The Quran and Science

by Nadeem Patel

If we carefully study the Quran, we would come to realize that the Quran not only informs us of the lawful and unlawful things, it also contains many verses regarding the natural world and science.

It contains such verses, the information of which has only been discovered recently by modern science. After all, it is from the lord of the universe, and just these verses have converted many non-believers into believers. Below, a few are mentioned:

1) The Quran states, “He is the originator of the heavens and the earth.”

From this verse, we can understand that before Allah Taa'la created anything, there was nothing besides him, and this is what exactly science says. They say that the world was created from nothingness, except the fact that they deny that God created the world, but instead, it was just the ‘big bang'. But now, they have come to realize that even these are not proven factually as new theories and discoveries suggest/prove otherwise.

2) Another verse in the Quran states, “We made the sky a preserved and protected roof, yet still they turn away.”

From this verse, we come to know that the sky above has been created to protect us. Science tells us that the atmosphere which surrounds the earth destroys many meteors, big and small as they approach the earth. The atmosphere also protects the earth, humans and animals from harmful rays by filtering them, as they come from the sun (Ozone Layer). It also protects the earth from the minus 270 degrees Celsius space temperature.

3) Allah says, “It is he who sends down water in due measure from the sky by which we bring a dead land back to life.”

From this verse, we learn that the amount of water which Allah sends down to the earth in an exact amount. From recent research, it has been discovered that in one second approximately, 16 million tons of water evaporates from the earth, which is equal to 505 trillion tons of water in one year, and the figure is the exact amount of rain which falls on the earth each year! This means that water continuously circulates in a balanced cycle, in a ‘measure'.

4) Allah says, “He has let loose the two seas, converging together, with a barrier between them they do not break.”

From this verse, it is understood that the water of two different areas do not mix together. This fact has only been discovered recently by oceanographers. They say that because of the physical force called ‘surface tension', the water of neighbouring seas do not mix.

5) Allah Taa'la says, “He creates you stage by stage in your mother's womb in a threefold darkness.”

From this verse, it can be concluded that the formation of the baby in the mother's womb takes place in three main stages. This fact has been discovered by modern biology. I quote from a fundamental reference text in the field of embryology, “The life in the uterus has three stages:

Pre-embryonic; first two and a half weeks,

Embryonic; until the end of the eighth week, and

Fetal; from the eighth week to labor.

(Peter L. William, Basic Human Embryology, 3 rd Edition, 1984, pg 64)

These are only a few examples from the Quran.