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What evidences do Muslims give for the Koran being a true revelation of God?
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They point to its literary beauty, its scientific accuracy, among other things.
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This evidence comes from the belief that the Koran was given to Muhammad from the Mother of the Book.
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Muslims hold the belief that the prophet Muhammad received the original Koran directly from the angel Gabriel who brought the book from Heaven. The Koran is written in Arabic, and any other translation is not considered a legitimate Koran.
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They claim that the revelations Muhammad received since AD 610 had been confirmed as not coming from evil spirits. They claim that Allah so guided his disciples to memorize his teachings that what they wrote in Arabic after his death were indeed the heavenly “Mother of the Book”. They claim that the excellent poetry of the Koran is a miracle; that the Koran is the Miracle sufficient to substantiate Muhammad, although he did not perform physical miracles like Moses and Jesus.
They claim evidence from its literary beauty, its fulfilled prophecies, its scientific accuracy, and its power to transform lives.
To quote Shaykh Muslim Bhanji (Al-Islam internet source at https://www.al-islam.org/authenticity-quran-shaykh-muslim-bhanji/some-brief-examples-scientific-data-quran), he claimed that the Koran proved that the heavens and the earth were originally one mass of gas which then separated: “Then God turned to the creation of the heavens (the planets), when they were but a smoky substance.” (41:11) “Do the unbelievers not see that the heavens and the earth were joined together before we separated them, and that We brought all living things into existence from water? Why do they still not believe in God?” (21:30)
He claimed that the Koran proved that the universe has been expanding: “We created the heavens with Our strength and power, and constantly expand them”. (51:47)
He claimed that the Koran had long ago described gravitational force as ‘invisible pillars’: “God it is Who raised up the heavenly bodies to invisible pillars” (13:2)
He claimed that the Koran predicted long ago that milk in animals come from chemical transformations in the digestive tract: “There is in truth for you a lesson in your animals and flocks. We give you to drink a pure milk derived from that which is contained in their bodies, from the merging of what is held in their intestines with blood. The drinking of that is then made easy for those who drink it.” (16:66).
He claimed that the Koran predicted gender and insemination in plants: “Do they not look at the earth, where we created the plants in pairs”. (26:7).
He claimed that the Koran had revealed the mystery of the role of the wind in the fertilization of plants: “We have sent the winds as a means of insemination and impregnation, and then sent down rain from the heavens.” (15:22).
He claimed that the Koran had given revelation that the sun is like a blazing torch (Siraj) but the moon only reflects light (Muniira): “Blessed is the One Who placed the constellations in heaven and placed in it a lamp (SIRAJ) and a moon, giving light (MUNIIRA)”. (25:61)
He claimed that the Koran had given revelation that breathing is more difficult at high altitudes: “Those whom God wills to guide, He opens their breast to Islam. While those whom He wills to let straying, He makes their breath closed and constricted, as if they had to climb up the skies”. (6:125)
He claimed that the Koran had proven, against popular belief, that among the honeybees the worker-bees searching for food are females: “Your Lord inspired the (female) bee, choose your dwelling in the hills, in the trees and in what (man) build. Eat of all fruit and follow the ways of your Lord in humility. From within their bodies comes a liquid of different colours where is cure for men”. (16:68-69)
He claimed that the Koran gave an inspired description of the development of the embryo in: “We fashioned the thing which clings into a chewed lump of flesh and We fashioned the chewed flesh into bones, and We clothed the bones with intact flesh”. (23:14).
To me, the apologetics arguments of Shaykh Muslim Bhanji cannot stand because:
– By hermeneutical principles, poetic figures of speech should not be used to ‘prove’ a scientific observation or phenomenon. For each poetic expression that fits a literal situation, there is probably another poetic expression that doesn’t fit. One cannot just choose those expressions of his liking and ignore the rest in order to ‘prove’ science. It is far-fetched to say that the ‘invisible pillars’ in poetry must be gravity!
– Bhanji had so underrated man’s common sense, or power of observation, or the progress of learning in Muhammad’s time (AD 570-632), as to assume that men could not have known about physical phenomena (such as reflection from the moon, gender in plants, the wind in pollination, milk from the intestine, breathing difficulties at high altitudes) until the ‘revelation’ of the Koran. It is to say that, if the Koran incidentally mentions such knowledge in the 6th-7th century, then it must be divinely inspired.
I think one must let a sacred text speak for itself according to its genre, and not try overly hard to press it for ‘evidences’ that do not hold water.
#religions -
They say that prophecies fulfilled and scientific accuracy is evidence that is a true revelation of God.