Islam and Science

When evaluating claims of miraculous scientific information in “revealed” scriptures such as the Qur’an, it is critical to remember the dictum, “Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof.” For certainly, miracles are not to be taken lightly. If miracles really are the results of direct intervention by God/gods, and if they truly are meant as signs to prove both his/her/their existence and power, then we should expect them to serve those purposes in a clear and unambiguous manner. If God is going through all that trouble to provide us with signs, it would defeat his purpose to make the signs difficult to recognize.

If we assume that Allah exists, it is safe to say that he is not a Las Vegas magician, and his miracles should reasonably be several cuts above the prestidigitation of Penn and Teller. An all-powerful universal God would doubtlessly be capable of providing miracles that were unchallengeable, unambiguous and dramatic. And it is fully conceivable that God would embed such clear signs of his power and omniscience within his revelation.

The claim of “scientific miracles” in the Qur’an rests upon the contention that the book contains specific and detailed scientific knowledge that can only have been revealed to Prophet Muhammad miraculously, i.e. that there was no possible non-miraculous way for such information to have been known to a 7^th century Arab.

So it stands to reason that if there actually were non-miraculous ways for such information to be available, no miracle can be demonstrated. And it is important to test such claims, for we are not involved in a casual conversation about fashion or dietary preferences. We are talking about alleged proofs for the divine origin of the Qur’an.

The Four Part Test

For a “scientific statement” in the Qur’an to be considered miraculous, it must be capable of passing a four-part test that removes the possibility of a non-miraculous origin of the information:

1. It must be an unambiguous statement of scientific fact requiring no elaborate interpretation to discern its factual meaning.

This point cannot be stressed too intensely. For the scientific information in question must actually be in the Qur’an itself, and not something added later as part of a commentary. If the critical information that distinguishes a “scientific miracle” from a casual statement of obvious fact is not explicitly in the clear words and meaning of the Qur’an, we cannot trust it as even being there.

If the verse has to be “interpreted” to extract hidden meaning that is not obviously there, the claim of a miracle has been “corrupted” by the commentary, and cannot be considered valid.

2. The fact must have been previously unknown to every other non-Islamic civilization that had contact with the Arabian Peninsula.

Key to the claim of “scientific miracles” in the Qur’an is the contention that the information included was unknown until recently, or at least until many years after the death of Muhammad. So, of course, if it can be shown that the information was already available to other peoples or cultures with whom the Arabs were in contact, this claim is shown to be simply false.

It does not matter the source of that other culture’s information. It may have been a lucky guess, it may have been the result of precocious scientific achievement… in fact it may even potentially have been a miracle the other culture had experienced years before.

But if that information was available before the Qur’an was written down, there can be no credit to the claim of a “Qur’anic miracle.”

3. It must not be obvious to any casual observer.

This may sound like an obvious point, but given the nature of many of the stock “miracles” claimed by Muslim apologists, it still must be discussed explicitly. For often, what is claimed to be a miracle of the Qur’an is something of which any individual with his or her eyes open would have been aware.

If the information in question is available to anyone who simply looks at the phenomenon, requiring no sophisticated instruments, tools or interpretation, then it cannot be considered miraculous.

4. It must be true.

As with the previous point, this one sounds intuitively obvious. But it too requires explicit mention as occasionally the claims of Qur’anic “miracles” depend on misunderstandings or misstatements about reality and science. If the information in question is not actually true, then certainly it cannot be a miraculous revelation from God, as God should be expected to know what is or is not true.

Medicine and Healthcare

Islamic medicine, healthcare and Biology relies on superstitions, general beliefs among the people during the prophet's time and borrowings from the practices and beliefs of other civilizations. For example; today you will find Muslims who champion the self-alleged health benefits of drinking camel urine (as instructed by Muhammad), but those who are actually willing to practice such things are far less forthcoming. The allowance and even encouragement of marriages between relatives, such as cousins, is another issue that deserves to be sent back to the 7^th century. Medically, this common Muslim practice is harmful because it raises the probability for genetic disorders to occur in offspring. And the much lauded embryology found within the Qur'an is in reality plagiarized from Greek medicine. Therefore embryology, as described in the Qur'an, is neither original nor correct. These are but a few of the example which are covered in our articles.

The Medicinal Value of Camel Urine

This article is about the use of camel urine as medicine in the Hadiths and how such usage is viewed in the Muslim world. Muhammad prescribed camel urine as medicine to the followers from Uraynah. Because Muhammad is a prophet, Muslims believe he received a divine revelation from God. As a result they continue to study and prescribe camel urine as medicine despite the lack of evidence proving there is any medicinal value in camel urine and that there is some evidence that drinking urine is actually harmful.

Dipping Flies Into Drinks

The thesis put forward by some apologists is that it has recently been proven by modern science that flies carry not only pathogens but also the agents that limit these pathogens, thus proving the fly wing hadiths that tell us "If a fly falls into one of your containers [of food or drink], immerse it completely before removing it, for under one of its wings there is venom and under another there is its antidote." They principally identify these agents to be bacteriophages, though they also sometimes refer to fungi.

The scientific evidence does not support the veracity of the fly wing hadiths for the following reasons: (1) Contrary to their innovative interpretations of relevant hadith, bacteriophages are not limited to any specific wing of the fly. (2) Contrary to their innovative interpretations of relevant hadith, bacteriophages in the natural state and concentration are not antidotal to bacterial diseases, particularly for temperate or lysogenic phages. (3) Bacteriophages are ineffective against non-bacterial diseases carried by flies, meaning even if the wings were to provide you with an antidote to bacterial diseases, they could infect you with another non-bacterial disease (i.e. dipping a fly into your drink is not good advice). (4) Phage therapy is not a generally-accepted medical therapy at present because it is largely ineffective and requires large quantities of purified, possibly genetically-engineered, phages not present in the natural condition.

Adverse Effects of Islamic Fasting

Medical fasting is different from Islamic fasting (Sawm), and contrary to popular Muslim beliefs, Islamic fasting, unlike Medical fasting, has numerous adverse effects that have been observed using scientific studies and news sources. Intermittent and prolonged fasting is generally not conducive to a healthy lifestyle. Depriving the body of water and essential nutrients by dividing and postponing meals to irregular intervals does nothing to limit consumption. In-fact it causes a host of health, performance and mood disorders. Fasting is not normally prescribed for the well being of human beings. Instead, it is commonly understood that eating healthy, smaller-portioned meals, interspersed throughout the day is far better in maintaining a well-balanced diet and far more forgiving on a person's metabolism. Any claims that prolonged and intermittent fasting contributes to the well-being of an individual's health are misleading, based on the scientific studies that prove otherwise. If the Islamic argument in favor of fasting is that “we fast because God commanded us to do so," then it is obvious that God is not a nutritionist or a dietitian because the negatives definitely outweigh the positives. So the question to the Muslim world is: what benefit does the Muslim world get for 1 billion people staying hungry throughout the day for one full month every year? Did Allah actually want Muslims to suffer physically, economically and socially for one month every year? Also, if fasting is beneficial as Muslims claim, why do Muslims not fast the entire year instead of just one month?

Drinking Zamzam Water and its Health Risks

Millions of Muslims visit the Zamzam well in Mecca each year while performing the Hajj or Umrah pilgrimages, in order to drink its water and, in many cases, to take home some of its water for distribution among friends and relations believing the well and the water which it pumps to be miraculous.

As with urine, milk, and alcohol, Muslims often make claims of their religious beliefs being backed by science. However, in May 2011, a BBC investigation found that genuine Zamzam water taken from the well contained arsenic levels three times the legal limit, something which could contribute to increasing people's risk of cancer. In addition to the dangerous arsenic levels, the holy water contained high levels of nitrate and potentially harmful bacteria.

Embryology in Islamic Scripture

“Islamic embryology” is derived from both the Qur’an and the hadith, and is quite consistent across all the contributing sources. The core of the story can be found in the Qur’an, 22:5. There are a handful of additional ayaat that deal with this subject, and none of them disagree with the basic scenario. There is also more to learn from the hadith, particularly that of Bukhari and Muslim. Again, the accounts are quite consistent, and the additional information they provide is important.

The details of embryology as reflected in the Qur’an and the hadith can be summarized as follows; the embryo spends 40 days as a drop of sperm or seed, the embryo then spends another 40 days as a “clot” or a “leech-like clot” of blood, the embryo then spends another 40 days as a “lump of flesh” during which the gender of the child is assigned by an angel at Allah’s direction.

These then are the details that must be correlated with actual embryonic development to evaluate the accuracy or inaccuracy of the Islamic account. The question is actually a simple one: Does this account describe the first 120 days of embryonic development or doesn’t it?

Reproduction in the Qur'an and Hadith

The hadith contain many statements about fluids from both the man and woman that were believed to form the human embryo. The Qur’an too says that the embryo is formed from emitted fluid, and in one verse perhaps indicates a mingling of male and female fluids. In this article we shall present new research to trace the origins of each of these ideas at least as far back as the Jewish Talmud and the ancient Greek physicians. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the influence of ideas from other cultures on the Qur’an and hadith regarding reproduction. It will go without saying that these ideas are inaccurate compared with current scientific knowledge of reproduction and embryology.

Cousin Marriage in Islam

Cousin marriage is explicitly allowed in Islam as seen in verse 4:23 of the Qur'an. Muhammad himself married cousins, as he did with Zaynab bint Jahsh, who was not only the daughter of his father's sister, but was also divorced from a marriage with Muhammad's adopted son, Zayd ibn Haritha. Muhammad also allowed the marriage of his daughter, Fatimah, to his cousin, Ali ibn Abi Talib, who would later go on to become the fourth Rightly-guided Caliph of Islam. The second Caliph, Umar ibn al-Khattab, also married his cousin, Atikah bint Zayd ibn Amr ibn Nufayl.

From a biological point of view it becomes clear that first cousin marriage is not recommended because close relatives have a higher than normal consanguinity which means an increased chance of sharing genes for recessive traits. With this high amount of shared DNA, you have a higher risk of birth defects in a baby. The British geneticist, Professor Steve Jones, giving The John Maddox Lecture at the 2011 Hay Festival had stated in relation to Muslim inbreeding, "It is common in the Islamic world to marry your brother’s daughter, which is actually [genetically] closer than marrying your cousin." A rough estimate shows that close to half of all Muslims in the world are inbred.

Adam, Eve, and the Six Days of Creation

This page simply quotes authoritative Islamic sources, i.e. the Qur'an, hadith, and scholars, to provide you with an accurate picture of what Islam teaches of the creation of the universe and its human inhabitants. The basic creation narrative is consistent throughout.

It began six thousand years before the advent of Islam. The first thing to be created was the planet Earth, which took two days to complete, from Sunday to Monday. Then it took another two days to create the mountains, trees, and everything else. The final two days, Thursday and Friday, were spent creating the "heavens", the sun, moon, other planets, and a sixty cubits (approximately ninety feet) tall Adam.

Hawwa' (Eve) was created from Adam's left rib, whilst he was asleep in the Garden. She is blamed by Adam for persuading him to eat from the forbidden tree. As a result, they are both cast out from the garden in Paradise and sent down to the planet Earth, where their decedents continue to decrease in size.

As punishment for her transgression in particular, Allah makes Eve menstruate, suffer pregnancy and become stupid. Therefore, according to Islamic beliefs, today all women menstruate (are deficient in religion) and are created stupid (deficient in intelligence).

A Qur’anic Understanding of the Universe

This article is designed to uncover and explain the cosmology presented in the Qur'an and the Sunnah. More specifically, it will explore the Qur'an's understanding of the nature and structure of the physical universe.

To no surprise, the Qur'an's understanding of the universe matches that of the mythical cosmos believed by 7^th century Arabians rather than an accurate description of the real universe.

In the Qur'an, the entire universe is very small and contains simply the earth and its surrounding heavens. There are no galaxies, other solar systems, or such a thing as “outer space.” The earth is the top-most of seven, flat discs, surrounded by the seven solid concentric domes of the heavens.

The celestial objects that do exist (sun, moon, stars and planets) are quite small, very close, and they follow semi-circular paths within the innermost of the seven heavenly domes. When they are not in the sky above the earth, they are resting somewhere underneath it, except while petitioning Allah’s permission to return the following day (or night).

Paradise exists between the seven heavens, and hell exists between the seven earths. All of this is submerged in a cosmic sea, above which is the throne of Allah.

The Flat Earth

As recently as 1993 the supreme religious authority of Saudi Arabia Sheik Abdul-Aziz Ibn Baaz declared "The earth is flat. Whoever claims it is round is an atheist deserving of punishment." and in a televised debate aired on Iraqi Al-Fayhaa TV (October 31, 2007), Muslim Researcher on Astronomy Fadhel Al-Sa'd also declared that the Earth is flat as evidenced by Qur'anic verses and that the sun is much smaller than the Earth and revolves around it. As devout Muslims, they have good reason to conclude the Earth is flat; the Qur'anic verses 15:19, 20:53, 43:10, 50:7, 51:48, 71:19, 78:6, 79:30, 88:20 and 91:6 all clearly state this. While many have attempted to explain away this oddity, they prey on their listeners ignorance of the Arabic language. As such, their apologetic claims have been easily refuted by native Arabic speakers. There is no escaping the fact that, according to the Qur'an, the earth is flat.

The Motionless Center - Planet Earth

This article examines the evidence for Qur'anic geocentric cosmology. Some may confuse geocentricism with the idea that the Earth is flat. This is not the case. These are two different ideas. Geocentrism simply is the notion that the earth is the (immovable) center of our universe, thus all celestial bodies mover around it. According to the Qur'an, the Sun (and the moon and the five known planets) follow a curved (rounded) course (a Falak). This falak starts in the east (where the sun goes up), goes high above the earth and ends after sunset with the Sun resting at night at a hidden place. All this took place around an earth that was spread out and had a firmament built on invisible pillars above it. This was a common belief at the time. Sahih (authentic) hadiths affirm this geocentric cosmology (so Muhammad or at least the people around him agree with it), and great ancient, and even modern-day, Muslim astronomists agree that the Qur'an is geocentric. In ancient times, many people - but certainly not all - did not know any better than what they seemed to observe everyday: the sun appeared to be going around the earth through our skies. We cannot blame a 7^th century Bedouin for not knowing this, but should not the omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient creator of the universe know better?

Sun Sets in a Muddy Spring

The precise meaning of the opening phrases in verses 86 and 90 in the 18^th chapter of the Qur’an, Surah al-Kahf, or “The Cave”, is a matter of considerable controversy. These verses occur within an account concerning a powerful figure called Dhu’l Qarnayn, “the two-horned one”, who Allah guides on a series of three fantastic journeys in Qur’an 18:83-101. They are controversial due to Muslim sensitivity to claims that they have Allah saying that the sun sets and rises in physical locations on or at the edges of Earth.

Our analysis shows that the various interpretations that have been proposed for verses 18:86 and 18:90 in the Qur’an to reconcile them with scientific facts do not stand up to detailed scrutiny. The evidence overwhelmingly supports the clear and obvious interpretation that this is intended to be understood as a historical account in which Dhu’l Qarnayn traveled until he reached the place where the sun sets and actually found that it went down into a muddy spring near to where a people were, and that he then traveled until he reached the place where the sun rises and actually found that it rose up above a people who lived close to the place where the sun rises.

Ramadan and the North and South Poles

This article consists of a set of questions and answers exploring Ramadan's relation to the North and South Poles. According to Islamic rules, the length of a fast is governed by the rising and the setting of the sun. This can cause a huge problem for those who live close to these poles. The closer we get to the poles, the longer our days or nights become. They can eventually extend for up to several months each, making the fourth Pillar of Islam impossible to practice without starving yourself to death. Obviously Muhammad was unaware of the poles.

Islamic Writing and the Universe

Islamic scriptures and scholars have much to say in regards to the cosmology of the universe.

Islamic Inventions that Changed the World

These past few years have seen many inventions claimed and attributed to Islamic inventors, which in fact either existed in pre-Islamic eras, were invented by other cultures, or both. However, this detail has not apologists from perpetuating these false claims. Such claims have even been propagated through a nationwide tour which opened with an exhibition at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester and the University of Manchester, England.

To celebrate this series of events, an article titled “How Islamic inventors changed the world” was written by Paul Vallely and published in The Independent. This inaccurate piece of writing has received much praise and is still being widely circulated on Islamic websites, forums and blogs. This article lists and examines all twenty of these “Islamic inventions that changed the world”, and in doing so, it reveals their actual inventors and the true role of Islam/Muslims, if any, behind the inventions.

In short, we find that Paul Vallely's article is fundamentally misleading. It omits, distorts, and makes blunders concerning the most basic of historical facts to give the reader a false impression. It leaves you wondering what could have possibly motivated him into writing such a deceptive piece of journalism?

Islamic Science in Wikipedia Articles

At Wikipedia, Islam-related articles are often compromised by pro-Islamic editors. An example of this is a 2010 incident where an editor with over 67,000 edits was caught intentionally inserting false information into articles.

Jagged 85 is the main contributor to the many inaccurate Islam/Science/Golden Age articles which are still being copied and pasted all over the internet by Muslims, and more than 20% of Wikipedia's "Timeline of historic inventions" was provided by him.

With contributions to over 8,100 separate articles, it is unlikely that all of Jagged 85's edits will ever be fixed. And even if they were, these Wikipedia articles have already been reproduced all over the net by other sites which use Wikipedia as a source.

Scientific Errors in the Qur'an and Hadith

This page lists various types of scientific errors found in the Qur'an. The subjects of these errors include; Evolution, Astronomy, Biology, Geology, Zoology and many others which are often confirmed by the hadith.

Non-Muslim Scientists finding Science in the Qur'an

Bucailleism is the belief that "the Qur'an prophesied the Big Bang theory, space travel and other contemporary scientific breakthroughs," and that "there are more than 1200 verses (Ayat) which can be interpreted in the light of modern science." It has been called "a fast-growing branch of Islamic fundamentalism."

Named after the French surgeon Maurice Bucaille, its proponents believe that "one of the main convincing evidences" that lead many to convert to Islam "is the large number of scientific facts in the Quran."

The doctrine is "widely taught" in Islamic secondary schools, promoted on at least one popular weekly television program in the Arab world and is advanced by "a well-funded campaign" led by the Commission on Scientific Signs in the Quran and Sunnah, based in Saudi Arabia and founded by Sheikh Abdul Majeed Zindani, a leading militant Islamist and "Specially Designated Global Terrorist".

Resulting from the above mentioned Commission, a popular tool of da'wah is to show videos from conferences in the 1980s of various scientists apparently vouching for the scientific accuracy of the Qur'an. See these recent interviews with some of those scientists, in which they explain that they were tricked, misquoted, and misrepresented by Sheikh Abdul Majeed Zindani, who organised the conferences.

Scientific "Miracles" in the Quran

This article provides a list of supposed "scientific miracles" in the Quran.

Articles

• Zakir Naik
• Harun Yahya
• Scientific Errors in the Quran
• Scientific Errors in the Hadith

Other Core Articles

Core articles contain an overview of other articles related to a specific issue:

• Islam and Apostasy
• Islam and Homosexuality
• Islam and Miracles
• Child Marriage in Islamic Law
• People of the Book
• Islam and Scripture
• Islam and Violence
• Islam and Women

• Qur'an and Science - Answering Islam
• The Scientific 100 - 3 different rankings from Adherents.com showing how little Muslims contributed to science