The Quran - A Miracle

[ThatMuslimGuy2]

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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?]

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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.

I Agree one statement or a few could just be by chance. But what if there were 10+ similar statements?