Scientific Miracles in the Quran: Difference between revisions

==Purported scientific miracles==

Below are the most-often discussed of the many so-called scientific miracles of the Quran

===The Big Bang===

Many modern Islamic scholars have argued that {{Quran|21|30}} and {{Quran|51|47}} describes the Big Bang. Historians, by contrast, have shown that the first verse describes a version of world egg creation myth which was widely believed in earlier times through much of the world. According to the archetype of the myth, the Earth and heavens both existed in an egg-shaped structure which split (or hatched) to become the separate Earth and heaven, ushering in the era of mankind. In many versions, the first man appears as this earth-heaven structure 'hatches' open. The verse states that "We clove them" (dual pronoun 'huma'), not "We clove it", thereby indicating that the Earth and heavens are two distinct entites after the cloving, and the next verse speaks of mountains being placed on Earth. The other verse uses the Arabic word mūsiʿūna, which means makers of ample room or of width.<ref>وسع awsa'a - [http://www.studyquran.org/LaneLexicon/Volume8/00000306.pdf Lane's Lexicon] page 3052 [http://www.studyquran.org/LaneLexicon/Volume8/00000307.pdf and page] 3053</ref> The identical verb form and grammar is used for the last word in the next verse, the spreaders (al mahidoon الْمَهِدُونَ), which is from the root mahada مهد which means to make plain, even, smooth, spread a bed<ref>مهد mahada - [http://www.studyquran.org/LaneLexicon/Volume7/00000267.pdf Lane's Lexicon] page 2739</ref>. Also from this root is the noun mahdan, meaning a bed or even expanse, which appears in other verses about the creation of Earth where it was made a bed in the past tense. The tense is clear in those verses to mean a past event rather than an ongoing process ({{Quran|20|53}},{{Quran|43|10}} and {{Quran-range|78|6|7}}).  

===Fresh water-salt water barriers===

Many modern Islamic scholars argue that {{Quran|25|53}} contains a scientifically-sound insight regarding the 'separation' of fresh and salt water in estuaries, where fresh water rivers meet the salty ocean. Critics and historians argue that this verse is merely stating what any person viewing the convergence of a river and ocean with their unaided eye would observe - namely, that the two bodies of water maintain distinct coloration. The additional proposition made in the verse regarding the existence of some sort of barrier that causes the maintenance of this difference in coloration, they continue, is simply what a premodern person inclined to believe in metaphysical entities might hypothesize as the cause. Critics point out that there is, in fact, no such 'barrier' present in estuaries and that the persistent distinction between the two bodies of water is due a difference in the density of fresh and salt water - even this distinction, however, can be compromised when other factors, such as wind and stronger tidal forces, are at play which cause the bodies of water to mix with one another at a greater rate.{{Quote|{{quran|25|53}}|'''Corpus:''' And He (is) the One Who (has) released the two seas [this] (one) palatable and sweet and [this] (one) salty (and) bitter, and He has made between them a barrier and a partition forbidden.<br>'''Daryabadi:''' And it is He who hath mixed the two seas: this, sweet ond thirst quenching; that, saltish ond bitter; and hath placed between the twain a barrier and a great partition complete.<br>'''Yusuf Ali:''' It is He Who has let free the two bodies of flowing water: One palatable and sweet, and the other salt and bitter; yet has He made a barrier between them, a partition that is forbidden to be passed.}}

==See also==