Scientific Miracles in the Quran - refuted?

[garet122]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jSq89TMflk

guys take a look at this

[Saqqib_Ali]

Quran isn't a science book, people who try to prove science in the Quran do nothing but hurt Islam. I hope people could learn to stick to their area of expertise.

Salam

[faizol]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jSq89TMflk

guys take a look at this

actually, Hamza Tzortzis made a refutation about the first part of the video. It's significant, as he himself is a Greek and he actually checked the often quoted book touted to have the information about embryo that the Quran "borrowed" <-- a popular "debunk" myth by atheists.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJcsH...layer_embedded

As for other part, I see no point in viewing the whole video as most often it's out of context "refutations" as often made by other atheists on the youtube. Likewise you can find videos by Muslim brothers to refute videos made by atheists like this one.

Allah Knows Best.

[lslam]

Show me a refutation written from scholarly work (if you can find any).

Not some youtube video.

[umar_italy]

Quran isn't a science book, people who try to prove science in the Quran do nothing but hurt Islam. I hope people could learn to stick to their area of expertise.

Salam

Very true,

[Younes]

Quran isn't a science book, people who try to prove science in the Quran do nothing but hurt Islam. I hope people could learn to stick to their area of expertise.

Wa alaikumu as-salamu wa rahmatu Allahi wa barakatuh

The Qur'an has Ayahs which talk about scientific phenomena. There is nothing wrong with using those Ayat to prove Islam.

[iSoK]

Wa alaikumu as-salamu wa rahmatu Allahi wa barakatuh

The Qur'an has Ayahs which talk about scientific phenomena. There is nothing wrong with using those Ayat to prove Islam.

No doubt a large part of the Quran refers to the natural world, but it is meant as a contemplation.

What brother Saqqib points to - and I very well agree with him - is that every decade the 'scientific' mindset changes.
New theories come, old ones are thrown away and if you just study the last 50 years you will understand how rapid this development is.
The Quran should not be reduced to a book confirming 'facts' that will be errors tomorrow.

[Younes]

No doubt a large part of the Quran refers to the natural world, but it is meant as a contemplation.

What brother Saqqib points to - and I very well agree with him - is that every decade the 'scientific' mindset changes.
New theories come, old ones are thrown away and if you just study the last 50 years you will understand how rapid this development is.
The Quran should not be reduced to a book confirming 'facts' that will be errors tomorrow.

As-salamu 'alaikum wa rahmatu Allahi wa barakatuh

I think this is a bit simplistic approach. Why? Because science is not really in a state of such fluctuation. There are things that we do know for certain. There is nothing wrong with using such information - since the non-Muslims will compare it with science anyway. Look at the Bible, for example. It is not excactly touted as scientific by its followers, nor do they make claims like Muslims do. However, the Bible still gets scrutinized by non-Christians and -Jews for scientific reasons. The same applies to the Bible, therefore, I think Muslims do need fellow Muslims who look at the Qur'an from a scientific angle so at the very least they can defend the Qur'an from accusations.

But I also feel that those who use science to verify the Qur'an also seem stretch the interpretations and portray verses that don't even talk about scientific phenomena into ones that do. There are erroneous interpretations by this camp. I think that both this latter approach and the one advocated by brother Saqqib according to which proving science in the Qur'an does nothing but hurt Islam are wrong. What we need is a balance.

Don't get me wrong, iSoK. I understand what you are saying. What you said has its place. However, we can't just generalize and throw the baby out with the bath water. Instead what we need to do is look at things at a case by case basis.

[yoldash]

Assalam alikum wa rahmat Allah,

Look at the arrogance of the speaker. he knows that all the scientific facts are subject to change within short time but with how much certainty he present these sensual finding.And present prediction based science as absolute. shame on kuffar even their talks are full of tricks . Oh Allah forgive their arraogance and stupidity.

[Maripat]

Note : Assertions below are not the same as the numbers in the video.

Assertion 1 : Qur'an is drawing on the knowledge prevalent at the time.
Counter Arguments : (1) There is no moratorium on God against using the knowledge that He (SWT) had already given to the people of that time.
(2) Beloved Prophet (PBUH) was unlettered and he did not have any Jewish, Christian or Greek Councillors.
The scholars who were detractors of Islam did there best to derail the progress of Islam.
(3) There are many examples of scientific facts that were not known at that time. Even one such evidence is sufficient to dissolve the assertion for Islam is a faith and not a scientific hypothesis or a theory and hence it is free from requirements of falsifiability.
(4) One example of irrefutable fact proved to be true later on is the finding of the body of Ramses II. It was predicted in the Noble Qur'an and found only hundred odd years earlier.

Assertion 2 : Qur'an reproduced the mistakes of Greek primitive science, for example, asserting that semen is emitted between backbone and rib.
Counter Arguments : According to BBC site :

En route, fluids from the seminal vesicles (the small red glands at the end of the vas deferens shown in the 3D image above) and the prostate gland dilute the sperm.

Semen travels up and gets mixed with other fluids from between the loins and the chest-bones.

Assertion 3 : Qur'an talks about semen but forgets to mention female egg or process of fertilization.
Counter Arguments : It does mention mingled fluid. It does talk about giving birth to everyone from a pair of male and female. For further details it is not a text book of reproductive system. It also tells us about the birth of Hazrat Isa (AS) where the routine process was by passed by Lord Most High. Holy Qur'an is in your face book - if you please. Muslims might get disturbed by its rejection on part of the detractors of Islam but God is merely displeased. This latter fact is a bad news for the rejectors.

Assertion 4 : The process in Surat Al-Mu'minūn 23:14 is borrowed from Galen and has got a few things in wrong order.
Counter Arguments : First part of the argument is a conspiracy theory. Let the people who are proposing it provide the evidence that beloved Prophet (PBUH) had a Galen expert at his disposal and that just used only single statement each from Galen, Hippocrates, etc - that will be a gross under utilization of such a significant knowledge.

Assertion 5 : Qur'an describes iron being sent down before it was known that meteors containing iron fell to the earth from outer space.
Counter Arguments : Surah Al-Hadeed 57:25, also quoted in the video says,

And We sent down iron, wherein is great military might and benefits for the people, ...

Video says that it is wrong. Now what is wrong? Do they even know what they are asserting? Do they deny the intrinsic strength of iron? Do they deny its benefits? Do the expect description of uranium some fourteen centuries ago? And if Egyptians knew of meteorites and iron how does it falsify the Noble Qur'an. Should that not be legitimately taken as a confirmation of the Nobel Qur'an? Or do they demand that after making Egyptians aware of iron Allah (SWT) should not talk about it in the Noble Qur'an? And if Allah (SWT), sorry I mean God, sent meteorites to Babylonia, Tibet and Australia the how does it prove that iron has no strength or it is not useful? And then there is the assertion that all elements on earth came from our space. Now what kind of nonsense is that? If everything came from outside then please tell us what was the earth in itself?

Assertion 6 : Qur'an describes moon's light as reflected before it was known.
Counter Arguments : This is wrong representation of facts. Qur'an uses different words for the lights of moon and the sun and that is it. It differentiates between them. And if Aristotle describes an eclipse then it can be taken as a affirmation of Aristotle's ideas. The troublesome thing would have been to affirm his wrong ideas and that is not the case here. Not to forget the fact that to prove that there were Aristotelian experts in the scientific council of beloved Prophet (PBUH) - there was not such establishment.


Assertion 7 : Non-mixing of sweet and salt water was known to Aristotle centuries before Muhammed (PBUH)
Counter Arguments : Quotation from Meteorology of Aristotle is about extraction of sweet water from salty. Noble Qur'an on the other hand talks about non-mixing. The two things are quite different from each other.

Assertion 8 : Qur'an predicted Big Bang.
Counter Arguments : The quotation is from Surah Anbiya 21:30

Have those who disbelieved not considered that the heavens and the earth were a joined entity, and We separated them and made from water every living thing? Then will they not believe?

This is not about big bang. It is about the interplanetary dust that condenses to form the planets.

Assertion 9 : Qur'anic ideas are creationist and copied from Sumarians.
Counter Arguments : Allah (SWT) keeps telling us of creation. Creation of the world. Creation of earth. Creation of heavens. Creation of all that is in between. Creation of man and so on. So it is in deed part of Islamic creed to be creationist.

Concerning Sumarian myths - you have come to know of these now - more than a millennium after beloved Prophet (PBUH). He knew then some fourteen centuries ago. This betrays a desire to persist on proving Qur'an wrong. Gilgamesh might be an epic but it is rather silly to compare it or any literature, primitive or advance, with the Noble Qur'an. Broken Arabic is not good to assess the literary quality of the Noble Qur'an.

Assertion 10 : Qur'anic copied the idea of life coming from water from Aristotle, Thales and Anaximander.
Counter Arguments : Let us repeat for nth time that if the Noble Qur'an affirms any older idea then it can become an argument against the Noble Qur'an only if it turns out to be wrong. That, fortunately, is not the case.

Assertion 11 : The Noble Qur'an merely repeats the planetary motion wisdom of the day.
Counter Arguments : Solar system and the systems like it (galaxies at large scale and atoms at small scale) are perpetual machines. In the rest of life we do not have perpetual machines. Noble Qur'an is telling us about this fact and it is telling us that it is so because Allah (SWT) has made them that way. In day to day life the table fan stops the moment you pull out the plug. Sun and moon just keep rotating.

And yes the earth moves around the sun. The reference of sun's motion is to its apparent motion.


Assertion 11 : Muslim assert that Qur'an tells us of expanding universe..
Counter Arguments : Bring us the person who is telling that and then we can talk.

Assertion 12 : Some more assertions attributed to Muslims.
Counter Arguments : May be some one did make such assertions. But the explanations given by the narrator, though refuting the self-asserted claims, do shed some positive light on the Noble Qur'an.

PS: You can think of your own refutation.