Mohammad Qutub – Science in the Qur’an Inimitability and Continuity – Part 1
AI: Summary ©
The conversation delves into the history of the title of the Quran and its supposed historical significance, including its supposed historical significance in the context of the current pandemic and its potential for scientifically illiterality. The discussion delves into the history of religion and its relation to science, as well as the theory of the universe expanding at an accelerating rate and the potential for scientifically illiterality. The segment also touches on the concept of a "weaving" or "weaving" process used by some of the scientific community, and its potential for future discoveries.
AI: Summary ©
So I didn't want to like work
under
the sea, and so you didn't email me now have you been passing Mohammed Abdullah, while you're somebody who was heavier, involuntary on the Senate
Subhanak of
Congress largely somebody who is to be determined based solely on the quality of prints a lot of mighty I said prayers and blessings upon Prophet Muhammad some of our audience is an old family righteous companions and all those that follow them dragons until the day that
will reveal to you Oh Allah, no knowledge have we accept that which has taught us Indeed you are the All Knowing the Hawaiians
We ask Allah subhanaw taala to open our hearts to the Quran, to guide us to increase us in faith and in knowledge, and in employment implementation of that knowledge.
First of all, I extend my heartfelt appreciation to the Quranic youth club for inviting me to the seminar. And in sha Allah, we will be talking about the important and important topic of science in the Quran. And how we understand the topic of science and the topic of the Quran. Are they do they go hand in hand? Are the contradictory? And how do we go about making sense of two concepts that seem
to be opposite concepts, at least in the way that it has been presented and portrayed
in the 20th and 21st century?
Dear Brothers and Sisters, firstly, the title, let me first explain the title, because I
might need a little bit of explanation science in the Quran is clear. But what is in limited availability and all of this, you know, continuity. Okay. imitability is the best translation I believe, for the word Agile is
when we're talking about agenesis. And this is probably the best translation. Okay?
Technically, a dance in Arabic means that it is something so challenging
that you are
not able to produce like it, you're not able to imitate it. Okay. And this is why it's called immutable you cannot imitate, you cannot imitate the Quran, you cannot reproduce it, right. So that's why this word is used a lot of time for jazz, but keep in mind that a jazz is many different types. Okay.
We today are speaking specifically about scientific immutability. Okay, so not otherwise, if we're going to talk about that, as you know.
We did several lessons. We're just talking about a dozen scientific inevitability, okay. And continuity. I think that's self explanatory. The fact that this immutability is continuous.
It's not something that only exists now. It's a continuous process, as we will see in Sharla. Next slide.
Okay, so just one by one says not all. The animation is there, just one button. That's
gonna ruin my, my surprises.
Okay, so religion and science
are the dichotomous. For many people on the earth today, religion and science don't mix. They're like oil and water.
Talk to me about religion. Fine. Talk to me about science, fine, don't mix them.
But the reason it is that way, is because
the concept of the dichotomy between religion and science is something that has been inherited from the Christian history of religion and science.
And the
you can say, the harmonious relationship between religion and science in Islam has not yet been fully presented, and understood and absorbed by the world today.
So still, for most people, religion and science, don't go together. Okay, and they are contradictory. They're not conciliatory.
Even though in Islam
Have we see that it is exactly the opposite.
In fact, they complement each other so beautifully.
That it's almost like one strengthens the other.
When you see the science in the Quran, and in the Hadith of Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wasallam it only boosts Muslims faith
and religion itself. Of course, you can say religion doesn't need science, but it's part of the miracle of the Quran.
Part of the miracle of the ye the revelation that Allah subhanaw taala sent.
It's part of the truth that exists in the world that Allah subhanaw taala is telling us about the Quran is a book of life. It's a book of truths. And one of the amazing truths that we have discovered, especially in the past century. And then the 21st century is science, the extremely rapid development of science and scientific discovery.
So when you see that the Quran actually touches on some of the scientific discoveries, it's amazing, right? And it is miraculous. And this is part of the I guess, as we will see, next.
So I already kind of discussed, I'm going ahead of my presentation, these are some of the reasons for that perceived dichotomy. Okay. Now, what happened historically, in Christianity, well,
they found that verses in the Bible are simply scientifically inaccurate.
So either they judge the Bible to be incorrect and unauthentic or false, right, which is obviously problematic. Or they say, you know, they'll try to find certain explanations, try to explain it away. Some will say, don't take the Bible literally, right? These are all metaphors.
Some said,
the Bible is not a book of science. So please don't try to interpret it scientifically.
And that's their prerogative. Okay. So they said, the Bible is not a book of science, don't mix religion and science. And this is where, you know, it all started, this is how it came about next.
So Albert Einstein
said, in this famous quotation, that science without religion is laying, and religion without science is blind, I find this very interesting. He's saying, essentially,
at least according to my understanding of what he's trying to say science without religion is laying.
What is the
I mean, science is interesting. Science is advancing our lives here in this world. Absolutely. But if there's nothing behind that science, it is laying.
It's almost as if there is a lack of depth.
In science, if you don't connect it to something more supreme, a higher purpose. Right.
Okay, science and discoveries, and so on. You know, we have these mics and we have all kinds of discoveries, you know, nowadays and cars and mobile phones and nanotechnology and you know, all this great stuff. And then what?
Is there anything behind it all?
This vast universe? How did it come about?
We talk about the stars, we talk about the galaxies, we talk about creation? Is there some other creation? Ultimately, scientists like to see that the science that they're discovering, has a higher purpose
than then just becoming something consumable by human beings? Okay. So science without religion is lame. And he says religion without science is blind, if he means by this, that religion
cannot fulfill its task of guiding people without science. I totally disagree with him, right?
religion doesn't need science per se for the guidance of people. Okay. But science is part of the truth of this world, that religion, if it is authentic, will describe.
Does that make sense? Next.
So Albert Einstein himself is deliberating over these things.
Now Galileo, Galileo, okay, the famous
Christian scientists, of course, Galileo, one of the scientific geniuses, right? So, and his story is part of the history of the dichotomy, actually the crux of the dichotomy between religion and science when he came, and he wanted to support the Copernican heliocentric theory of the universe, right? So at the time,
according to the biblical scholars, and depending on biblical information, the universe was a geocentric one. In other words, the Earth is the center and not the sun. All right. So when Galileo came and said, No, that's false. And he supports the, you know, what was called the the Copernican idea of a heliocentric universe where the sun is in the middle, or at least of the solar system, right?
He was branded as a heretic, right? And he's essentially saying that the Bible is false.
So, obviously, the Bible scholars and all of the doctors of divinity, they couldn't accept this, right.
And that's why they persecuted him the way that they did.
At the same time, he is using some religious evidence. So he calls Cardinal peroneus, who in 1598, said the Bible was written to show us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go.
So he said, your own Cardinal is saying, the Bible is a book of guidance is the book of religion. It's not a book of science, it's hard to show us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go. In other words, not how the universe works. This is not a book to tell us how the universe works. This is a book about how to go to heaven. Okay.
And I gladly tell
Galileo and peroneus also, the Quran shows us how to go to heaven, and also how the heavens go
Subhanallah
as we will see it next.
Okay, so
I'm gonna
spare my neck
so the Quranic miracle, we said, there are different types of Quranic miracles. All right. You have linguistic miracles, you have, of course, the linguistic miracles, that's just talking about the Supreme eloquence of the Quran, which technically since it isn't the Arabic language can only truly be understood by you know, authentic Arabic speakers not even present the speakers a lot of Arabic Arabic speakers today cannot delve into the depths of the Quranic eloquence
even though they can, they can realize it to a certain extent but to go into depth, it's quite difficult, right? It was it was a major challenge to the Arabs of the day, miracles of past present and future timings. So the Quran spoke authentically about history, about the stories of the prophets. Okay, starting from Adam, all the way down to the predecessor of prophet Mohamed Salah who was the predecessor of Prophet Muhammad
was the predecessor of Prophet
who
I can't hear the
who's the prophet that came before
Jesus
Why are you so afraid? Okay. So, talking about the past
with complete authenticity, talking about the present and also talking about the future. Okay. So this is part of the ridges also it is called an adjustable baby. Okay.
And can also be called damages leaky.
Okay. Number three legislative miracles. This is a jazz fishery. This is talking about
some of the miracles of the history of how some of the legislation of Islam is the perfect legislation for the human race.
And sometimes there's some overlap between legislative miracles and scientific miracles.
How? Because some of
with some of the legislative issues
in Islam in the Quran were analyzed scientifically. They realized the wisdom behind the legislation being that way.
Such as this account, why is the Circa 2.5 Present?
And how does that bear come to bear on, you know, the macro economic system?
So this has been analyzed scientifically, or such as the time period, the ADA, okay of the woman after divorce, right? Why is it specifically the Latin root those three periods? Okay, that has been analyzed scientifically, okay, only to discover that that is indeed, precisely the best time that it can be. And that's a long talk, we're not going to get into that I'm just trying to show you there is some overlap between the legislative imitability now adjusted the shearing, and adjust.
Okay, and finally, what we will speak about today, the scientific miracles or the scientific inevitability now,
what do I mean by the next statement, the importance of ostensible lexical ambiguity?
Should I take each of the words first and find them?
ostensible meaning something that is apparent seems apparently that way, lexical has to do with the meanings, okay? The science of the meanings of words,
lexical ambiguity.
There is a lexical ambiguity about some of the verses of the Quran that enable them to be scientifically illiterate.
That gives them that characteristic of scientific illimitable. What do I mean? In other words,
the Quran was revealed 14 centuries ago.
The verses that we are saying are scientifically amazing,
and are proving scientific facts that have only recently been discovered.
These verses have been recited by Muslims for the last 14 centuries. So why didn't they discover that science then?
Were they reading a difference? Or have no? Right? And it is unchanged and unadulterated. So people were reading these verses and scholars were reading these verses?
Why didn't they discover that scientifically a jazz for centuries ago, seven centuries ago, 10 centuries, from the beginning of the revelation. Why only now?
The reason is of sensible, lexical ambiguity.
So there may be a verse or a phrase or a term,
which seems again, seems it's not. It's not that it is ambiguous or it's not clear what is meant by it.
It's ostensibly ambiguous,
so that
it will not become absolutely clear, until the time comes where it becomes absolutely clear when facts are on earth.
That show us what was meant by that word, or by that verse.
At the time,
it wasn't exactly clear. Or maybe it seemed to be referring to something. But actually, it can also be a reference to something else. Only when the science developed. Did we discover that and I'm going to give you examples. Next, everyone will give examples of become clear.
Have you considered the vastness of the universe?
Have you ever thought
of this expensive universe? How big is it?
How fast
So
what are how is it measured next?
How do you measure the the distances in the Universe?
billions of kilometers
you're not happy with billions of kilometers
billions
is that the way the universe is measured?
Know how light years people next
it's measured in billions of light years
so now billions of kilometres that's too small
billions of light years. Okay, so what's the light you
that's alleged here
looks nice.
Looks like
along the
bank account number or something like 4542 kilometres 9.5 trillion kilometres above
a light year is the time it takes for light
or the distance rather that it takes light.
That light travels in a year.
So
we're not measuring the universe in trillions of kilometres either. Nor in 10s, or hundreds of light years, but billions of light years. So you're talking about billions of trillions of kilometres. Ya Allah,
the universe, when we talk about its expanse, and its best attitude, we're talking about billions of trillions of kilometres
Subhanak pure Glory be to the One who created it and fashion next.
That's why NASA recently
discovered that the most distant object in the universe is a galaxy that is 13 point 2 billion light years away.
And they say that this is close to the age of the universe itself. 13.7 or 13 point 8 billion light years, if that is actually accurate. But this is this was the most distant object recorded until now. And there were other next, this was in 2012. There were other
measurements made later on and some were adjusted and so on. But until now, I don't think it has gone beyond 13 point 2 billion light years, that's far away enough. So they have seen something this far away. So the universe is at least, this wide 13 point 2 billion light years next.
This
in 1998.
Science Magazine, which is the magazine of the journal or the Journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, they called the number one they ranked the number one discovery in scientific discovery in 1998, to be the fact that the universe will keep expanding the expanding universe. So as if it's not enough that the universe is, is as vast as we were just describing.
It's expanding. It's getting bigger, it's swelling, right? It's only getting larger, it's not getting smaller.
Science is the one who just declared this to be the number one discovery of 1998. Next, the accelerating universe right now.
So this is just you know, famous diagram from the time of the Big Bang and how the universe is expanding. You know, this is supposedly supposed to be the whole universe. And this is the expansion after the Big Bang. That happened approximately 13 point 7 billion years ago. It's, it's daunting. Sometimes we can't fathom it, is it correct? Allahu Allah. But this is, you know, the scientific communities in consensus about the age of the university.
Think 13 point 7 billion years next.
Now, to make it more complicated, the universe is not only expanding, it's an accelerating expansion.
So, you know, this is the universe, I can think in my head. And it's expanding like this. This is constant expansion. Right?
But you're talking about accelerating expansion. So it's like this.
It's only getting faster and faster. How many people took calculus?
Calculus only derivatives rate of change, right? Acceleration. So you have an accelerating expansion. This is what
what may three physicists winning the Nobel price in 2011.
What that they discovered that the universe is not only expanding, but that it is expanding at an accelerating rate. This was truly worthy of a Nobel Prize. What's very interesting is that the way they made this discovery is purely by serendipity.
So what serendipity now,
how many people know what serendipity is?
How many people you'll know, or how many people don't know.
The type of experiment? No, it means they were not trying to discover the accelerating rate of the universe's expansion. They were trying to prove that it was expanding at a decelerating rate.
They were trying to prove that it is expanding, but that expansion is slowing down. So that eventually, expansion will stop. And possibly, it might turn back, they wanted to prove into decelerating expansion. So serendipity means when you discover something opposite to that which you had originally intended to discover. And that's what happened to them. They were going, we were trying to prove the decelerating expansion of the universe, they discovered it is actually happening at an accelerating rate. Of course, this was something mind boggling for them off. So now, let me ask you,
is the expansion of the Universe intuitive?
What do you think?
Does it make sense, does it? Is it something that you know,
immediately comes to mind? Is it intuitive?
Yes or No? No? anybody says?
No. So what is intuitive for you? For the universe? Let's say? What would you consider intuitive?
Raise your voice.
What would you consider intuitive, a static universe? Static, right? It's not expanding or
compressing just a universe right? In a static universe? Precisely. Precisely. And this is exactly what Einstein also believed.
So Albert Einstein, 90 interesting thought, the same way you're thinking now, the universe must be standing, not expanding. Okay? Because you might have people come and say, well,
I'll expand the universe is intuitive. It only makes sense. No, it's not intuitive at all. And if it wasn't doing it, I think the first one who would have accepted it is Albert Einstein himself, especially when the equations
his seminal general relativity equations,
proved an expanding or contracting universe.
The equations that he was dealing with in 1915.
On the General Theory of Relativity, proved an expanding or contracting universe. So Einstein considered that rubbish, what expanding universe. That doesn't make any sense.
So what did he do? He added a fudge constant into the equation
to change the reality of an expanding universe. And he called it the cosmological constant lambda.
Okay.
Why? Because if there is an x
Spending universe, he concocted this constant lambda. And he gave it a parameter or a value such that this will be the force that will stop the expansion of the universe, he called it anti gravity.
Okay.
This anti gravity constant will stop,
you know, an ostensible expansion of the universe and keep it precisely constant and static, which is what he wanted. So if anyone would have thought it was intuitive, it would have been Einstein. He went so far as to oppose his own equations, in order not to allow for
an outlandish expanding universe. Okay, so introduce the lambda.
Later on when he met Hubble, the American scientists
who prove that the universe is actually expanding,
not the accelerating expanding that we talked about before just expansion, okay, through the red shift, which he noticed, okay.
He theorized that the universe is expanding.
And Einstein got convinced of that. And upon that he went back, we scratched lambda. He scrapped the concept of antigravity completely, and he called it his biggest scientific blunder.
But little did he know
that he was on the verge of one of the most important cosmological discoveries of the 20th century.
If only he had stuck with his constant a little bit further, all right.
And maybe even
stuck with the concept of anti gravity.
Because
when you look at the expanding universe, the question is what is making it fly apart in this way, and in an accelerating way, also.
So this is where, you know, the buzzwords you're hearing nowadays, this is where dark matter and dark energy comes in. And, you know, the, the worldwide search for the Higgs boson and so on.
This is what they this is what many scientists postulate is
a dark, hidden energy in the universe that you cannot see, which is making the universe fly apart in this way.
Because there is no other way to understand this accelerating expansion.
Okay, that is going against the gravity of the matter in the universe.
There's a gravity that pulls things together. So this is what we are calling anti gravity, which ultimately, Einstein scrapped, okay, but this is what everyone is talking about. Now, an accelerating an expanding universe at an accelerating rate must have some hidden energy that we cannot see. Because when scientists calculated approximately an estimate of the matter in the universe, it cannot account for the rate of accelerating expansion that is happening. So they theorized dark energy and dark matter. And they say that this dark energy that you cannot see, is actually the most ubiquitous form of energy in the universe.
Okay, why am I telling you all of this?
Because I like astronomy and cosmology because Allah subhanaw taala said, in the Noble Quran, bow there
was some
ad one in
here,
and we haven't we constructed it with power, other words with strength and power, and we are expanding it.
Something that was revealed 14 Centuries ago, a universe as vast
as what we are talking about billions of light years away, and expanding and expanding at an accelerating rate, something completely unintuitive something a genius like Albert Einstein, even considered completely ludicrous, was revealed 14 centuries ago in the Quran, to our beloved Prophet Muhammad salah and the Muslim
had been reciting this verse for 14 centuries was
at level zero.
Allahu Akbar. So who taught Prophet Muhammad salah, an expanding universe? This is if some Joe Schmoe comes and tells you, Oh, well, it's intuitive, the universe is expanding, what happened must have known about it.
Albert Einstein,
you know, considered it strange, and even fudged his own equations to prove otherwise. Right? It's not intuitive at all.
But this is what is happening. And this is what the Quran has told us. So now you ask, why didn't they know that then?
With who could have theorized an expanding universe then? So how did they understand that, then, you will look at the Tafseer of some of the scholars, they understood it to be the general vastness of the universe that we were just talking about. They didn't have numbers, they didn't have billions of light years or anything, but it's clearly something so vast, so huge, right? As this is possibly what is meant by we are expanding it. But no one would have ever thought that the expansion is happening as we speak.
They thought of it as something that has been expanded
period, but the the expansion is a current and ongoing process. No one could theorize that until modern science, right. So this is what I meant by lexical ambiguity. You see, is that clear now? So that's why you know, scholars or people would have understood them in a certain way. In this situation.
I claim we're in there, Lucia rune actually has explicit meaning.
When you say Tosia expanding, it makes sense. It's an explicit meaning. But the dimensions of that explicit meaning are not clear. Until Modern Science showed us
proved the universe is indeed expanding. How much time do I have?
10 minutes and then we take a break, right? Okay. I hope I can get through half of the presentation.
Next.
Okay.
Let's stay with the head with the universe.
Allah subhanaw taala took an oath and Quran and Allah subhanaw taala takes imposed by wherever he lives in the Quran, Allah azza wa jal says, was sunnah. Her book in Nakuru Nephi.
Allah subhanaw taala swore by a sama that didn't trouble. What is that?
Go I challenge you to go and ask an Arabic speaker in the university or anywhere in the Arab world? What is that it hubback?
And I almost guarantee you, nine out of 10 will tell you I have no idea.
But generally speaking,
you he doesn't know again, a testament to the eloquence of the Quran and a testament to our ignorance of our own language, unfortunately.
Okay.
That is horrible. So what has happened to that means? The one which is characterized by her book, what is her book? This is what some of the scars of the CSL number one a perfect construction, when you say something's my book, it's perfectly done, or constructed or made, okay? There's a perfection in its creation or its invention, okay.
Another explanation that was given
is a weaving, Huck actually as a verb means to weave. Okay? So it's a weaving right.
And some scholars, were talking about the weaving actually gave the example of water ripples, okay ripples of water or waves in the sand, okay. This is again have cast several meanings and an Arabic one word may mean many things. Usually similar sometimes not so related depends, okay.
So a weaving a perfect construction, an example of one ripples or waves in the sand
go to the next slide. And then I'll come
Back to Cosmic Web.
Next slide. Yeah. No.
Yes.
What do you think this is?
neurons? Yes. Looks like neurons.
It looks like
some kind of a neural structure and the other guesses
water looks like water.
I guess there's some kind of like a fluorescent light. And you see the waves? What else and you're like acid?
fan? I don't see
what cells. Okay. Okay, so neuron cells, okay. It's about the same. Okay, next next picture.
The picture after that? Yeah. So again, right? Looking like neurons like, you know, cells in the body SubhanAllah.
You know what this is? Can you go back system to the first picture? Now the picture.
This is amazing.
This is the result
that a supercomputer spit out. After being fed,
I don't know, billions of data points
for the universe.
So when the,
when they put all of this information into the supercomputer, it produced this picture as an extremely compressed
and extremely compressed picture of the whole universe.
As if the whole universe is compressed into this picture, this is what it looks like.
So what are these, they call them clusters of galaxies.
galaxy clusters, super clusters, a galaxy is large enough, our Milky Way galaxy is large enough, right?
With billions of stars,
just in one galaxy. Then if you talk about billions of galaxies,
you're talking about a galaxy cluster. So these are galaxy clusters. These are billions of galaxies, and all almost tied together. Almost like a web, like a spider web. Right?
Super clusters of galaxies, the whole universe compressed into
one picture. So not the solar system, not our galaxy, not the billions of galaxies around the whole universe compressed.
And it looks like this.
This is what Western and non Muslim scholars in general, actually called a cosmic web.
And some even call it a cosmic skeleton. It's almost so it is, it's almost like a spider web, right?
Who would have ever thought that you can? The whole of the universe looks like a spiderweb. If I told you this, you know, the universe looks like a web, you'd say What What are you talking about? It's only when such information was fed into a supercomputer doing zillions of calculations in a second to produce something like this. Right? What's the scholars are calling cosmic web now go back system. Go back one slide, please. The Cosmic Web or the cosmic skeleton?
You see how similar that is to the the phrase that almost Madonna used that in her book, something which is my book, a weaving example of waves, even the idea of having waves, Allahu Akbar, who would have ever thought
who would have ever even been able to fathom
a picture like this for the universe? So when we read was somebody that didn't have a book? What does that mean? Well, it's not when you look at it with your own naked eye. It's when you are able to compress the whole universe into one picture that it looks like that.
So,
again,
why is it profitable?
And as I've said them to get this 1400 years ago
was somebody who could have thought who could have understood until the age of supercomputers to be able to compress so much information into a picture like this
will allow Allah again, when we see these things we say, well Allah Allah, it seems that this is a proper explanation for that in the book, again, it can have other meanings, maybe less scientific meanings, but this could also be one of the amazing means.
This is the way the universe looks. A cosmic web or a cosmic skeleton, why the cosmic skeleton because the skeleton holds things together. So you can see the universe is not just flying apart, you know, everything being scattered in all different directions. No, it's held together
not causing it to fly apart completely. So this could be one of the the interpretations of Osama ignited havoc and who knows maybe in the future
even more amazing things come along that we didn't know about or then we had no idea about the you know, whatever we are discovering, and whatever knowledge we are talking about, this is only very, very middle. Well that will determine and
we have not been given of knowledge, but very little.
So this is just a very small drop in the ocean. There's so much more to discover, and who knows what else we may be, we may discover in the future, inshallah.