that all galaxies are receding from one another, which implies that the universe is expanding. The expansion of the Universe is now an established scientific fact. Stephen Hawking, in his book, 'A Brief History of Time', says, “The discovery that the universe is expanding was one of the great intellectual revolutions of the 20th century.” The Encyclopaedia Britannica says “The implications of the discovery were immense. The Universe, long considered static, was expanding.”

The Expanding Universe in the Quran

In Surah Adh-Dhariyat Verse 47 it says:

والسماء بنيناها بايد وانا لموسعون

Waalssamaa banaynaha bi-aydin wa-inna lamoosiAAoona

And the heaven We constructed with strength, and indeed, We are [its] expander. [Saheeh International]


AND IT IS We who have built the universe with [Our creative] power; and, verily, it is We who are steadily expanding it. [Muhammad Asad]


And the heaven with its regions, spheres and realms of space did We skillfully, powerfully and authoritatively construct and We are expanding the universe. [Al-Muntakhab]


And We constructed the universe using matter, and We will expand it. [Progressive Muslims]


And the heaven, We have constructed it mightily, and it is surely We Who have vast power, and keep expanding it. [Ali Ünal]

And the sky was built by Us with might; and indeed We are the expanders. [Muhammad Taqi Usmani]


We have built the sky with might, and indeed it is We who are its expanders. [Ali Quli Qara'i]


And the heaven, We raised it high with power, and it is We that expand the vastness of space (or We are the expanders of it). [Hamid S. Aziz]



And it is We Who have built the Universe, and behold, We are steadily expanding it. [Shabbir Ahmed]


With Our power and prowess, We brought into being the universe. And indeed, We expand it (steadily)! [Dr. Munir Munshey]


And We built the heavenly universe with great might. And surely, We are expanding (this universe) more and more. [Dr. Mohammad Tahir-ul-Qadri]

And the heaven: We constructed it with (Our Own) hands; and surely We are indeed those Who make expansion and create vastness. [Dr. Kamal Omar]

We constructed the universe with power, and We are expanding it. [Talal A. Itani]


I (God) have created the universe myself and will continue to expand it [confirmation of the expansion theory of the universe after the Big Bang.] [Bijan Moeinian]

We constructed the sky with our hands, and we will continue to expand it. [Rashad Khalifa]

The Arabic word used is موسع (mūsi). So what does this mean? Well موسع (mūsi) is one who is engaged in the act of أوسع (Awsa'). So what does أوسع(Awsa') mean? أوسع(Awsa') means to expand.

So موسع (mūsi) is the one who is engaged in أوسع (Awsa') – The Expander.

موسع (mūsi) is an active participle rather than a verb. The active participle indicates one who engages in an act continuously. Now a verb is an action that has a beginning and an end. Whereas an active participle is an act that is done continuously.

This means موسع (mūsi) can be translated two ways:

1. Expander- One who causes continual expansion.
2. Expanding.

So the Quran clearly states that the Universe is expanding.

This means that the Expansion of the Universe is clearly described in the Quran. This leaves a real question that one must ask. How did an illiterate man who lived in the desert from the 7th century know that the universe is expanding? The answer is - he couldn’t have - demonstrating the true miraculous nature of the Quran and that infact the Quran is the word of God.

Further Reading : http://expanding-universe-quran.blogspot...ct-or.html

So what are your views on this?]

---

The rebuttal is simple - religious texts say all sorts of bullshit. And someone, somewhere can twist and turn that bullshit into something that turns out to be meaningful or true. Its like blindly throwing a bunch of darts and saying that since one of them landed in the general vicinity of the target then that must mean that it is a miracle.

Here's a simple test to determine if it was actual knowledge or a lucky guess - what results did it produce? If the Quran had actually known that the universe is expanding, then all scientific knowledge we have related to that prediction would've been available as well. They would've known about theory of relativity and how gravity works and all that. Since we didn't get all that knowledge, the use of the word expanding was simply a fancier way of saying "created". Thus, not a miracle.

On a side note, I totally got semantically satiated by the overuse of the word expanding.

The flying spaghetti monster told him that. The reasons why he wants us to believe that the universe is expanding is currently unknown.

Unfortunately he was not believed. Because of this the flying spaghetti monster created a device called a telescope to convince us. The telescope does not look into space but instead into a small growth on one of the flying spaghetti monsters Noodly Appendage. This proves that he is real.

Didn't bother reading, don't have to.

Here's something you need to consider, 50 years ago, some man somewhere may have said "one day, gays will get to legally marry in this country". Does that make him a prophet? And yet the only difference between him and your prophet is that no one wrote down what he said.

Wow. You can dig through a book that's hundreds of pages long and pull out a piece of poetry that, entirely out of context, can kinda-sorta be interpreted to mean something true. Congratu-fucking-lations.

Come at me bro!

I read the Quran and it my main reason for rejecting it.
It`like a fascist manual to building a regime.

Now justify things like chopping off someones arms for theft, that omen are only half a man`s worth, stoning people to death, seeing jews as constantly dishonest and conspiering against islam and the complet rejection of rights for those who are not muslim!

We've been through this in another thread.
Or maybe it was another site altogether.... maybe TTA.

But anyway, it's funny that these "scientific" discoveries from the Quran weren't realized until after science discovered them.

In other words, no one knew that the Quran was making these predictions until we already knew these things. Where are the people who learned these things prior to modern science?

Even if the Quran was stating these things ahead of modern times, either all the people up until today were too stupid to realize was the book was saying, or it was worded in a way that was so obscure and vague that there was no way to really know what it meant.
Either way, it makes the predictive power of the Quran completely useless.

Case in point:
In the 30s or 20s, I forgot which, they predicted that we would find background microwave radiation in the universe.
At that time they had no way of testing it. It was a very specific prediction, nothing vague or obtuse about it, it was made as an absolute statement.
Fast forward to the 90s and 00s and we have tons of junk up in space looking at the deep reaches of the universe. Guess what we've found..... background microwave radiation.
That's how a prediction works. Seeing a prediction in hindsight, a post-diction, is useless since you know already know it and it had no power to impart any new information prior to that information already being know.