The Qur'an and the Bible, in the light of Science - Part-2

 

Question And Answer Session By Dr. Zakir Naik

Thursday, June 18, 2009

 

 

(Dr. Campbell) Near the end of the video we heard Dr. Naik explain the Arabic word for ‘moon’ is ‘Qamar’, and the light described there is ‘Munir’, which is ‘borrowed light’ or ‘Nur’, which is a reflection of light.’ Please do not forget what he said… ‘Munir is borrowed light, and Nur is reflected light.’ Not only is this claim to be a statement in keeping with scientific truth, but it also claimed to be scientifically miraculous, since this was supposedly only discovered relatively, recently. It is correct that the moon does not emit its own light, but only reflects the light of the sun - But this was known already almost a thousand years before Mohammed. Aristotle in about 360 BC discussed, knowing that the earth was round, by its shadow on the moon. He could only speak of the Earth’s shadow crossing the Moon, if he knew that Moon’s light is reflected light. If you still insist that this is a miracle of scientific knowledge, then we must ask ourselves…‘Do the Qur’anic words themselves support this claim?’ ‘Siraj’ - first we shall look at ‘Siraj.’ In Surah Nur which was read above, in Surah Al Furqaan, 25 : 61, it is simply ‘lamp’… referring to the Sun. In Surah Naba, 78:13, ‘Siraj Wahjan’ means ‘a dazling lamp’, again indicating the Sun. The words ‘Nur’ and ‘Munir’ comes from the same Arabic word - root. The word Munir is used 6 times in the Qur’an 4 times Suratul Imran, 3 : 184, Al Haj 22 : 8, Lukman 31: 20 and Fatir 35 : 35. It is the phrase ‘Kitabul Munir’, which Yusuf Ali translates as… ‘A book of enlightenment’ and Picktall uses… ‘The Scripture giving light.’ Clearly this indicates a book which is radiating the light of knowledge. Nothing about ‘reflection’… ‘Nur’. It says in Surah Nur, 71:16 and Yunus, 10:5 that… ‘Allah made the light… the Moon a light.’ Thus we find that the Qur’an says that the Moon is a light, and it never says that the Moon reflects light. Moreover in other Verses, the Qur’an says that… ‘Allah is a Nur… a light.’ Surah Nur, 24:35, one of the most beautiful passages in the Qur’an reads… ‘Allah is the light… Nur of the Heavens and the Earth.

 

The parable of His light, is as if there was a niche and within it a lamp, the lamp enclosed in glass. The glass as it was a brilliant star and so forth.’ Thus we see that the word ‘Nur’ is used for both, ‘the moon’ and ‘Allah.’ Are we going to say that Allah gives off reflected light? I think not. But if you continue to insist that ‘Nur’ used for the Moon, means ‘borrowed’ or ‘reflected light’, and we saw above, that Allah is ‘the light’… Nur of the Heavens and the Earth - What is the source of this light? ‘Siraj’, of which Allah is only a reflection. Think about it - If Allah is named ‘Nur’ or a ‘reflected light’… who or what, is the ‘Siraj’? Well the Qur’an tells us who the ‘Siraj’ is - But the answer will shock you. In Surah Al Ahzab, 33:45, 46 we find… ‘O Prophet! Surely We have send thee as a witness - A bearer of glad tidings and a warner, and as a lamp spreading light. Here it says that Mohammed is the lamp spreading light. In Arabic it is ‘Sirajaan Munira’ Linguistically and spiritually, this is the end of the discussion. Linguistically ‘Siraj’ and the adjective ‘Moon’ here are used together for the same shining thing - the person Mohammed. It is clear ‘Munir’ does not mean reflected light in this verse – or in any other verse. It means shining. The people of Mohammed’s time understood that the Moon was shining, and they were right. Just as the people of Moses’ time understood that the Sun was the greater light, and the Moon the lesser light, and they were right. But if you insist, the Arabic words ‘Nur’ and ‘Moon’ here mean reflected light, then based on the use of these words in the Qur’an, Mohammed is like the ‘Sun’ and ‘Allah’ is like the ‘Moon.’ Does Dr. Naik really want to say that Mohammed is the source of Light, and Allah is only his reflection? Why are these so called scientific claims made, which no Muslim can support, if he make a serious study of his own Qur’an. In a dialogue like tonight it makes an honest discussion very difficult - almost impossible. Let us go on and look at the water cycle. Some Muslim authors claim that the Qur’an shows pre scientific knowledge of water cycle. What is the water cycle? Here in this slide, you see four steps. The first step is evaporation - The water evaporates from the seas and the earth. Second step – it becomes clouds. Third step – it gives rain. And fourth – this rain causes the plants to grow. Seems all very straight forward, and everybody knows 2, 3 and 4. Even if they live in a town, they know that clouds come and rain comes, and their flowers grow.

 

But what about step one – ‘the evaporation.’ We cannot see it - It is difficult. And the Qur’an does not have step one. Now we are going to look at a Prophet from the Bible - Prophet from 700 B.C… Prophet Amos And he writes… ‘He who made the Pleiades and Orion, Who turns blackness into dawn, and darkens day into night, and then Who calls out for the waters, of the sea.’… Stage one. And pours them out over the face of the land… stage three - The Lord (Yahweh) is His name. And one other Prophet is Job, in 36:26-28, at least a thousand years before the Hijra. He says… ‘How great is God – beyond our understanding! The number of his years is past finding out. Stage one – He draws up the drops of water which distill from the mist as rain -that is stage three And then the clouds are mentioned – Stage two - Which pour down their moisture and abundant showers fall on mankind. So here in the Bible, this difficult stage one, is there for more than a thousand years, before the Qur’an.

 

Now let us go on and look at Mountains. The Qur’an has more than a dozen Verses stating that God placed firm and unmovable mountains on the Earth. And in some of these Verses, the mountains are listed as either a blessing for believers, or a warning for the unbelievers. One example of this is found in the Surah Luqman, 31:10,11, where the mountains are one of five warnings. It says… ‘He has created the heavens. Says… ‘He has created the heavens without support, that you can see, and has cast aalqa onto the earth…‘firm mountain’–‘Rawaasiya’, lest it should shake with you. In ‘The Prophets’… Al-Ambiya, 21:31, as one of seven warnings we read… ‘And We have set on the earth, firm mountains lest it should shake with you….. with them.’Finally in ‘The Bee’… Nahl, 16:15, says that… ‘He has cast ‘aalga’ onto the earth… ‘firm mountains’ ‘Rawaasiya’, lest it should shake with you. We see then that the believers and the Non-believers are told, that Allah has done this great thing - He strolled down and placed the mountains, so that the earth will not shake violently with them. Therefore we must ask ourselves… ‘What did they understand ?’ In the next two Verses, another picture is given, ‘The News’, Al-Naba 78 : 6-7… “Have We not made the Earth an expanse, and the mountains as stakes ‘Al – jebaala awtaad’, as those used to anchor a tent in the ground. And then ‘The Overwhelming’ Al-Ghashiya, 88:17-19… ‘Do they…the unbelievers not look at the mountains… ‘Al-jibaal’… how they have been pitched like a tent.’ Here men are told that the mountains are placed as tent pegs -Tent pegs keep the tents, stable. So again the idea is put forward that the pegs… the mountains will keep the earth from shaking. A third picture is presented in the word ‘Rawaasiya’, used for mountains. This word comes from the Arabic root ‘Arsa.’ And the same root is used for the Arabic word for ‘anchor.’ To ‘throw out’ or ‘cast the anchor’ is aalgaa almirsaa. So instead of ‘Cast the anchor to keep the ship from moving’ - ‘We have cast the mountains, to keep the earth from shaking’. From these pictures, it is clear that Mohammed’s followers understood that the mountains were thrown down like tent pegs, to keep a tent in place like an anchor to hold the ship in place - To stop the earth from moving or limit earthquakes.

 

But in fact this is false - the forming of mountains causes earthquake. Therefore these Verses present a definite problem. Dr. Maurice Bucaile recognised this, and discussed them in his book… ‘The Bible, the Qur’an and Science.’ After quoting the above Verses about ‘Mountains’, he says… ‘Modern Geologists described the faults in the Earth, as giving foundations to the mountains, and the stability of the Earth’s crust results from this phenomenon of these faults. When asked about this, Professor of Geology, Dr. David A. Young says… ‘While it is true that many mountain ranges are composed of folded rocks and the folds maybe of large scale, it is not true that the folds render the crust stable. The very existence of the fold, is evidence of instability in the crust.’ In other words, mountains don’t keep the earth from shaking - their formation caused and still causes the surface of the earth to shake. Geological theories of the present time propose, that the hardened crust of the earth is made of sections and plates, which slowly move with relation to each other. Sometimes the plates separate, like North and South America, separating from Europe and South Africa. And some times they go together and they slide next to each other, and they bump into each other, and then they cause earthquakes. An example of this type of mountain formation is found in the Middle East, where the migration of Arabia towards Iran, has resulted in the zygross range in Iran.

 

In many parts of the world, as one travels along the roads, one sees a hillside, where the sand storm layers which were horizontal when they were deposited, are now sticking up at angles. And so here you can see, these sand storm layers, which were horizontal in the beginning, now they are striking up at 75 degrees. They were pushed up there by an earthquake, by the mountains being formed. Sometimes the plates get caught on each other and starts sliding - During this period, great forces are built up. When the forces of friction are overcome, the piece of plate that was stuck, lurches forward, causing a shock wave of a thrust quake, and then all of a sudden it goes ‘dumm’ like this. In a recent earthquake, it was calculated that the Coco Splade in Mexico, suddenly jumped forward 3 meters. Well if your house suddenly jump 3 meters, there will be a Catastrophe. Another type of mountain is that formed by volcanoes. Lava and ash from inside the earth are thrown out and piled up, until a high mountain is formed - Even from the bottom of the sea. And we can see this kind of action in this picture. I hope you can see it - Not clear is it? The ocean crust is right here and the continental crust is there, and the oceanic crust is going down under the continental crust, and mountains have been found here. Here is the volcano, and here is the magma of the molted rock, going up through the volcano, and here is another volcano with magma going up. And so this is how the mountains are formed and earthquakes are formed. In the case of some igneous mountains, molten rock intrudes into the probe of the volcano’s opening and cools, to form a relatively dense intrusion, which extends below the surface of the earth. So this… if this gets stuck and sealed, then it would be like a plug - However it is not a root. It does not bear the weight of the mountain - It is really a plug. Therefore at occasions, pressure builds up under the plug, and the volcano explodes as happened in the South Pacific at Crackato, in 1883 when the whole island was blown away. And it happened at Mount Saint Halena in Ardase, when a mountain was blown away. We can conclude from this information, that mountains were formed originally with movement and shaking, and that now in the present, earthquakes are caused by their continued formation. When the plates buckle over each other, there are earthquakes - When the volcanoes erupt there can bring earthquake.

 

However it is clear that the followers of Mohammed were understanding these Verses, to say that Allah threw the mountains down, as a tent peg or anchors, to keep the Earth from shaking. Throwing the mountains down under the Earth may be poetry, but to say that mountains keep the Earth from shaking, is a severe difficulty, which is out of step with modern science. Now we are going to take a little look at what the Sun says about… what the Qur’an says about the ‘Sun.’ In the Surah of the Kahf, 18:86, it says… ‘Until when Zulqarnain… that is Alexandra the great, reached the setting of the sun, he found it set in a spring of murky water.’ I’m sorry - In 20th Century Science...20th Century Science... the Sun does not set in a spring of murky water. And then in ‘The Criterion’, Al Furqaan, 25:45 to 46, it says… ‘Hast thou not turned thy vision, to thy Lord - how He prolongs the shadow! If He willed, He could make it stationary! Then do We (God) make the sun its guide.” What about this? Has the sun… if we think of the sun overhead, you have no shadow or a little tiny shadow, and then as the sun goes down, your shadow gets longer on the other side. Well the sun is stationary in relation to the Earth - It is not what causes the shadow to shift. The rotating Earth guides the shadows. So if you demand 20th century accuracy, the Surah should say… ‘The rotating earth causes the shadows to change. I would look at a different subject… ‘Solomon’s death.’ Whether this is Science, I don’t know -May be sociology. Solomon’s death – He is popped up on his staff. Says… ‘The jinn worked for him, as Solomon desired. ‘Then when We decreed death upon Solomon, nothing showed them his death, except a little creeping creature of the earth, which gwaned away his staff. And when he fell, the jinn saw clearly how - If they had known the unseen, they would not have continued in the humiliating penalty of work.

 

So here Solomon… he’s dead, propped up on his staff, like a walker from Morocco overseeing only a road gay, and no cook comes to ask him…what he wants for dinner. And no General comes for orders, and none of his Nobles comes to say… ‘Lets go hunting.’ No one notices. I’m sorry - I do not believe this story and it won’t fit 20th century Sociology, or 7th century Sociology, where the king will never be left alone like that. Now finally let us look at ‘Milk.’ It says in the Surah of ‘The Bee’, Nahl, 16:66… ‘We pour out to you from what is within their (the cattle’s) abdomen, between excretions and blood – milk, pure and agreeable to the drinkers.’ The abdomen where the intestines are…. Sorry - In 20th century medical science, the abdomens where the intestines are… is where the intestines are - the mammary glands are under the skin. In humans they are under the skin here - In cattle they are under the skin between the legs. No connection - There is no connection between the breasts and the intestines, and the their faces, in any way. Faces though in the body, it really is outside of the animal - Animals has finished with it. It is not connected to milk or to anything else. And finally going to look at ‘Communities.’ The Surah of ‘The Cattle’, Al – Anam 6:38, ‘There is not an animal on the earth, nor a being that flies on two wings, but forms communities like you…. Speaks about no animal on earth, not a being that flies, and then it says, that every one of them is communities like you - And I assume that the Qur’an is speaking about we humans. Well, in some Spiders, when they finishes mating, the mother eats the father. Well I’m glad that my wife did not eat me. Even in Bees, the extra male Drones are thrown out to die. Well I’m glad also that after we had four children, that my wife did not push me out of the house too. Finally, the Lions. When the Lion gets old, the male Lion gets old, a young lion comes along and drives him away from his own wives, and the young lion takes over the wives. But what he does with the cubs? The cubs of the old lion – he kills them all. So I do not think that this stance is true all other communities and all other animals do not live as communities like us. In conclusion it is clear that the Qur’an has many scientific errors. As a generality the Qur’an meets and reflects the science of its time - the science of the 7th century AD. We came here to seek truth - I’ve done my best to present valid information. If you want to see all the references, my book… ‘The Qur’an and the Bible in the light of History and Science’, is for sale outside that door, at a bargain price, tonight. May the God of all truth, guide you - Thank you.

 

(Dr. Mohammed) Thank you Dr Campbell for your presentation. Now we have Br. Sabeel Ahmed presenting an introduction of our next speaker, Dr. Zakir Naik.

 

(Br Sabeel Ahmed) As Salaam Alaikum Wa Rahmatullah. It is my pleasure to introduce one of the best scholars of our time, Dr. Zakir Abdul Karim Naik. Age 34 years old, he is the president of Islamic Research Foundation, Bombay, India. Though a medical doctor by professional training, Dr. Zakir Naik is known as a dynamic international orator, in Islam and comparative Religion. Dr. Zakir Naik clarifies Islamic view points, and clears misconceptions about Islam, based upon the Qur’an, Hadith and the other Religious Scriptures, as well as adhering to reason logic and scientific facts.

 

He is popular for his critical analysis and convincing answers to challenging questions posed by audiences, after his public talks. In the last four years itself, Dr. Zakir Naik has delivered more than 400 public lectures world wide, in addition to many public talks in India. He appears regularly on many international TV and Satellite TV channel programs in several countries of the world. He has authored books on Islam and comparative Religion. He has also participated in several symposiums and dialogues, with prominent personalities of other Religious faiths.

 

(Dr. Mohammed) May I announce, after the talks by both the speakers and the response session, we would be having an open Question and Answer session. So those who have come late, kindly note, we’ll have questions on the mikes, followed by questions on index cards. Ladies and gentlemen, may I call upon Dr. Zakir Naik to present his talk.

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