Natural Phenomena (Water)

With the advances made in the field of science and technology, the range of human observation and experiment were vastly increased, opening up great vistas of knowledge about the universe. In all spheres of existence and in all disciplines of science, previously established concepts were proved wrong by later research and were discarded. This means that no human work dating back 1500 years can boast of total accuracy, because all ‘facts’ must now be re-evaluated in the light of recent information. No such book has, in fact, been found to be totally free of errors, with the notable exception of the Quran, whose authenticity has withstood all challenges over the centuries. This constitutes conclusive evidence of the Quran having had its source in an Omnipresent and Eternal Mind— one which knows all facts in their true forms and whose knowledge has not been conditioned by time and circumstances. Had it been a human fabrication it could not have withstood the test of time, human vision being, by contrast, narrow and limited.

The basic theme of the Quran is salvation in the life hereafter. That is why it does not fall into the category of any of known arts and sciences of the world. But since it addresses itself to man, it touches on almost all the disciplines which concern him. In spite of the breadth of its scope, none of its statements has ever been shown to have been made on the basis of inadequate knowledge. Bertrand Russell, in his Impact of Science on Society makes the point that, renowned philosopher as he was, Aristotle, while ‘proving’ the inferiority of women to men, stated that ‘women have fewer teeth than men’, thus revealing his ignorance of the fact that men and women have an equal number of teeth. No such ignorance or misconception is ever evinced in the Quran. This clearly shows that the origin of this work is a superior Being whose knowledge predates time itself and goes infinitely far beyond present knowledge, no matter how advanced the latter may appear to be.

At this point, I propose to give some examples from different disciplines to show how, while dealing with any given science, the Quran surprisingly encompassed truths which were to be discovered and confirmed much later. Before launching upon this discussion, it should be borne in mind that the correspondence between modern research and Quranic words is based on the presumption that modern research has, indeed, succeeded in finding out the truth of the facts in question, thus, providing us with the necessary material to make an up-to-date and correct interpretation of Quranic assertions about the material universe. Now, if further research proves our contemporary research wrong, even in part, it will amount in no way to proving the Quran at fault. It will simply mean that, that particular interpretation of the Quran in the light of scientific discoveries was wrongly angled, or inadequate. I feel certain that with the more accurate information which will be available in the future, an interpreter of the Quran will feel better equipped to explain those verses which contain scientific truths; correct information about any given fact can never be contrary to Quranic assertions, whatever they may be.

Assertions of this sort, fall into two separate categories, one relating to matters on which there existed no prior information whatsoever at the time the Quran was written, and the other to matters on which the information available was either superficial or inadequate.

Dr. Maurice Bucaille, in his The Bible, the Qur’an and Science, describes as ‘bizarre’ the notion that ‘if surprising statements of a scientific nature exist in the Quran, they may be accounted for by the fact that Arab scientists were so far ahead of their time and Muhammad was influenced by their work.

Anyone who knows anything about Islamic history is aware that the period of the Middle Ages which saw the cultural and scientific upsurge in the Arab world came after Muhammad and would not therefore indulge in such whims’ (p.121).

There were many aspects of the universe about which ancient peoples had only partial knowledge, this having been demonstrated by modern scientific findings, but it should be made clear at this point that the main purpose of the Quran was not to expound scientific theories in order to explain natural phenomena, but to elucidate the divine symbolism of the workings of nature in order that people should be purified in mind and soul and become so imbued with feelings of awe and reverence of God’s will, that a veritable moral revolution would ensue. The Quran was never meant to be just a book about the physical sciences.

And had it disclosed totally new and unheard of scientific facts to the people, this would have sparked off unending and quite irrelevant discussions about the nature of these facts, while the real aims of the Quran would have been thrust into the background. It is little short of miraculous that, centuries before science had made such gigantic leaps forward, the Quran clarified for the common people such scientific facts as illustrated the highest moral principles without using terminology which would in any way confuse them or obscure the issue. And it is those very facts that we now find are entirely consistent with the results of modern investigations.

An interesting example of this is the Quran’s description of the behavior of water so as to illustrate the particular physical law that governs it. He has let loose the two seas: they meet one another. Between them stands a barrier which they cannot overrun. (55:19-20)

Two rivers meeting and flowing onwards together without their waters mingling with each other was a phenomenon which had obviously been observed and partially understood by ancient peoples. We can observe this today in the waters of the two rivers which flow together from Chatagam in Bangladesh to Arakan in Burma. All along their course the waters are quite distinct from one another, a ‘stripe’ being visible between them dividing salt water from fresh. This same phenomenon can also be seen at the confluence of the Ganges and the Jamuna at Allahabad. Both the rivers course onwards together, yet are distinctly separated from one another. Rivers which flow down to coastal areas and are affected by the ebb and flow of the sea, have large quantities of saltwater gush upstream at high tide but, again the waters do not mix. The salt water forms an upper layer, the fresh water remaining below it. At ebb tide, the salt water recedes, leaving the fresh water, as it was before.

Man had observed such natural phenomena from ancient times, but he did not know the laws of nature which governed them. It has recently been discovered by modern research that the way liquids flow is governed by a difference in salinity and thus density because saline water is denser than fresh water; when two water bodies converge, the more saline of the two flows beneath the less saline. Thus, a river flowing into the sea flows on the surface, sometimes for great distances; the Mississippi, for example, appears as a brown, fresh-water stream in the blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Salinity variations in the oceans and seas are partially responsible for large-scale seawater circulation.

A well-known example is the flow to the Mediterranean Sea, which is separated from the North Atlantic by a sill, 320 metres (1,050 feet) deep, at the Strait of Gibraltar. The Mediterranean is saltier than the North Atlantic because its evaporation exceeds its replenishment by rivers; the more saline water of the Mediterranean thus flows at depth over the sill into the North Atlantic, where it sinks to a depth of 1,000 metres; and less saline water from the North Atlantic flows near the surface. Current speeds as high as two metres per second have been recorded.

It is as if there were a barrier between the waters of different densities, and ‘barrier’ is the exact expression used by the Quran.