Scientific miracles in the Qur'an and Sunna — fact or exaggeration

The Al-Wasatiyya programme on Al-Resalah channel gave its thirty-third episode to scientific miracles in the Qur'an and Sunna: fact or exaggeration. ^{5 6} Tareq al-Suwaidan introduced it as a method of da'wa that has spread in this age, with many studies trying to show that the Qur'an and Sunna preceded modern science by centuries in astronomy, medicine, geology and biology, so that this becomes a proof to people. ^{7 8} He set the episode's questions: what this miracle really is and how effective it is, whether there are exaggerations, twisting of texts, or use of unsound texts or unsound science, and the main question: is it not dangerous to explain the fixed Qur'an by human reasoning that may change? ^{8 9}

The presenter asked the studio audience about the relation between the Qur'an and modern science, with three choices: the Qur'an is full of scientific facts and miracles; it holds principles of the sciences without specific scientific facts; or it is a book of da'wa and guidance that does not aim at science at all. ^{10 11} Sixty percent chose the first, 14% the second and 26% the third. ¹ Viewers were asked by text message whether it is dangerous to explain the Qur'an by modern science; the result was not read out in the episode. ^{12 13}

Among the young people's views: one student called the Qur'an God's written book and the universe His visible book, with many verses calling for reflection; ¹⁴ another rejected reading dated events into the Qur'an, such as the claim that the events of 11 September are mentioned in a verse; ¹⁵ a young man said the Qur'an opens the door to reflection with general principles, not detailed matters. ¹⁶

The presenter said that about ten years earlier he had made a tape series called "The Inimitability of the Qur'an", half of it on rhetorical inimitability, and had found many scholars of rhetorical exegesis who hold eloquence to be the only true miracle of the Qur'an, which challenged the Arabs by eloquence, not by science. ^{17 18}

• Bassiouni Abd al-Fattah, professor of rhetoric, grammar and literary criticism at al-Azhar University: rhetorical inimitability was the challenge at the time of revelation; scientific inimitability is so named for facts discovered later to which the Qur'an points. He does not explain the Qur'an by changing theories, but sees its indications confirming established facts. ^{19 20 21}
• Ibrahim al-Hudhud, professor of rhetoric and criticism at al-Azhar: the Qur'an is a book of guidance and science is light, with no separation between them; the miracle lies in reporting a thing before it happened, especially through an unlettered prophet, and the Qur'an's address is universal. ^{22 23 24}
• Zaghloul al-Najjar, introduced by the presenter as head of the committee on scientific miracles in the Qur'an of Egypt's Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs: the Qur'an is God's word preserved in the language of its revelation, and everything in it is miraculous, its eloquence, creed, worship, ethics, dealings and indications; more than a thousand of its verses are cosmic indications that cannot be properly understood by language alone, but only by drawing on established scientific facts. ^{25 26 27 28} To those who say this turns the Qur'an into a science book, he replied that the indications come as proof of the Creator's power and of resurrection, and that whoever claims the Qur'an contains every science is wrong: the scientific indications are samples, like the historical and educational ones. ^{29 30 31 32}
• Omar al-Wardani, fatwa secretary at Dar al-Ifta and in charge of its training: the Qur'an does speak of scientific facts, but he calls them "the cosmic proofs of the Qur'an's truth", not miracles, because a miracle carries a challenge, and the failure of the challenge's substance would be taken as the failure of the Qur'an's truth, whereas refuting a proof does not entail refuting what it proves. ^{32 33 34 35} The presenter summed up his position: no objection to the proofs, only fear of the name. ^{36 37}
• Dr Samir, head of a research centre with studies of Qur'anic discourse: no one disputes that the Qur'an contains scientific facts and is miraculous, and he has no problem with the name; his concern is how the Qur'an is approached, from which reference it is read, and how this field is used. ^{38 39 40}
• Abd al-Hayy al-Farmawi, professor of tafsir and Qur'anic sciences at al-Azhar and supervisor of the "Hady al-Islam" website: scholars agree the Qur'an is a book of guidance and of inimitability, with which God challenged the obstinate in every age: rhetorical for the people of eloquence, historical for historians, scientific for scientists; it is one of the doors of da'wa. ^{41 42 43 44}

The presenter specified that da'wa here means people entering Islam, not a Muslim's faith increasing. ⁴⁵ Fifty-five percent called it very effective, 12% slightly effective, and 33% said its effect is exaggerated and those who converted because of it are few. ^{46 2 47}

• Al-Farmawi said that most of those who converted through his website, from Europe, America and Asia, did so because of scientific miracles; this is his statement from his experience. ^{47 48}
• Dr Samir held that science is one tool of discourse, not the most important, and since the sciences change, people should be addressed with what is fixed: spirituality, values and the oneness of God. ^{49 50}
• Al-Wardani held that absolute numbers mean nothing without proportions, estimated that fewer than 20% of those who convert at Dar al-Ifta do so because of scientific miracles, and said a civilisational discourse of renewal is more useful: the miracle dazzles but does not give a system for living, and he cited new Muslims who entered dazzled, found no one to complete their learning, and relapsed. ^{50 51 52 53 54}
• The presenter reported Abd Allah al-Muslih as saying he had practised da'wa for thirty-five years and found no method as effective as scientific miracles; he himself said he lived seventeen years in America and found that the first cause of conversion among those he saw was marriage. ^{54 55}
• Al-Najjar held that every person has a different way in, and that dazzlement is a gate to be followed by teaching. He told of a London University professor he named as Arthur Allison who, he said, converted in Cairo after comparing his experiments on human weight at death with what the Qur'an says about death and sleep, and of an American woman who, he said, converted after following his English programme on Iqraa channel; these are his accounts. ^{56 57 58 59 60}

Al-Najjar named as the leading body the commission on scientific miracles of the Muslim World League, in his view the most productive, then Egypt's Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs and specialised societies there, bodies in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Sudan, Morocco, Britain, Canada and America, and a committee at the Islamic Research Academy. ^{61 62} He said his own website carries more than 500 articles, and reported an official of the League's commission as saying its site receives about two million visitors a month; these are his figures. ^{63 64} He said every Muslim should understand the cosmic indications within science, because many commentaries confuse star and planet, and radiance and light. ⁶⁵

The presenter asked only those who knew the subject to rate published research on scientific miracles: 24% called it accurate and scientific, 33% good but in need of scrutiny, and 43% unscientific. ^{66 67 3}

• Bassiouni held that the scientific indications come within rhetorical structures, so the two kinds of inimitability do not conflict. ^{68 69}
• Al-Hudhud acknowledged strained and forced readings of the language by those unaware of its range of meanings, said the so-called numerical miracle contains many errors, and urged that all interpretations remain scholarly opinions to be taken or left. ^{70 71 72}
• Dr Samir held that those who explained the Qur'an by science erred as those who explained it by reason alone erred, that most errors come from explaining the absolute by the relative and changing, and noted that scientific exegesis appeared in Egypt in the last century and scholars replied to it. ^{72 73 74}
• Al-Wardani answered that scientific exegesis contains many linguistic errors, unscientific things used to explain the Qur'an, and weak hadiths on which miracles were built. ^{75 76 77} His examples: reading the word "hathith" in the verse on night and day as "slow" when it means swift; reading a verse of Surat Saba' describing the state of the unbelievers as pointing to modern telecommunications; and building a miracle in the Sunna on a report of a mountain called Qaf encircling the earth, which he said leading hadith scholars counted among the Isra'iliyyat, while most hold that "Qaf" is one of the disjointed letters. ^{77 78 79 80}
• Al-Farmawi said many wrote from their own specialisms without understanding the language and its rules, and that the research includes some very good work and some that is not. ^{81 82}

The presenter asked why the specialised bodies do not publicly reject faulty research, saying he had read seventy books on scientific miracles and never seen one of these bodies criticise a study in public. ^{83 84 85} He then objected to al-Najjar's reading of the verse on the heavens and the earth being joined and then parted as the Big Bang, saying he is a petroleum engineer who studied geology and has followed the theory, and that the consensus is that it is a theory, not a fact. ^{86 87} Al-Najjar replied that he has a book on the rules for dealing with this question setting out twenty rules, among them that only conclusive facts may be used, except in questions of creation, annihilation and resurrection, where the sciences cannot reach the level of fact, so a Muslim may favour one theory because the Qur'an points to it; he said the expansion of the universe and related findings are facts that support the theory. ^{87 88 89 90 91}

• Dr Samir held that the wider miracle is the system of the sharia and its enduring values, and the Arabic language, the unchanging vehicle of inimitability, and told the story of the poet al-Akhtal al-Saghir and Surat al-Duha. ^{92 93 94}
• Al-Wardani cited the early generations' restraint from explaining what they did not know, and warned against interpretation becoming like esoteric (batini) exegesis that denies the original meanings. ^{95 96 97}
• Al-Najjar said the community cannot live on Ibn Kathir and al-Baydawi alone, that every generation produces people who serve the Book, and that scientific miracles are a specialism only for those of comprehensive knowledge. ^{98 99}
• Al-Farmawi said he wrote in his book on thematic exegesis that a scientific fact is cited as supporting reassurance, not as proof of the verse, and that scientific exegesis is a kind of thematic exegesis. ^{100 101}

Al-Suwaidan closed by saying the subject is both very important and very dangerous, that it needs rules from specialists in science, language and legal theory, that it is dangerous to leave it to any individual, such as a mechanical engineer interpreting verses, and that any interpretation should be submitted to an accredited scholarly body, such as the League's commission or the body in Egypt, with a specialist in language and tafsir alongside. ^{4 103 104} He set out his equation: the Qur'an is fixed, but its meaning may be clear or open to more than one reading, and science may be fact or theory; the clear and the established will not conflict; a clear text must not be explained by a theory; an open text may be explained by established fact, as with reading a verse that can mean spreading out in light of the earth being round; and a hadith must be sound beyond doubt. ^{102 105 106} He said he loves this field, sees it as an effective means of da'wa and calls for supporting its bodies, provided they set binding rules, and he called this the middle way. ^{106 107}

The scientific statements on this page are those of the episode's speakers; the museum does not assert them. The vote results are the opinions of that episode's studio audience, not representative surveys.

In his series Wa Yatafakkarun, Zaghloul El-Naggar defines the scientific miracle as the Qur'an's having pointed, ahead of time, to a great mass of scientific facts unknown in the age of revelation and for centuries after it, and says the Qur'an holds more than 1,200 verses on the cosmos, which came as testimony to the Creator rather than as direct scientific information. ^{108 109 110 111} He lists his rules: understand the text through the Arabic language, the occasions of revelation, the Prophet ﷺ's own reported explanation, the readings, all the verses on the subject and the context; avoid strained readings; never enter matters of the unseen; and use only conclusive, settled facts, except in questions of creation, annihilation and resurrection. ^{112 113 114 115 116} He separates the scientific miracle, which for him rests on the conclusive alone, from scientific interpretation, where the prevailing theory may be used, so that if it fails 'the error falls on the interpreter', not on the Qur'an. ^{117 118} He warns against using abjad numerology (hisab al-jummal) for 'numerical miracles', saying it goes back to old Jewish origins and follows no sound mathematical rule. ¹¹⁹ His examples in the series include the expanding universe, the Big Bang, the folding of the heavens, neutron stars and black holes, the sending down of iron, mountains as pegs, the 'kindled sea' and the water cycle. ^{120 121 122 123 124 125 126}

In episode 26 of Liqa' al-Iman al-Sha'rawi says that had the Qur'an given all its treasures in Muhammad's age, it would have met the following centuries with nothing to give; God wants its giving to last as long as the call, until the Hour, so whenever the mind advances the Qur'an gives it something. ¹²⁷ He holds that the secrets of the universe were kept safe until people themselves discovered them, so that no one could say they had been made to fit the Qur'an; and when a person sees something unseen become visible, he believes in the unseen that remains. ^{128 129} He says that had the Prophet set these things out in detail he would have fettered people's minds, and the people of his time would have turned from the call because their minds could not bear them. ^{129 130} In episode 6 he holds that the scientists of the universe supply the scholars of the law with the proofs of God's existence, and reads the scholars' awe of God in the verses of Surat Fatir in this way. ^{131 132} This is his reading, attributed to him.

In his audio series al-Hadara al-Nabawiyya, Zaghloul El-Naggar carries the scientific miracle from the Qur'an to the Sunna, defining it as the Prophet's having pointed, in his words, deeds and approvals, to facts that came to light only a few decades ago. ^{133 134} He sets rules proper to hadith: know its grade among the hadith scholars, gather its narrations, read it through Arabic, its context, the occasion it was said on and the Qur'an, never reject a sound hadith, never enter the absolute unseen, and keep to conclusive facts except in questions of creation, annihilation and resurrection. ^{135 136 137 138 139 140} He holds that a settled scientific fact may serve to judge the soundness of a hadith some have weakened for a single narrator. ^{141 142} He says the Sunna is under heavy attack today and that bringing out these facts is "a fine card for preaching" to an age of science. ^{143 144}