The Quran - A Miracle

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Aside from the the (many) other numerous rebuttals, this is the most interesting question. I look forward to the reply.

If you can guess them before you're told, does that mean you have the gift of prophesy, too? Fucking shweet!

Well let's start guessing.

Hover cars.

[Chas]

If you can guess them before you're told, does that mean you have the gift of prophesy, too? Fucking shweet!

Well let's start guessing.

Hover cars.

Genetic engineering (flying horses).

[pocaracas]

Apart from what's already been told...
How did Muslims interpret these passages before the 20th century?

[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?

[Cyberman]

Chance multiplied by any number still equals chance.

[ThatMuslimGuy2]

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.

From the 7th century to 21st century the Quran has stated the Universe is expanding. People understood this always. Scholars in tafsirs from the 8th to 21st century talk about it meaning expanding.

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What happened to ThatMuslimGuy the 1st?

Forgot the password :-P and the Email

[Captain Colostomy]

Bugger! Guess I'm converting to Islam now.

Does Mohammed mention any other prophecies that will blow my mind?

[ThatMuslimGuy2]

Your holy book is false for the next reasons.

1.The legend tell that Allah wrote this book. The angel Jibril appeared to Muhammad and learn to him how recitate each surah.
2.The Qur'an was not wrote by a God because it say that a first man did existed (2:30-2:34).
3.The science say that there are never been a first man. Look information about evolution theory.
4.23:12 this verse say that the bones appear before the flesh. But this is false.
5.How a God can be wrong ?

Ill answer point 4:

You misquoted the verse. The verse is:


وَلَقَدْ أَرْسَلْنَا نُوحًا إِلَىٰ قَوْمِهِ فَقَالَ يَا قَوْمِ اعْبُدُوا اللَّهَ مَا لَكُم مِّنْ إِلَـٰهٍ غَيْرُهُ ۖ أَفَلَا تَتَّقُونَ
فَقَالَ الْمَلَأُ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا مِن قَوْمِهِ مَا هَـٰذَا إِلَّا بَشَرٌ مِّثْلُكُمْ يُرِيدُ أَن يَتَفَضَّلَ عَلَيْكُمْ وَلَوْ شَاءَ اللَّهُ لَأَنزَلَ مَلَائِكَةً مَّا سَمِعْنَا بِهَـٰذَا فِي آبَائِنَا الْأَوَّلِينَ


then We placed him as a Nutfah in a safe place. Then We made that Nutfah into a Alaqah, and then We made that Alaqah into a Mudghah, and We made that Mudghah into bones, and We clothed those bones with flesh, and later We made him into other forms. Glory be to God the best of creators. [Quran 23:13-14]

WHAT WAS CREATED FIRST, BONES OR FLESH?

Commentators on the quranic description of the developing human embryo claim the Qur’an portrays an inaccurate succession of events with regards to the bones and the clothing of the flesh. They declare that bone and muscle formations occur simultaneously, and that the Qur’an uses the connective particle fa, which in the context of the verse, indicates a quick succession of one thing happening after the other. For instance the Qur’an says “We made that lump into bones, and (fa) We clothed those bones with flesh”.

This view represents a misunderstanding of the linguistic context of the verse. The Qur’an’s use of the particle fa is not in the context of creating; rather, it is in the context of clothing the bones with flesh. The Qur’an does not specify when the flesh (or muscles) were formed; it only specifies when the clothing of the limb bones with flesh happens. This, as John Allan and Beverley Kramer explain, is straight after:
Soon after the cartilaginous models of the bones have been established, the myogenic cells, which have now become myoblasts, aggregate to form muscle masses on the ventral and dorsal aspects of the limbs.[1]

A significant clarification to make is that this contention, incorrect as it is, is also not based on a consensus amongst embryologists. According to many embryologists limb bone and muscle formation are not simultaneous. For example embryologist Bruce Carlson confirms that the limb bones are formed before the limb muscles:

The skeleton is the first major tissue of the limb to show overt signs of differentiation.[2]

[1]Ibid.
[2] Bruce M Carlson. Human Embryology and Developmental Biology. 4th Edition. Mosby. 2008, page 224.

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What currently unknown scientific discoveries does the Koran predict?

I got asked this on another website. Still reading up.

[Cyberman]

I'm wondering if there are any prophecies at all - and remember I'm in the business myself - that were/are known to be such before being discovered independently and then retrofitted into Kerrang poetry?

[Captain Colostomy]

Chance multiplied by any number still equals chance.

Right? And if precocious guesses are prophecy, I need to start recording the babblings of the neighborhood three year olds. Just in case.