SCIENTIFIC COMMENTARY ON THE QURAN
By Muzaffar Iqbal
The Quran invites its readers to reflect on various aspects of the three manifest realms from which it draws most of its arguments: the cosmos (āfāq), the human self (nafs), and history (āthār). This Quranic invitation is directed toward instilling an unshakable certitude about its message in the hearts and minds of its readers. The first and foremost message of the Quran is tawḥīd, the uncompromising Oneness of God—the Originator (al-Mubdiʾ) of everything, the absolute Sovereign, Who has set signs (āyāt) throughout His creation, so that Truth (al-ḥaqq) can be distinguished from falsehood (al-bāṭil): We shall show them Our signs upon the horizons and within themselves till it becomes clear to them that it is the truth. Does it not suf ice that thy Lord is Witness over all things? (41:53).
All that exists, the Quran tells us, exists because of God, because unto God belongs sovereignty over the heavens and the earth (e.g., 2:107; 3:189; 9:116). This ontological dependence on the Creator ennobles existing things; they become signs (āyāt) of a transcendent Real (al-Ḥaqq), Who, nevertheless, remains beyond them. Thus the “sign verses” of the Quran have an irresistible urgency, 1 drawing our attention to what lies beyond the phenomena they mention. Viewed from the Quranic perspective in this way, the rhythmic alternation of the day and the night (2:164) and the regularities in the movement of the sun and the moon traversing their courses by the decree of the Mighty, the Knowing (36:38–39) are not merely cosmic processes; rather, these are signs pointing toward the existence of the Compassionate (al-Raḥmān) and the Merciful (al-Raḥīm), Who made neither the night nor the day perpetual, for if God should make night come over you unceasingly until the Day of Resurrection, the Quran asks rhetorically, what god other than God would bring you light? (28:71). Likewise,
If God should make day come over you unceasingly until the Day of Resurrection, what god other than God would bring you night, that you might rest therein? Will you not, then, see? Out of His Mercy He made for you night and day, that you may rest therein, and that you may seek of His Bounty, and that haply you may give thanks. (28:72–73).
The Quran presents the entire cosmic order as proof for its message. Observable processes of the manifest cosmos—such as the movement of stars and planets—are not orderly merely because they observe certain laws of nature, but rather because the One Who created them has set a specific course for them. In fact, the concept of “laws of nature” independent of a Lawgiver is essentially a secular concept, because it makes “nature” a giver of law or at least imbues nature with some inherent order independent of the Creator. The Quran asserts, however, that authority to make laws rests with God alone—the Sovereign and Ruler of the Cosmos:
The sun runs to a dwelling place of its own. That is the decree of the Mighty, the Knowing. And for the moon, We have decreed mansions, till it returns like an old palm stalk. It befits not the sun to overtake the moon, nor the night to outstrip the day. Each glides in an orbit. (36:38–40)
Thus placed within the broader thematic structure of the Quran, these references to nature have traditionally been understood as integrally linked to its overall message. These signs were considered worthy of deep reflection, and it was understood also that one cannot fathom the mysteries of these signs without understanding their scientific content in the traditional sense. The sign verses, therefore, remained a central focus of scientific activity in Islam, and generations of scientists and commentators of the Quran wrote on their significance.
“The principles of these sciences which we have enumerated as well as those which we have not are not outside the Quran,” writes Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazzālī (d. 505/1111) in his Jawāhir al-Qurʾān (Jewels of the Quran), “for all of these sciences are derived from one of the seas of the knowledge of God—may He be exalted—that is, the sea of His actions.” He continues:
We have already mentioned that [the Quran] is like an ocean without a shore, and indeed, If the sea were ink for the Words of my Lord, the sea would be exhausted before the Words of my Lord were exhausted (18:109). Among the actions of God—may He be exalted —which are like a sea of actions, are recovery and disease, as He —the most High—mentioned in the story of Abraham, upon whom be peace: the Lord of the worlds, . . . Who, when I am ill, heals me (26:77, 80). This action can only be understood by the one who knows the science of medicine completely. For this science means nothing but the knowledge of all aspects of diseases, their symptoms, and the knowledge of their cure and its means.
And among the actions of the Most High and Exalted are the determination of the course of the sun and the moon and their stages according to a fixed reckoning, as God—the Most High—has said: The sun and the moon are upon a reckoning (55:5). And He said: He it is Who made . . . the moon a light, and determined for it stations, that you might know the number of years and the reckoning [of time] (10:5). And He said: And the moon is eclipsed, and the sun and the moon are brought together (75:8–9). And He said: He makes the night pass into the day and makes the day pass into the night (35:13). And He said: The sun runs to a dwelling place of its own. That is the decree of the Mighty, the Knowing (36:38). The real meaning of the movement of the sun and the moon according to a fixed reckoning and their eclipse, of the merging of the night into the day and the manner of the wrapping of the one onto the other can only be known to him who has the knowledge of the composition of the heavens and the earth, and this in itself is a science.
Likewise, the complete meaning of His saying—may He be Exalted—O mankind! What has deluded you with regard to your noble Lord, Who created you, then fashioned you, then proportioned you, assembling you in whatever form He willed? (82:6–8)—cannot be known to any except the one who has mastered the science of anatomy of man’s apparent and hidden parts along with their numbers, kind, uses, and the underlying wisdom [of their creation]. And He has pointed to these in many verses of the Quran and [the knowledge] of these belongs to the sciences of the ancients and of later generations.
Likewise, Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī (d. 911/1505) established a specific classification (nawʿ) in his celebrated work al-Itqān fī ʿulūm al-Qurʾān (The Most Excellent in the Sciences of the Quran) for discussing the concept that principles of all branches of knowledge are present in the Quran. Commenting on 6:38 (We have neglected nothing in the Book) and 16:89 (And We sent down unto thee the Book as a clarification of all things, and as a guidance and a mercy and glad tidings for those who submit [unto God]), al-Suyūṭī relates a saying of Ibn Masʿūd, one of the most eminent scholars of the Quran among the Companions of the Prophet: “Whoever wishes to acquire knowledge should take to the Quran, for it contains knowledge of everything.”
This traditional understanding of the sign verses of the Quran was to go through a major transmutation with the rise of scientism in the Muslim world in modern times. Initially emerging in Europe, scientism cultivated the belief that the assumptions and methods of research of the modern physical and biological sciences are equally appropriate and essential for all other disciplines, including philosophy, theology, the humanities, and the social sciences. This doctrine spread to the Muslim world at a time when most of the traditional lands of Islam were under colonial rule, and this situation had a deep impact on the traditional understanding of the sign verses of the Quran. Its thirteenth/nineteenth-century Muslim advocates included reformers who thought that the “backwardness” of Muslims was a consequence of the lack of science and technology, which, according to their view, had enabled Europe to attain material power and economic strength. In order to convince Muslims that the acquisition of modern science was beneficial, these reformers attempted a reinterpretation of the “scientific verses” of the Quran.
These attempts had two distinct goals. The first was to provide a certain degree of legitimacy to the enterprise of modern science in the Muslim world. Toward this end, the advocates of this project pointed out that the Quran contains some 750 such “scientific verses” and maintained that it was, therefore, the religious duty of Muslims to acquire modern science. The second goal was to prove that the Quran is a Divine Book on the basis of the fact that it contains particular facts or theories recently discovered by modern science, facts and theories that could not have been known to the Prophet.
The need to legitimize the reformers’ call for the acquisition of modern science dwindled over the course of the fourteenth/twentieth century, but the second goal of the reformists’ approach to the Quran bloomed and eventually gave rise to a fully differentiated branch of Quranic commentary (tafsīr), the scientific tafsīr (tafsīr ʿilmī). The stock material on which this literature is based has, however, been exhausted and new additions to the existing literature are often mere repetitions or elaborations, as we shall see later in this essay.
The Rise of Scientific Exegesis of the Quran Two almost simultaneous attempts at a scientific tafsīr of the Quran were in progress near the end of the thirteenth/nineteenth century. The first, by the Indian reformer Sayyid Aḥmad Khān (d. 1315/1898), was begun in 1296/1879 and left unfinished at his death; the second, by Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Iskandarānī (d. ca. 1306/1889), an Egyptian physician, was published as Kashf al-asrār ʿan alnūrāniyyat al-qurʾāniyyah fī-mā yataʿallaqu bi’l-ajrām al-samāwiyyah wa’larḍiyyah wa’l-ḥayawānāt wa’l-nabāt wa’l-jawāhir al-maʿdaniyyah (The Unveiling of the Luminous Secrets of the Quran in Which Are Discussed Celestial Bodies, the Earth, Animals, Plants, and Minerals) in 1297/1880. Khān was restricted in his knowledge of Western science and hence could not identify specific discoveries and inventions in his tafsīr. He was, instead, more concerned with motivating Muslims to acquire modern science. Al-Iskandarānī, however, had more knowledge of modern science and therefore could be more thorough in identifying specific modern inventions and discoveries, claiming they were already present in the Quran. In 1300/1883, al-Iskandarānī made a second attempt to demonstrate the presence of scientific discoveries related to vegetation, minerals, and animals in the Quran in his Tibyān al-asrār al-rabbāniyyah fi’lnabāt wa’l-maʿādin wa’l-khawāṣṣ al-ḥayawāniyyah (The Clarification of Divine Secrets in Vegetation and Minerals and in the Characteristics of Animals).
Shortly after these early efforts, the field opened up, and many new books appeared. These include the works of ʿAbd Allāh Bāshā Fikrī (d. 1307/1889), Sayyid ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Kawkabī (d. 1320/1922), and Muḥammad Tawfīq Ṣidqī (d. 1338/1920), all of whom wrote either exegeses or shorter works on the Quran in which scientific explanations of the verses were offered instead of or in addition to the traditional exegesis. By the end of the thirteenth/nineteenth century, scientific exegesis had established itself as an independent discipline, though it still lacked the general acceptance granted other kinds of exegesis such as juristic and linguistic exegeses (tafsīr fiqhī and tafsīr lughawī).
This blossoming forced writers of surveys on Quranic exegesis to include this new genre in their accounts. Thus Muḥammad Ḥusayn al-Dhahabī (d. 1377/1977), whose seminal work al-Tafsīr wa’l-mufassirūn (Exegesis and Exegetes) is one of the most important fourteenth/twentieth-century surveys of the field, devotes a full chapter to al-tafsīr al-ʿilmī (scientific exegesis). Likewise, J. M. S. Baljon (d. 1422/2001), ʿIffat Muḥammad al-Sharqāwī, and J. J. G. Jansen have all included this genre in their surveys.
During the course of the fourteenth/twentieth century, several new scientific tafāsīr appeared, but none has been as thorough as the twenty-six-volume alJawāhir fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-karīm (Pearls of Tafsīr of the Noble Quran) by Tanṭāwī al-Jawharī (d. 1359/1940). This work was illustrated with drawings, photographs, and tables. In his preface to the work the author states that he prayed for God to enable him to interpret the Quran in a way that includes all the sciences attained by human beings, so that Muslims could understand the cosmic sciences. Al-Jawharī attempted to show that sūrahs of the Quran complement discoveries of modern science.
Another writer who has influenced considerably the growth of scientific interpretations of the Quran, especially in Turkish, is Badīʿ al-Zamān Saʿīd alNūrsī (d. 1380/1960), the founder of the Nurcu movement in Turkey. Nūrsī’s various works, now collected as Risāle-i nūr (The Radiant Book), were clandestinely circulated during his years of exile, but are now freely available in several languages. Nūrsī wrote in very expressive language pulsating with energy. He had considerable knowledge of modern science, which he used to show consonance between the Quran and modern science, primarily in what is called classical physics. He makes attempts to establish normative beliefs of Islam on the basis of the certainties of modern physical sciences and reads the cosmic verses of the Quran in light of modern science.
For Nūrsī, 36:41–42, And We created for them the like (of the full-laden ark) upon which they ride, points to the railway, and 24:35, the “Light Verse,” “alludes to electricity as well as to numerous other lights and mysteries.” Further, 34:12, And unto Solomon [We made obedient] the wind, whose morning course was a month and whose evening course was a month,
suggests that the road is open for man to cover such a distance in the air. . . . In which case, O man! since the road is open to you, reach this level! And in meaning Almighty God is saying through the tongue of this verse: “O man! I mounted one of my servants on the air because he gave up the desires of his soul. If you too give up laziness, which comes from the soul, and benefit thoroughly from certain of My laws in the cosmos, you too may mount it.” . . . The verse specified points far ahead of today’s aeroplanes.
Likewise, the miracle of the prophet Moses’ staff (2:60) predicts the development of modern drilling techniques to dig out such indispensable substances of modern industry as oil, mineral water, and natural gas. The mention of iron made . . . supple for David (34:10) becomes a reference to the future significance of iron and steel for modern industry.
As the genre “matured,” these initial attempts were refined in order to avoid discovering direct correspondence between the vocabulary of the Quran and that of science. These reformulations have disguised scientism to such an extent that in some cases it has become impossible for undiscerning readers to pinpoint it. This disguised form of scientism has pervaded the works of many modern Muslim rationalists, who have submitted to the authority of modern science without examining its premises. A direct consequence of this scientism has been the denial of miracles through allegorical and scientific interpretations of verses that apparently point to a higher order of laws and existents that cannot be scrutinized through the methods of modern science. The Message of the Qurʾan by Muhammad Asad (d. 1412/1992) exemplifies such a thoroughgoing scientism.
This type of scientific tafsīr is on occasion integrated into general tafsīr, as is the case with Farīd Wajdī’s (d. 1419/1998) Ṣafwat al-ʿirfān (The Best Part of Cognition), a Quranic commentary with an elaborate introduction that is now commonly known as al-Muṣḥaf al-mufassar (The Quran Interpreted). This commentary, printed in the margin of the text of the Quran, is divided into two parts. The first part, Tafsīr al-alfāẓ (“Explanation of Expressions”), explains difficult and rare words; the second, Tafsīr al-maʿānī (“Explanation of Meanings”), “translates” the text of the Quran into contemporary Arabic with “scientific” remarks spread throughout the translation. In his remarks Wajdī inserts scientific explanations, often with exclamations placed in parentheses: “You read in this verse an unambiguous prediction of things invented in the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries,” or “Modern science confirms this literally.”
link its methodology, concepts, terms, and techniques to the classical tafsīr literature. For instance, the concept of iʿjāz, which classically referred to the inimitability of the Quran, has been expanded by some writers of scientific tafsīr to include scientific iʿjāz. The concept of iʿjāz originated on the basis of the Quranic challenge to the unbelievers to produce a sūrah like its own (11:13). This theme is often present in many classical exegeses of the Quran, where scholars define iʿjāz in precise terms and explore its various dimensions such as its linguistics and grammatical inimitability. By including so-called scientific iʿjāz in this category, the writers of scientific tafsīr made an attempt to graft their work onto the existing coherent body of classical tafsīr. What they mean by “scientific iʿjāz” is, however, quite different from and foreign to the original concept.
In addition to the attempts to link scientific discoveries directly to the verses of the Quran, the impact of scientism has produced interpretations of the Quran molded to conform to specific scientific theories (which are frequently modified) and worldviews that have already been accepted as unquestionable. An important example of this kind of scientism is the attitude of some commentators toward the theory of evolution. Such commentators seek to establish a theistic version of the theory of evolution by interpreting metaphorically those verses of the Quran that are in direct opposition to the theory of evolution. They consider Adam a representative of humanity rather than a specific individual. The impact of the theory of evolution can also be traced in the works of Muḥammad ʿAbduh (d. 1323/1905) and those who were influenced by his thought, including Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā (d. 1354/1935), Muḥammad Iqbāl (d. 1357/1938), Abu’l-Kalām Āzād (d. 1377/1958), 27 Muḥammad Ḥamīdullāh (d. 1423/2002), 28 and Sayyid Sulaymān Nadwī (d. 1373/1953).
Another related development in scientific interpretations of the Quran is the appearance of a large amount of secondary literature, including books, articles, television productions, and audiovisual and Web-based material. The dramatic increase in this literature during the last three decades of the fourteenth/twentieth century can be attributed to various social, political, and economic factors. It was a time during which a sudden increase in oil revenues gave economic leverage to certain Muslim states, which then established institutions to promote scientific interpretations of the Quran. These institutions organized numerous international conferences and seminars in which speakers linked verses of the Quran to specific data and theories of modern science to prove that (1) the Quran is truly a Book of God revealed to the Prophet of Islam because such specific scientific information was unknown during his lifetime, and (2) the Quran already contains all scientific knowledge, and it is for science and scientists to discover this knowledge.
This secondary literature is enormously popular in the Muslim world, and this popularity has, in turn, contributed to its exponential growth. It ranges from The Bible, the Qurʾan and Science, by the French doctor who embraced Islam, Maurice Bucaille, (d. 1418/1998; it was first published in 1976 and since then translated into every major language in the Muslim world), and is in hundreds of websites that attempt to prove the authenticity of the Quran on the basis of modern science.
In addition to the oil boom of the 1970s, the rise, popularity, and mass distribution of this literature owes its existence and propagation to a number of other political, social, psychological, and technological factors, such as the reach of the Internet and other mass communication technologies. During the last quarter of the fourteenth/twentieth century a number of state-sponsored institutions, such as the Pakistan Hijrah Council and the Commission for Scientific Miracles of the Quran and Sunnah (Hayʾat al-iʿjāz al-ʿilmī fi’l-Qurʾān wa’l-Sunnah), established at Makkah under the aegis of the World Muslim League (Rābiṭat alaʿlam al-islāmī), organized international conferences and research programs to promote the idea of the scientific miracles of the Quran. These international conferences typically invited scientists—especially non-Muslim scientists—to relate their scientific research to specific verses of the Quran or to the traditions of the Prophet of Islam. Videotaped proceedings of such conferences were then distributed throughout the world. This undertaking further propagated the trend of writing scientific interpretations of the Quran.
Content, Methodology, and General Approach of Scientific Tafāsīr The stock content of scientific tafāsīr consists of those verses of the Quran in which certain biological, geological, meteorological, or cosmic processes are mentioned. Since many such processes are the subject matter of science, modernist writers of such tafāsīr and secondary literature have used the theories and data of modern science to explain such verses. In so doing they often identify Quranic vocabulary with that of modern science. For instance, an often cited verse purportedly supporting the big bang theory is 21:30 (Have those who disbelieve not considered that the heavens and the earth were sewn together and We rent them asunder?), in which the words ratq (“sewn together”) and fatq (“rent asunder”) are interpreted to mean that the earth and the skies were fused together as a dense, hot mass, which God split apart à la the big bang model of creation proposed by Martin Ryle and Allan R. Sandage. This prefiguration of the big bang theory in the Quran is then taken as proof of its Divine Origin.
Another popular example is that of embryonic development, for which 23:12–14 are usually cited as proof of the presence of recently discovered scientific data in the Quran:
And indeed We created man from a draught of clay. Then We made him a drop in a secure dwelling place. Then of the drop We created a blood clot, then of the blood clot We created a lump of flesh, then of the lump of flesh We created bones and We clothed the bones with flesh; then We brought him into being as another creation. Blessed is God, the best of creators!
The analogy between these verses and the scientific understanding of embryonic development was first demonstrated by Canadian embryologist Keith Moore, who was invited to several conferences organized by the Commission on Scientific Signs of the Qur’an and Sunnah, and later published by the commission in a special edition of his book The Developing Human. This edition contained “Islamic Additions” and a new preface by Moore in which he states:
I was astonished by the accuracy of the statements that were recorded in the seventh century AD, before the science of embryology was established. Although I was aware of the glorious history of Muslim scientists in the fourth/tenth century and of some of their contributions to medicine, I knew nothing about the religious facts and beliefs contained in the Quran and Sunnah. It is important for Islamic and other students to understand the meaning of these Quranic statements about human development, based on current scientific knowledge.
Illustrated with drawings and photographs, the “Islamic edition” of Moore’s book identifies certain key words of these verses (sulālah, nuṭfah, ʿalaqah, and mudghah) with stages of embryonic development and then asks: “How could Muhammad have possibly known all this 1400 years ago, when scientists have only recently discovered this using advanced equipment and powerful microscopes which did not exist at that time?”
A remarkably similar methodology appears in all the numerous scientific interpretations of the Quran, as if they have come from the same mold; they usually differ from one another only in details. All of them focus on those verses of the Noble Quran that describe natural processes or the constituent elements of the cosmos, such as the sky, planets, stars, earth, sun, moon, mountains, oceans, and clouds. All of them use only the most current scientific data and theories and avoid any reference to obsolete scientific theories, without realizing that what is current today will soon become obsolete tomorrow. 37 Sometimes these works do acknowledge the fact that our scientific understanding of the physical cosmos is always changing; yet they continue to proffer scientific data as proof of the Divine Origin of the Quran. These interpretations lack context—that is, they isolate the verses being interpreted from their immediate context as well as from the overall Quranic perspective on the cosmos.
Scientific Exegesis Revisited
Even prior to the rise of modern science and its impact on the Muslim world there were some scholars who did not approve of any overt reading of science in the Quran. Abū Iṣḥāq al-Shāṭibī (d. 790/1388), for instance, argued that the Quran was not sent down as a compendium of medicine, astronomy, geometry, chemistry, or necromancy, but as a book of guidance for leading humanity out of darkness and into light. Agreeing with al-Shāṭibī, al-Dhahabī adds that 6:38, We have neglected nothing in the Book (mā farraṭnā fi’l-kitāb min shayʾ), should not be interpreted to mean that the Quran contains details of all types of knowledge, but only that it contains the general principles (uṣūl ʿāmmah) of all those matters that human beings must know in order to reach physical and spiritual perfection. Furthermore, al-Dhahabī adds, the word al-kitāb in this verse could refer to the Preserved Tablet (al-lawḥ al-maḥfūẓ; 85:22). This critique was meant to keep readers’ focus on the main purpose of the Quranic revelation—the guidance of humanity—an issue that never arose before, because until the rise of modern scientism no one dissociated the sign verses of the Quran from its overall worldview.
The attempts to read modern science in the Quran are, however, quite different from what was indicated by traditional scholars such as al-Ghazzālī. These new works decontextualize verses of the Quran; they take a changing human science as the criteria for “proving” that the Quran is in fact the Word of God; and they attempt to show compatibility between the Quran and modern science, although the latter is built upon philosophical premises about the cosmos in which the existence of a Creator is irrelevant. Various attempts to show that certain verses of the Quran prefigure theories of modern science are flawed, because there is no essential correspondence between the terminology and Weltanschauung of modern science and that of the Quran
It is problematic to claim, as do many proponents of the scientific tafsīr, that ratq and fatq in 21:30 point to a big bang of the sorts claimed by modern science, because these words simply do not mean the “dense, fused matter” that “exploded” in the big bang model of modern scientific cosmology. In the context of the verse, it is quite clear that these two words have many meanings, including the closing up of the skies and the earth, so no rain falls and no vegetation grows from the ground, and the sudden opening of the skies so that, through God’s Mercy, torrential rains cause the earth—dead until now—to be revived, yielding its treasures, allowing vegetation to grow. These are presented as evidence for the Oneness of God (tawḥīd) and Resurrection (maʿād), as Amīn Aḥsan Iṣlāḥī (d. 1418/1997) has pointed out in his tafsīr.
Likewise, all other verses of the Quran that are the stock material of modern attempts at scientific exegesis can be shown to indicate something far different from what these commentators wish to read into them. In general, it can be said that attempts at finding modern science in the Quran or proving the veracity of the Quran by way of modern science are fundamentally flawed, because they suffer from a conceptual confusion produced by various forms of scientism. They dissociate and decontextualize the Quranic vocabulary and concepts in order to graft modern scientific theories onto the Book.
Conclusion
As already mentioned, the sign verses of the Quran direct our attention to three realms of existence, the cosmos (āfāq), the human self (nafs), and history (āthār), in order to establish an unshakable belief in the Quranic message. Various elements of the first realm, the cosmos, are described in the Quran in their dual role as discernible physical entities regulated through Divine laws (often misnamed laws of nature) and as signs or symbols (āyāt) pointing beyond themselves. These signs are presented as material for reflection for those who have hearts to reflect:
Indeed, in the creation of the heavens and the earth; and the variation of the night and the day; and the ships that run upon the sea with what benefits mankind; and the water God sends down from the sky whereby He revives the earth after its death, scattering all manner of beast therein; and the shifting of the winds; and the clouds subdued between the sky and the earth are surely signs for a people who understand.
The sign verses are points of departure for people who reflect on them. The very act of bringing into existence the heavens and the earth and all that is contained within them is a proof of the infinite Power and Might of the Creator, His inimitable Skill (ṣanʿah) and infinite Wisdom (ḥikmah). The remarkable harmony of the innumerable elements and forces present in the cosmos could not have come into existence, had there been more than one Creator; in that case there would be more than one operative volition, resulting in the destruction of order and eventually the entire cosmos.
Without mentioning directly here the Most Beautiful Divine Names (al-asmāʾ al-ḥusnā)—such as al-Bāriʾ (“the Maker”) and al-Mubdiʾ (“the Originator”), which evoke the infinite and absolute creativity of God—the verse just mentioned refers to the coming into existence of the heavens and the earth as proof of God’s Oneness and His absolute Sovereignty. The bounteous generosity of the elements of the cosmos (waters bring life to earth, the winds bring rain) point to His inexhaustible Wisdom and Mercy. Furthermore, the cosmos and its elements testify that there is, indeed, a purpose in the creation, for such a vast, complex, and interconnected cosmos cannot be pointless. Likewise, the succession of night and day, their regularity, contrast in color, function, and effects on humanity and other things and beings existing in the cosmos are proofs for the harmonious functioning of various elements of the cosmos, despite their opposite natures. The movement of winds (taṣrīf al-riyāḥ) sometimes brings rain-laden clouds; at other times the winds scatter clouds, so that they do not bring rain to the barren earth; for some, winds bring Divine Mercy, while for others they are means of His Retribution.
Unlike the worldview created by modern science, the Quranic view of the elements of nature does not make them only subservient to humanity; rather, they remain in the service of their Lord, Who created them and set them to tasks for His Purpose. They benefit humanity, and their existence and functioning can be studied by human beings through an understanding of the laws prescribed by the Creator for their existence, but the cosmos remains ultimately beyond human control.
In addition to their physical descriptions and functions, the Quran contains numerous other levels of meaning in relation to the elements of the cosmos. Water pouring down from the sky is a physical process; it helps to bring forth vegetation, but its ability to do so depends on the receptivity of the earth; some regions of the earth are more receptive to it than others and benefit from rain, while others remain unreceptive and do not bear fruit. The guidance of the Quran is like rain. Some benefit from it; others pay no heed to it. Winds are physical; they drive clouds and bring rain. But there are also winds of Divine Mercy blowing in the hearts of those who believe and remain steadfast in their beliefs and servitude to their Creator. Their functions vary, and thus they carry not only life-nurturing rains, but also, as mentioned in the Quranic story of Joseph (Sūrah 12), the fragrance from the tunic of a long-lost son, which serves as a secondary cause for the restoration of a father’s eyesight (10:94).
The elements of the cosmos are both proofs and witnesses for the Hereafter (al-ākhirah), which is infinitely better than this world. This testimony (shahādah) of the elements and of the entire cosmos to the Hereafter is present in various forms in the Quran, ranging from oaths to arguments drawn from the properties of the elements. In fact, the very act of creation testifies to the coming of a moment when God will fold back His creation to complete the cycle. Taken as a whole, this entire cosmic scheme of the Quran establishes an inalienable link between the manifest cosmos and its Creator. Furthermore, built into this Quranic description of the cosmos is a teleology that anchors the physical cosmos in a metaphysical realm, thereby establishing an incontrovertible nexus between God and the cosmos, on the one hand, and whatever exists in the cosmos and its raison d’être, on the other. This anchoring of the physical cosmos and all that exists in it in a realm beyond the physical is utterly lost in modern science, where the physical cosmos and its contents stand independently by themselves, utterly disconnected from anything higher than their own existence. Attempts to interpret the Quran scientifically, therefore, suffer from the inherent disparity between the Quranic and modern scientific views of the cosmos.
(Source: ‘The study Quran’ by Seyyed Hossein Nasr)
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John Doe
23/3/2019Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
John Doe
23/3/2019Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.