How should we respond when modern science and scientific facts are mentioned
to show that they are in agreement with the Qur’an?
We refer to many branches of science and scientific facts today and use them
as spectacles through which we look at things and events and even religious
matters. Sometimes we refer to them singly, and sometimes many at a time, in our
discourses. In this way, we are seeking, and try to provide, evidence of the
existence and the oneness of the Creator to those who need evidence of this
sort.
Similarly, when looking at science in the light of the Qur’an, we point out that
the Qur’an contains information about the nature of things which is not in
conflict with the findings from man’s scientific pursuits. If we take medicine
as an example we certainly see that many things lead us to believe in the
Creator. I once read a book called ‘Medicine is the Niche of the Faith’. It
really is so; and it is impossible not to acknowledge God when studying our
bodily existence and development. For instance, the Qur’anic description of the
embryo corresponds exactly to what we know today; nor does the Qur’an contain a
single statement on this matter that is open to criticism from modern science.
More than a thousand years before our time, when ignorant superstition
prevailed, how could an unlettered man have known such facts as were discovered
by X-rays and other sophisticated equipment many centuries later after intensive
scientific research? In this way, while making numerous suggestions about the
correct description in the Qur’an of certain scientific facts, we argue that all
these matters could not have been known to any human being at the time of the
revelation of the Qur’an. Their inclusion in the Qur’an therefore shows the
heavenly origin of the Book. This in turn corroborates the truth of the
prophethood of Muhammad, upon him be peace and the blessings of God.
Since the miraculous nature of the Qur’an is a subject we have discussed
elsewhere, and in connection with what the Qur’an contains of scientific facts,
we will not go into it further here.
But why do we refer to science and scientific facts when explaining our
religion? The reason is that some people are determined that they will never
accept anything other than scientific facts. Materialists and anti-religious
people have sought to exploit science as a means of defying religion and use its
prestige to spread their thinking. By this means, they have distorted and
corrupted the minds of a great number of people. Therefore, using the same
materials we have to show that science and technology are not contradictory to
our religion. In other words, as opposed to Marx, Engels, Lenin and other
materialists who evaluated matter in their own way and thus went astray, we have
to evaluate the same matter and lead people to the right path. I personally do
not disapprove of this kind of argument. On the contrary, I hold that believers
should be well versed in such facts in order to fight back against materialism
and atheism. For, the verses of the Qur’an urge us to reflect and study, they
direct us to observe the stars and galaxies. They impress upon us the
Magnificence of the Creator. They exhort us also to wander among human beings
and direct our attention to the miraculousness of our organs and physical
creation. From the world of atoms to the largest beings, from man’s first being
on the earth to his leaving it, the Qur’anic verses place the whole creation
before our eyes. Touching upon a multitude of facts, the Qur’an tells us that
Those who truly fear God, among His servants, are those who have knowledge (al-Fatir,
35.28), and so encourages us to seek ‘ilm, to reflect and to research. However,
it should always be borne in mind as a first condition that all these
reflections and research must comply with the spirit of the Qur’an. Otherwise,
while claiming to be following the advice and command of the Qur’an, we shall in
fact be departing from it.
Science and the facts it presents can and should be used to expound Islamic
facts. But if we use them to show off our knowledge or to impress others with
our authority, whatever we say does not influence its hearers in the right way,
if at all. Words and arguments in themselves bright and persuasive lose their
effectiveness on account of the intention in our hearts: they get as far as the
listeners’ eardrums and no further. Similarly, if our argument aims at silencing
people instead of persuading them, we shall ourselves have blocked the
listeners’ way to understanding and so fail to achieve our goals. However, if we
try to persuade with a full and proper sincerity, those who do need such
arguments to believe will receive their portion and benefit from it-even if we
ourselves do not notice this happening. Sometimes an argument sincerely
presented in this way, even if you felt at the time it was ineffective, may in
reality be far more beneficial to the listeners than another when you spoke
rather more freely and eloquently. Our primary aim when introducing science and
scientific facts must be to win the pleasure of God, and we must present them
according to the level of the listeners.
It is not correct to regard science as ‘superior’ in some way to religion, or to
present substantial Islamic issues with this attitude as if to justify religion
or reinforce its credibility by means of modern scientific facts. This attitude
is incorrect because it implies that we ourselves have doubts about the truths
of Islam and are, or to speak, ‘in need’ of science. Equally incorrect is it to
accept science or scientific facts as absolute, as the decisive criteria for the
authenticity or supra-human origin of the Qur’an, and so place them in a
position which confirms the Qur’an. This is not only absurd, it is abhorrent and
by no means to be permitted or tolerated. Such arguments and allusions to
science have at best a secondary, supportive use and may be of value in that
they open a door onto a way which, otherwise, certain people simply would not
know exists.
Science is to be used therefore as an instrument of awakening or stirring some
minds which, otherwise, might remain asleep or unmoved. We may think of it as a
dusting brush with which to brush the dust off the truth, and the desire for
truth, which lie hidden in unstirred consciences. By contrast, if we set out
from the position that science is the absolute, we shall end up seeking to fit
the Qur’an and Hadith to it, and where Qur’an and Hadith disagree with science
we shall be the instigators of doubt and corruption.
Our position must be clear, and it is this: the Qur’an and Hadith are true and
absolute. Science and scientific facts are true as long as they are in agreement
with the Qur’an and Hadith, and are false inasmuch as they differ or lead away
from the truth of Qur’an and Hadith. Even the definitely established scientific
facts cannot be pillars to uphold the truths of iman (faith). They can and
should only be accepted as an instrument to give us ideas or to trigger us to
reflect. God it is who establishes the truths of iman in our conscience. To
expect that that takes place, or could take place, through science is a grave
error: iman comes by Divine Guidance, and only by Divine Guidance. Anyone who
fails to grasp this is in an error from which it is hard to recover. Because,
while he is trying to look for and gather evidence from the universe, he will
attempt to make it speak eloquently in the name of God, and thus he himself will
always remain as a servant to nature and as a nature worshipper, though unaware
of being so. He will study and speak of flowers, of the verdancy and spring of
nature, but not the least greenness or bud of iman will sprout in his
conscience. In his lifetime, he may never feel the existence of God within his
consciousness. In appearance, he will be free from worshipping nature, but in
reality that is what he will be doing throughout his lifetime.
A man is mu’min owing to the iman he holds in his heart, not to the heaps of
knowledge in his head. After a person has got as far as he can in understanding
by means of evidence objective and subjective, he must rid himself of dependence
on the outer circumstances and qualities and conditions of all such evidence if
he is to proceed at all in making spiritual progress (terakki). When he abandons
that dependence and walks in the way of his heart and conscience within the
light and guidance of the Qur’an, then, as God wills, he may find the
enlightenment he is looking for: as the German philosopher, Kant, said: ‘I felt
the need to leave behind all the books I read in order to believe in God’.
Undoubtedly, the grand book of the universe, the book of the true nature of man,
and the books that comment on these, have their proper place and significance.
But, after man makes use of them, he should be rid of them and live with his
iman, as it were, face to face. What we are here saying may seem abstract to
those who have not gone deep into the experience of faith and conscience. But
those souls whose nights are bright with devotion and who acquire wings through
their longing to aspire to their Lord will understand.
Much has been said and written in response to the allegation that the Qur’an
is the work of the Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace, and not, as Muslims know
and believe, the Word of God. Here, I shall confine myself to the most pertinent
points.
This particular allegation is put forward by modern orientalists, just as it
was by their predecessors, Christian and Jewish writers who deeply resented the
spread of Islam. But the allegation is one familiar to Muslims from within the
Qur’an itself. The Qur’an records how the pagan Arabs of the jahiliyya (the
period of ignorance before Islam) used to allege that the Prophet had forged the
revelations: ‘whenever Our signs are recited to them in a clear way, those who
deny say concerning the truth, when it (the truth) comes to them: ‘This is plain
magic’. Or do they say: ‘He has forged it? (al-Ahqaf, 46.7–8). They were
desperate to protect their interests against the rising tide of the new faith
and hoped, just as their modern counterparts do, that by causing some Muslims to
doubt the authorship of the Qur’an they might cause them to doubt its authority
also.
Let us begin by affirming that the Qur’an is unique among scriptures in two
very important respects which even the Qur’an’s enemies are obliged to
acknowledge. Firstly, we have the Qur’an in its original language and this
language is still in living use. Secondly, the text of the Qur’an is entirely
reliable. It has been as it is, unaltered, unedited, not tampered with in any
way, since the time of its revelation. By contrast, other scriptures have not
survived in their original language, nor is the language of the earliest
surviving version of these scriptures a language still in living use.
Furthermore, their texts have been conclusively shown to be the work of many
human hands over many generations, edited and re-edited, altered and
interpolated, to promote the interpretations of particular sects. They are
rightly said to have lost their authority as scriptures; they serve primarily as
a national or cultural mythology for the groups whose remote ancestors created
their particular versions of them. That is, more or less, the Western scholarly
consensus on the status of these once Divine Books. For almost two centuries,
Western scholars have subjected the Qur’an to the same rigorous scrutiny.
However, they have failed to prove, as they expected, that the Qur’an too is the
work of many hands over many generations. Certainly they found, as happened
among Christians, that the Muslims split into disputing factions but, unlike the
Christians, the warring Muslim factions sought to justify their position by
reference to one and the same Qur’an. It is still possible that other versions
of the Gospels remain to be discovered or uncovered from where they were lost or
hidden. By contrast, all Muslims know but the one Qur’an, perfectly preserved in
its original words, just as at the time of the death of the Prophet, upon him be
peace, when revelation ended, with no variations of the least significance.
As well as the Qur’an, Muslims also have a record of the Prophet’s teaching,
in the form of practical example and precept (the Sunna) which is extensively
(though, of course, not fully) preserved in the Hadith. It is in the Hadith that
the Prophet’s own words are recorded. These two sources, Qur’an and Hadith,
could not be more dissimilar in quality of expression or content. The Arabs who
heard the Prophet speak, whether they were believers or not, found his words to
be concise, forceful, persuasive, but nevertheless like their own normal usage.
By contrast, when they heard the Qur’an, they were overwhelmed by feelings of
rapture, ecstasy, awe. One senses in the Hadith the presence of an individual
human being addressing his fellow human beings, a man pondering weighty
questions who, when he speaks, speaks with an appropriate gravity and in
profound awe of the Divine Will. The Qur’an on the other hand is immediately
perceived as imperative, sublime, with a transcendent, all-compelling majesty of
style and content. It defies sense and reason to suppose that Qur’an and Hadith
are works of the same or a single origin.
The Qur’an differs absolutely from any human artefact (whether literary or
otherwise) in the absolute transcendence of its perspective and viewpoint.
Occasionally in other scriptures, in a few scattered phrases or passages, the
reader or listener feels that he is indeed in the presence of the Divine Message
addressed to mankind from their Creator. In the Qur’an, every syllable carries
this impression of sublime intensity of communication from One who is
All-Knowing and All-Merciful. Furthermore, the Qur’an cannot, as can merely
human works, be contemplated at a distance, it cannot be discussed and debated
in the abstract. The Qur’an requires us to understand and to act, to amend our
lifestyles; by God, it also enables us to do so because it can touch us in the
very depths of our being. It addresses us in our full reality as spiritually and
physically competent beings. It addresses our whole being as the creatures of
the All-Merciful. It is not addressed to just one or other of our faculties. The
Qur’an is not a message that engages only our capacity for philosphical
reasoning, or only our poetic, artistic sensibility, or only our power to alter
and manage the natural environment, or to alter and manage our political and
legal affairs, or only our need for mutual compassion and forgiveness, or only
our spiritual craving for knowledge and consolation. Nor is the Qur’an a message
addressed to one man only or one tribe or one nation, nor is it addressed only
to men and not to women, or only to the oppressed and weak and not to the
wealthy and powerful, or only to the sinful and self-indulgent and not to the
virtuous and self-disciplined. The Qur’an addresses the whole of mankind and, by
God, its message is relevant (as it is also preserved) for all time.
This transcendence and fullness of the Qur’anic perspective can be felt in
every individual matter which it particularly mentions. For example, the Qur’an
sets side by side caring for one’s parents in their old age with belief in the
Oneness of God; it sets the command to provide decently for a divorced wife side
by side with the reminder to fear the All-Knowing and All-Seeing. God knows best
the full implications of such juxtapositions. But His believing servants do
know, and can report, their effect: they enable the inward self-reform which is
necessary if the virtuous actions are to be performed steadily, cheerfully, and
with the degree of humility which makes a virtuous action also a graceful one
and prevents it from becoming a burden upon the mind of the person who is
supposed to be benefited by it.
The Qur’an reiterates in several verses a challenge to any who doubt its
authenticity to bring or produce a sura (chapter) that can equal it. No one has
ever met, or can ever meet, this challenge. For the reasons we have explained,
none but God could assume the Qur’an’s all-transcendent and all-compassionate
perspective. The thoughts and aspirations of even the best of human beings are
affected (and conditioned) by the circumstances within which, by God, their
lives begin and end-that is an inevitable consequence of their being creatures.
That is why, sooner or later, all merely human works fail or fade in influence
and force: their style drifts out of fashion, or their subject-matter is no
longer relevant; they are too general and lack a sufficient attachment to the
reality of human experience, or they are too attached to some particular
circumstance and so lacking in generality and applicability. For any number of
reasons, and irrespective of good or bad intentions, the works of human minds
and human hands are of only limited value. That is why to this day the challenge
stands unanswered: not even if all mankind, using all known resources,
collaborated together, or if the jinn joined in to help them, assuming they
could, would they be able to produce even a part of the Qur’an. In the Book’s
own words: Say: if all of mankind and the jinn were to gather together to
produce the like of this Qur’an, they could not produce the like of it, even if
they backed each other with help and support (al-Isra’, 17.88).
The Qur’an is the Word of the All-Knowing and All-Seeing, who knows His
creation inside as well as outside, forward as well as backward in time. The
Qur’an therefore comprehends the human beings it addresses, it tests them as it
teaches-indeed, if we may so put it, the Qur’an ‘reads’ its readers. For
believers, the consciousness of being before the Divine Message can, in the
words of the Qur’an, make their skins shiver, so suddenly and fully does the
atmosphere around them, the climate within them, change, like an abrupt
alteration in body temperature.
Thus far, I have discussed only the general fact of the Qur’an, and its
general perspective, in order to explain that it can only be of Divine
authorship. But the substance of the Qur’an is no less compelling an argument.
Those who, with good or bad intentions, allege that it is a work of human
authorship cannot sustain their allegation. Other scriptures than the Qur’an,
precisely because (as above mentioned) they have been tampered with by human
hands, make claims that we know to be untrue. For example, in these scriptures a
particular account is given of the creation of the world, or of a natural
phenomenon (for example, of the great flood), which we know, from modern
investigation of the stars or, on the earth, from investigation of fossil
records, to be false. Human beings altered those scriptures to suit their own
understanding and so, as science has progressed, it has made their understanding
and their now corrupted scriptures irrelevant and (for the most part) obsolete.
The Qur’an by contrast is preserved by Divine Decree against any consequence of
human neglect or human misunderstanding.
How, except on account of its Divine authorship, is it possible for the
Qur’an to be literally true on matters of which people had not the least inkling
at the time when the Qur’an was revealed? Do not the unbelievers see (realise)
that the heavens and the earth were one unit of creation before we split them
asunder? (al-Anbiya’, 21.20). It is only in the last few years that we have been
able to contemplate this verse about the first moment of the universe in its
literal meaning. Similarly, when we now read-God is He who raised the heavens
without any pillars that you can see. Then He established Himself on the throne
[of authority]. He has subjected the sun and moon [to a law]; each runs its
course for a term appointed. He does regulate all affairs, explaining the signs
in detail, that you may believe certainly in the meeting with your Lord. (al-Ra’d,
13.2)-we can understand the invisible pillars, without elaborate exposition, as
the vast centrifugal and centripetal forces which maintain the balance amid the
heavenly bodies; we can understand from this and related verses (e.g. al-Rahman,
55.5; al-Anbiya’, 21.33, 38, 39; Ya Sin, 36.40) that the sun and moon are stars
with a fixed life-span, that their force of light has or will fade, that they
follow a track in the heavens determined with the most minute exactness. The
literal understanding of these verses does not diminish the responsibility that
comes with understanding-that you may believe certainly in the meeting with your
Lord-in other words, the purpose of the verses has not changed, only the
circumstance of our knowledge of the phenomenal world has changed. In the case
of the former scriptures, the advance of the sciences has meant that the
inaccuracy of those scriptures has become ever more visible, with growing
irrelevance of the beliefs associated with them. In the case of the Qur’an, by
contrast, the advance of knowledge about the phenomenal world has not made even
a single verse harder to believe or to understand; on the contrary many verses
are now understood more fully and more clearly. (We have given many more
examples of such verses in other pieces more specifically addressed to the
subject of the Qur’an and science: see, for example, pp.29–37 below.)
Yet there are people who still allege that the authorship of the Qur’an
belongs not to God but to an inspired Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace. While
asserting that they are on the side of sense and reason, these people allege
what is humanly impossible. How could a man utter, some fourteen hundred years
ago, what have since been recognised, by a different route, as scientifically
established truths? How is that humanly possible? How is it on the side of
reason and sense to claim such a thing? By what means did the Prophet discover,
with an anatomical and biological accuracy only recently confirmed, how milk is
produced in mammal tissues? How did he discover how rain clouds and hailstones
form; or determine so correctly the fertilizing quality of the winds; or explain
how land-masses shift and continents form and deform? With what giant telescopes
from what observatory did he find out about the physical expansion of the
universe? By what equivalent of X-ray vision was he able to describe in the most
careful, unmistakable detail, the different stages of an embryo’s evolution
within the uterus?
Another miraculous aspect of the Qur’an to be mentioned concerning its Divine
origin is that just as the information it gives about the past is absolutely
true, so too its predictions are very significant. For example, at a time when
the Companions considered the articles of the Hudabia Treaty are quite adverse,
the Qur’an gave the good tidings that they would enter the Sacred Mosque (al-Masjid
al-Haram) in full security, and the Religion of Islam would prevail over all
other religions. (Sura al-Fath, 48:27-28) The Qur’an also clearly pronounced
that the Romans would be victorious against the Persians in nine years from
their utter defeat in 615, but the believers would destroy both of these
greatest powers of the then world. (Sura al-Rum, 30:2-5) When the Qur’an gave
this good tiding, there were scarcely forty believers and they were all made
groaned under the pitiless tortures of Makkan chiefs.
Those who make that allegation about the authorship of the Qur’an have
abandoned their reason when they do so, and they place their souls in the
greatest danger. The Being of God is One, and there are no sharers in it, none,
not in any degree. The Prophet, upon him be peace, was the best of men, the
ideal, and yet never more than a man. The Qur’an itself so addresses him, so
admonishes him, so consoles him, so reproaches him. When the Prophet, for
example, had exempted certain of the hypocrites from jihad, the Qur’an
criticized him: God forgive you! why did you give them leave to stay behind
before it became clear which of them were truthful and which were liars? (al-Tawba,
9.43). With regard to the taking of captives after the Battle of Badr, he was
rebuked in these terms: You (the believers) merely seek the gains of the world
whereas God desires [for you the good] of the hereafter. God is All-Mighty,
All-Wise. Had there not been a previous decree from God, a stern punishment
would have afflicted you for what you have taken...(al-Anfal, 8.67–8). When on
an occasion the Prophet said that he would do such-and-such a thing on the next
day without adding insha’Allah, that is, without expressing his reliance upon
God, he was warned: Nor say of anything, I shall be sure to do so-and-so
tomorrow, without adding ‘so please God’. And call your Lord to mind when you
forget, and say, ‘I hope that my Lord will guide me ever closer than this to the
right way’ (al-Kahf, 18.23–4). Another example: you did fear the people, but it
is more fitting that you should fear God. (al-Ahzab, 33.37). As a result of some
private matter related to his household the Prophet undertook to never again use
honey, never again drink a honey-based sherbet; the Qur’an admonished him: O
Prophet! why do you hold to be forbidden what God has made lawful to you? You
seek to please you wives. But God is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.
In other verses also, when the higher duties and responsibilities of the
Prophet, upon him be peace, are brought into clear focus in the Qur’an, the
limits of his authority are clearly pronounced. There is a clear space between
the Messenger and the Message revealed to him, as clear as between man and his
Creator.
Why do the orientalists and their supporters allege, in the face of all the
evidence, that the authorship of the Qur’an belongs to the Prophet? The reason
is their fear of Islam. There are many miracles associated with the Qur’an-we
could not mention them all here-one of the most striking of which is that by the
Qur’an was established, in an astonishingly short time, a civilization which has
proved both distinctive and enduring. The Qur’an was the constitution, the
all-providing, all-generous framework for that civilization. The Qur’an required
the administrative, legal and fiscal reforms necessary to sustain a vast empire
of different cultural communities and several religions. The Qur’an inspired a
genuinely scientific curiosity to study nature, to travel and study different
peoples and cultures. The Qur’an urged people to lend money for commercial
ventures and to eradicate fully the institution of interest, so that while
wealth grew (which it did) it would circulate among the whole community. The
Qur’an inspired the first ever public literacy and public hygiene programmes (so
that the believers could read the Book and prepare for worship). The Qur’an
commanded the organised redistribution of surplus wealth to the poor and needy,
to widows and orphans, for the relief of captives and debtors, the emancipation
of slaves, and for the support of new converts to Islam. One could expand this
list considerably; the important point is that only the Qur’an has ever achieved
what many world-famous but human works have longed, and completely failed, to
achieve. Do we not, each of us, know at least one human account of how to
establish or run an ideal society, at least one system or ‘formula’ for solving
equitably the problems of social or cultural or political differences between
people? And which of these ever succeeded, even in part, even for a short time?
Those who allege that the Prophet is the author of the Qur’an, fear the
Qur’an, fear its power and authority for Muslims, fear that the Muslims might
again obey its command and restore the civilization of Islam. They would prefer
it if the leading people in Islamic countries believed their allegation and so
came to believe that the Qur’an is a human work from a certain past century and
is, therefore, no longer relevant. Then indeed the dream of those who hate and
fear Islam would come true. Muslims would hold to their religion just as the
majority of Christians do in secular Western societies-that is, as a tender
memory of something long gone.
They would have us believe that the Qur’an belongs to the seventh century.
They will admit, in order to beguile the believers, that the Qur’an was very
advanced for its time. But now, they say, it is they who are advanced, they who
offer a lifestyle of intellectual and cultural freedom, they who are civilised,
while the Qur’an and Islam are backward! But the truth is that, just as advances
in the physical sciences have established the accuracy of the Qur’an on
questions to do with the merely phenomenal world, and provided the knowledge to
enable us to understand the Qur’an more fully, so also improvements in our
understanding of human relationships and human psychology will establish the
truth of the Qur’an on these questions also.
To be sure, the unbelievers will be dissatisfied with this answer. They
refuse any framework of guidance for either individual or collective affairs.
They say they want to work everything out for themselves; they want to learn
from only their own experience; they want to make mistakes; they want to
improvise and experiment. This, they say, is intellectual freedom. We answer
that this that they preach is not intellectual freedom but intellectual
arrogance. They boast, as an example of their present power, that they have
learnt to genetically alter farm animals so as to greatly increase their yield
in milk or eggs or meat. In the past, traditional methods of breeding also
sought such increase but with humility and patience, so that the animals adapted
over generations in a way that was sustainable. But modern science intervenes
with an impatient arrogance to produce animals that cannot walk or feed or even
reproduce themselves unaided, and-leaving aside the cruel suffering that is thus
imposed upon sentient creatures-the yield is a produce scarcely fit for
consumption. Such is the price of human arrogance-degradation of the physical
and moral being of mankind, a loss in the quality of our arts and crafts, in the
humanity of our husbandry of nature, a shrivelling up of the resources of
imagination and compassion, a headlong descent into unrelieved anxiety and
barbarism.
It may seem that we have digressed widely from our subject, the authorship of
the Qur’an. But indeed we have not lost sight of it. The allegation that the
Qur’an is a work of human inspiration is but an instance, and image, of the
failure to reflect with sincerity and due humility upon the reality of our being
as indebted creatures to whom everything is given. We do not create ourselves.
Rather, we are given our lives; we are given our powers of contemplation,
comprehension, and compassion; and we are given this extraordinarily subtle,
varied and renewable world in which to exercise those powers. So also the
miracle of the Qur’an is a gift of mercy to us; it could not have been
originated by mankind any more than mankind could have originated themselves.
God says in the Qur’an that even if all mankind banded together and got the jinn
to help them, they could not so much as create a fly; and likewise, He says, we
could not create a likeness of even a part of the Qur’an.
We affirm therefore that the Qur’an is the Word of God, and we affirm that that
belief is consonant with reason and experience. We affirm that it is the
constitution and bedrock upon which the lives of Muslims, individually and
collectively, should be based, and because the Qur’an is a mercy to mankind from
the All-Merciful, it will be relevant always, an ever-living guidance which will
lead to virtue and happiness, here and hereafter, provided only that we are
equal to the quality of worship and obedience it asks of us.
In the past, unbelief was the result of ignorance. Then, when people learned
about the truth, they were enlightened and found peace of mind. But recently
unbelief, rejection and denial have been attitudes of those who consider
themselves knowledgeable in all fields, who claim to accept and believe only on
rational or scientific ground. Cloaked in science and rational philosophy, the
activity of unbelief continues in many forms. The quality of believers’
submission is impaired, under constant threat and attack.
The author of this book, sensitive to the real questions people have the
questions given rise to by the modern age has tried, through patient argument,
to answer people’s doubts and questions.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Is the Qur’an, as some
people say, the work of the Prophet Muhammad? If not, how can it be proved
that it is not?
- How should we respond when modern science and scientific facts are
mentioned to show that they are in agreement with the Qur’an?
- Islam is a way of life and of belief revealed by God, and that way
requires submission to God. How can this be in accord with sense and reason,
as is claimed?
click Is it true that the Qur’an mentions everything of benefit to man? If so,
does it make reference to some of the questions that science and technology
work on today?
- What was the Divine Wisdom in the Qur’an’s being revealed in stages over a
period of 23 years?
- Why did the revelation of the Qur’an open with the command iqra’ or read?
- What does it mean to say ‘as time grows older, the Qur’an gets younger’?
- What is prophethood? What does it mean for people? Did all the prophets
appear in the Arabian Peninsula? Were there people among whom a prophet was
not raised? If so, can those to whom prophets were not sent be held
responsible for their beliefs and actions?
click How many prophets have been sent to mankind?
- Why was no prophet raised from among women?
click Was the Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace, the Prophet solely for the
Arabs? Or for all nations and all times?
- What were the reasons behind the several marriages of the Prophet, upon
him be peace?
- A hadith says: ‘There is a reward as much as that of one hundred
martyrdoms for one who adheres to my Sunna when my ummah are spoilt.’ What is
the importance of understanding Sunna today? How should we apply it to our
lives in this age?
click God certainly knows how we act and live in this world, whether we obey
His commands or not. So, what is the meaning of being sent to this world to be
tested?
- Five prayers a day are compulsory in Islam. However, in the extreme polar
regions a day or a night lasts six months each, in the sense that the sun is
always visible or always invisible. So, how does one pray there?
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As God does not need our worship, why need we do so, and if we do, why not do
it in whatever way we wish?
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Is man’s intention enough to save him?
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How should a disbeliever be approached and addressed, and what should he or
she be be told first?
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What is jihad? And what are its greater and lesser aspects?
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God has bestowed material wealth and comfort, status and prestige, upon some
people, but poverty, misery and affliction upon others. Does this mean that
God has preferred those who are wealthy, or that those who are poor are really
worse off or that they are somehow evil? What is the meaning behind such
differences?
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Why did God not endow His servants equally? Why did He create some of them
blind, disabled, or afflicted in other ways?
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Can Islam by itself deal with every problem?
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If the manner and moment of every death is predestined wherein lies the guilt
of a killer?
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The people of Sodom, Gomorrah and some other civilizations were destroyed for
their abominable sins. There are more sinners today and many more acts of
unprecedented indecency committed everywhere. Why does God not send a
punishment, a scourge from heaven or a total destruction to the nations?
click
The Qur’an says: God lets go astray whoever He wills and guides aright whoever
He wills (al-Muddasir, 74.31). However, we also know from the Qur’an that God
bestows reason, intellect and free will upon man, and leaves him the choice of
the way of good or evil. How can we reconcile these?
click
What will become in the hereafter of those who were born and live in
non-Islamic countries?
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Why is ilhad, atheism, so widespread?
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What is tenasukh (reincarnation)? Does it conform in any way to the teachings
of Islam?
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Some say that Muslims invaded and occupied territories for the sake of
conquest and exploitation, as Western imperialist powers did. Was this so?
click
How is it that Islam, a religion inspired by God for the good of humanity,
allows slavery?
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They say religion is a means contrived (by mankind) to cover up problems that
man could not solve but which, with further advances in civilization, will one
day be solved-and so, they ask, will religion no longer be needed?
click
What is the difference between the words Allah and God?
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Why did God create the universe? Did He need to? Why did He not do so sooner
rather than later?
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What are the Essence and Attributes of God? Can we describe Him? How can we
respond to those who ask, ‘Why can’t we see God?’, and ‘Given that God created
everything, who created God?’
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