The Quran

The Quran (can also be spelled as Qur'an, Koran, or Coran) is the holy scripture of Muslims. The Quran states that the name of God's religion is Islam and it refers to its followers as Muslims.

The Quran (Koran) started to be revealed by God to Prophet Mohammad through arch-angel Gabriel, when he was 40 years old, around year 610 AD. It was revealed gradually, few verses at a time, over a period of about 23 years. The Quran is a very unique book that differs from the Bible in many ways. Unlike the Bible which supposedly contains the sayings of Jesus and other writings which Christians believe were inspired by God, the Quran is the "literal" word of God. We mean that the words in the Quran are the exact words of God. Therefore, the author of the Quran is God himself. Furthermore, also unlike the Bible, the Quran does not contain the sayings of Prophet Mohammad, nor does it contain an account of Prophet Mohammad's life.

God in the Quran (Koran) promises clearly to protect the Quran from corruption. Indeed, God has protected the Quran. The Quran has remained the same. All the verses that were revealed to prophet Mohammad by angel Gabriel are included in the Quran that is available today.

The Quran states that the Quran, in by itself, is the most important miracle that Prophet Mohammad has brought to humanity. Since Prophet Mohammad was intended to be the last prophet and the Quran was the last message, God decided to give people a unique miracle that can be examined and experienced by not only people who lived at the time of the prophet, but for the hundreds of years to come. So, it was natural for God to choose Quran to be such a miracle.

That is why the Arabic Quran (Koran) is a unique miracle. The only book in the world authored by God himself, word by word, and that is still available today in its original form. People throughout the Ages have wondered whether they can see God or something that can be attributed directly to God. The Quran is the answer. It is available today for all humans to experience how God expresses himself in words. The Quran is a book of knowledge with a uniquely captivating style, in which every verse is a sign from God. Each word used in the Arabic Quran was uniquely chosen by God for a purpose. You can not add or subtract a word to/from the Quran, without the corruption becoming noticeable. Scholars have discovered some hidden logic structures (codes) in the Quran that prove its authenticity and help in protecting its integrity from corruption.

The Quran (Koran) contains lots of scientific knowledge, from various fields such as astronomy, geology, medicine, embryology, etc., that have only been known recently which were totally unknown and could not have been discovered at the time of prophet Mohammad.

The Quran was revealed in Arabic language and Muslims consider only the Arabic Quran to be the Word of God because translations are authored by ordinary human beings, most of the translations were done in the past 100 years, whereas the Arabic Quran is authored by God. Therefore, those translations are not considered by Muslim as a Word of God or holy scriptures. The 5 daily prayers of Muslims are in Arabic (Prayer consist of reciting verses from the Quran as well as saying specific phrases and sentences). However, Muslims are not required to be able to speak Arabic, other than learning to utter few sentences in Arabic that are part of regular prayers.

There are many translations of the Quran currently available. Most of the translators of the Quran are non-Arabs and their knowledge of Arabic is limited. However, even if they were Arabs, you should not expect the translation to be perfect. The Quran is in ancient Arabic language. Many of the vocabulary in the Quran are not used in Modern Arabic. However, even when compared to ancient Arabic literature and poems, the Quran is far more challenging to comprehend fully. That is why ordinary Arabs today, including well-educated Arabs, who are not experts in Arabic language, only understand the general meaning if they simply read the Quran, without reading additional Quran commentaries and interpretation books written by Islamic scholars.

Arabic language is a rich, complex language. The same word may have different meanings. From the same root, you may create tens of derivatives, each derivative has its own significance. By varying the structure of a sentence, you can change the meaning of the sentence. That may explain why translators of the Quran, particularly non-Arab translators, face a very difficult task. No one knows what is in the mind of God and therefore the full intended meaning of each word of the Quran. So, translators find themselves trying to guess what God may have meant.

Furthermore, the most widely-used English translations of the Quran today were done more than 70 years ago: (a) by Abdullah Yusuf Ali who lived from 1872 to 1953 , and (b) by Marmaduke William Muhammad Pickthall who lived from 1875 to 1936 . The discoveries of the miraculous, scientific information in the Quran primarily started in 1970s. The leading figure in such discoveries was a French doctor, named Maurice Baucaille, who converted to Islam and published in 1976 his landmark book, The Bible, The Quran and Science. That is why these popular translations of the Quran do not present clearly the scientific information, embedded in the verses of the Quran.

Each word in the Quran may have multi-level meaning with multi-dimensional significance and may have been chosen by God for multiple purposes. These unique aspects of the Quran may allow, for example, an ordinary Muslim to understand the meaning correctly of a word or verse, but only at one level of depth, while another Muslim may be able to capture a different meaning or significance at another level of depth. Both could be correct in their understanding.

You may think of every word or verse in the Quran as a marvelous painting or piece of art, done by God, the Master Artist and Creator of the Universe, each person who views it (or reads it) may come to a different conclusion regarding the message or meaning intended by God through that word or verse. A Muslim astronomer, who is also expert in Arabic, may be able to infer information of significance in astronomy when reading a verse that an ordinary Muslim will not notice.

We have to consider that God may have also chosen to articulate his message (or multiple messages) in a single verse (or word) with a specific number of words (or letters) for a good reason. God may have intended to send us a numerical message, such as a date of an event or number of certain significance. The Quran was revealed gradually, few verses at a time. However, the way the verses are arranged in each chapter of the Quran and sequence of the chapters which does not necessarily follow chronological order are not haphazard or by chance or coincidence. To read an introduction to field of Numerical Miracles of the Quran, click here. For additional in-depth numerical analysis of the Quran that lead a Muslim researcher to conclude that Israel is likely to end in 2022, click here.


Source: http://www.discoveringislam.org

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Earth's orbit and the Story of Zulqarnain in Quran

I would like to bring the following 2 verses of the Koran to your attention:

Yasin/40
It is not permitted to the Sun to catch up the Moon, nor can the Night outstrip the Day, and they all swim in an orbit.
Enbiya/33
It is He Who created the Night and the Day, and the sun and the moon: all (of them) swim in an orbit.
I quoted these verses from a Turkish interpretation of Koran. In the interpretation, the footnote written below the verse Enbiya/33 is as follows: “Although only two celestial bodies are mentioned, it is stated through a verb tense which is used for more than two things that all of them swim in a separate orbit. It can be inferred from this that all celestial bodies, together with the Sun and Moon, move in an orbit unique to them”.
This interpretation which is indeed applicable for the Enbiya/33 also applies to Yasin/40. Because, Arabic translation of the part translated as “all of them swim in an orbit” in both verses is exactly the same: “küllün fı felekiy yesbehun”.
A verb tense which is used for more than two things obviously exists in both two verses. However, by (in my opinion) construing the verse in a very wrong way, the person who prepared the interpretation states “the meaning that all celestial bodies move in an orbit may be inferred”.
Indeed, the reality is much striking than this... It is obviously emphasized in the verses that “night and day” also move in an orbit. The reference made to night and day in the Koran is always related to the Earth’s night and day. In other words, what is actually stated in both of these two verses is the fact that Earth also revolves in an orbit just like the sun and moon!
For a moment, think about the movement of the earth in the space. While the earth is revolving around the sun, night and day which always and together exist above the earth also revolve in an orbit around the sun. From this perspective, the verses have an extremely subtle expression...
Another thing implied by the narration of the swimming of the earth in an orbit in this way by referring to night and day may be related to around what the revolvement of the earth is realized. In other words, night and day in the earth emerge owing to the sun. By stating “night and day also float in an orbit”, the verses may well be referring to the fact that this orbit is around the sun.
Infact, in the above verses a specific type of 'figure of speech' seems to be employed. Referring to a whole (Earth) by means of its parts (night and day) is a rhetorical device known as 'synecdoche' (from Greek synekdoche, meaning 'simultaneous understanding'). Describing a complete vehicle as "wheels" or Calling a worker "a pair of hands" are other examples of this type of 'figure of speech'.
At this point, the verses of chapter Kehf, narrating the historical character Zulqarnain, should also be mentioned.
Kehf (85-86) (Yusuf Ali)
One (such) way he followed,
Until, when he reached the setting of the sun, he found it set in a spring of murky water: near it he found a people: we said: O Zul Qarnain (thou hast authority,) either to punish them, or to treat them with kindness.
Some uses these verses as an evidence of Quran’s falsehood and claims that these verses are allegedly talking about sun’s revolvement around earth. Hovewer, Quran is a literary work and understanding it requires knowledge of rhetorical devices. Quran is very rich in terms of rhetorical devices and the verses above employ one of them called “Point of View – (Third-Person Subjective Narrative)”. In other words, the above narrative is just an expression of Zulqarnain’s own reality.

Source: quran-miracle.info

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The Quran on Mountains

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A book entitled Earth is a basic reference textbook in many universities around the world.  One of its two authors is Professor Emeritus Frank Press.  He was the Science Advisor to former US President Jimmy Carter, and for 12 years was the President of the National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC. His book says that mountains have underlying roots. These roots are deeply embedded in the ground, thus, mountains have a shape like a peg (see figures 1, 2, and 3).

Figure 1: Mountains have deep roots under the surface of the ground. (Earth, Press and Siever, p. 413.)

Figure 2: Schematic section.  The mountains, like pegs, have deep roots embedded in the ground. (Anatomy of the Earth, Cailleux, p. 220.)

Figure 3: Another illustration shows how the mountains are peg-like in shape, due to their deep roots. (Earth Science, Tarbuck and Lutgens, p. 158.)

This is how the Quran has described mountains.  God has said in the Quran:

“Have We not made the earth as a bed, and the mountains as pegs?” (Quran 78:6-7)

Modern earth sciences have proven that mountains have deep roots under the surface of the ground (see figure 3) and that these roots can reach several times their elevations above the surface of the ground. So the most suitable word to describe mountains on the basis of this information is the word ‘peg,’ since most of a properly set peg is hidden under the surface of the ground.  The history of science tells us that the theory of mountains having deep roots was introduced only in the latter half of the nineteenth century.

Mountains also play an important role in stabilizing the crust of the earth. They hinder the shaking of the earth.  God has said in the Quran:

“And He has set firm mountains in the earth so that it would not shake with you...” (Quran 16:15)

Likewise, the modern theory of plate tectonics holds that mountains work as stabilizers for the earth.  This knowledge about the role of mountains as stabilizers for the earth has just begun to be understood in the framework of plate tectonics since the late 1960’s.

Could anyone during the time of the Prophet Muhammad have known of the true shape of mountains?  Could anyone imagine that the solid massive mountain which he sees before him actually extends deep into the earth and has a root, as scientists assert?  A large number of books of geology, when discussing mountains, only describe that part which is above the surface of the earth.  This is because these books were not written by specialists in geology.  However, modern geology has confirmed the truth of the Quranic verses.

Source: islam-guide.com

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