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I'm starting this new sticky topic so I can collect questions and answers relating to science and Islam.

I particularly want to collect gems by a THHuxley posting at Islam.com. He provides well reasoned and lucid replies to what are basically very stupid questions. I admire his ability to keep a straight face and an even temper in the face of incredibly credulous questioning.

Typically, a Muslim contributor will scour the Muslim internet sites and find idiotic writings to copy-and-paste. This requires little effort and no wit on their part. THHuxley then responds to the inanities, item by item, with apparently infinite patience.

The Muslim questioner then goes silent or flings some insulting comment at THH with no attempt at a serious rejoinder.

As I understand it, some months can then go by ... and lo and behold, the same inane writing from the same or a similar Muslim website is posted once again by the same or a similar witless Muslim and the cycle must repeat itself again and again.

I thought I'd collect THHuxley's responses here to save him - and others - the trouble of rewriting answers to re-posted questions.

Rather than say more, I'll leave readers to see for themselves.

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The Miracles Of Quran
Posted by brainstew on Friday, October 15, 2004

The Seas Not Mingling With One Another

One of the properties of seas that has only recently been discovered is related in a verse of the Qur'an as follows:

"He has let loose the two seas, converging together, with a barrier between them they do not break through." (The Qur'an, 55:19-20)

This property of the seas, that they come together yet do not mingle with one another at all, has only very recently been discovered by oceanographers. Because of the physical force called "surface tension", the waters of neighboring seas do not mix. Caused by the difference in the density of their waters, surface tension prevents them from mingling with one another, just as if a thin wall were between them.

The interesting side to this is that during a period when people had no knowledge of physics, surface tension, or oceanography; this was revealed in the Qur'an.
---------------------------------
A possible source of brainstew's copy-and-paste:
creationofuniverse.com
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The Problems with this "Miracle Of Quran"
Posted by THHuxley on Friday, October 15, 2004

1. "Surface tension" has nothing to do with the interface of water of different densities. There is no "surface" between them. Surface tension only occurs where water interfacese with air.

2. The waters of neighboring seas always mix. Immediately. And eventually completely. So if the Qur'an says they don't mix, then the Qur'an is wrong.
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and I added my own idea ...
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suez?
Posted by Arizona on Saturday, October 16, 2004

I decided to have a look at the context (55:1-25) of this passage (55:19-20) to see what sense it might make.

It lists various creations attributed to some He-guy-Lord-thingy. It starts with man and speech, then sun and moon, plant life, the firmament and scales of justice, then we have animal life, then fruit and corn and sweet smelling plants, then man gets a mention again, then Jinns (VERY scientific, this one). Then this He-guy-Lord-thingy proclaims himself Lord of two Easts and two Wests (last time I looked there was only one of each). Finally, we get to these "two bodies of flowing water, meeting together". "Between them is a Barrier which they do not transgress." There follow references to pearls and coral and sailing ships.

Surely, brainstew, this mysterious membrane caused by surface tension is nothing other that the barrier between the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea.

If so, then the Quran is no longer true on this geographical fact: the barrier has been transgressed.
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The Miracles of Qur'an 2
Posted by brainstew on Friday, October 15, 2004

The Fecundating Winds

In one verse of the Qur'an, the "fecundating" characteristic of the winds, and the formation of rain as a result are mentioned.

"And We send the fecundating winds, then cause water to descend from the sky, therewith providing you with water in abundance." (The Qur'an, 15:22)

In this verse, it is pointed out that the first stage in the formation of rain is wind. Until the beginning of the 20th century, the only relationship between the wind and the rain that was known, was that the wind drove the clouds. However, modern meteorological findings have demonstrated the "fecundating" role of the wind in the formation of rain.

This fecundating function of the wind works in the following way:

On the surface of oceans and seas, countless air bubbles form because of the water's foaming action. The moment these bubbles burst, thousands of tiny particles, with a diameter of just one hundredth of a millimeter, are thrown up into the air. These particles, known as "aerosols", mix with dust carried from the land by the wind, and are carried to the upper layers of the atmosphere. These particles carried to higher altitudes by winds come into contact with water vapour up there. Water vapour condenses around these particles and turns into water droplets. These water droplets first come together and form clouds, and then fall to the Earth in the form of rain.

As seen, winds "fecundate" the water vapour floating in the air with the particles they carry from the sea, and eventually help the formation of rain clouds.

If winds did not possess this property, water droplets in the upper atmosphere would never form, and there would be no such thing as rain.

The most important point here is that this critical role of the wind in the formation of rain was stated centuries ago in a verse of the Qur'an, at a time when people knew very little about natural phenomena.
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Possible source of brainstew's copy-and-paste:
http://www.55a.net/en/miracles/a010.php
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The Problem with Miracle #2.
Posted by THHuxley on Friday, October 15, 2004

The entire claim is based on this statement:

"If winds did not possess this property, water droplets in the upper atmosphere would never form, and there would be no such thing as rain."

The problem is that "the property" in question has nothing to do with wind. It has everything to do with temperature, pressure and the presence of water vapor.

Ocean generated "aerosols" do not actually reach high altitude as aerosols. Those aerosol particles that do not immediately fall back into the sea quickly evaporate and become simple water vapor.

Dust particles from land do get blown into the upper atmosphere, and are certainly capable of serving as nucleation sites for rain drops. But they play only a minor role in this respect.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the primary nucleation sites of raindrops are ice crystals or water droplets that are spontaneously generated directly from vapor by a change in vapor pressure or temperature encountered at the "weather front."

This is best demonstrated in oceanic storms and cyclones. They occur most commonly entirely over the sea, have only a minimal "supply" of dust for raindrop nucleation, and these are generally washed out of the atmosphere in the first few minutes of such storms. Yet raindrops continue to form and fall for days or weeks, with the only nucleation sites being ice crystals that form as warm, moist air (containing water vapor, not ocean generated aerosols) rises and cools.

This, by the way, accounts for upwards of 75% of all rainfall on the planet.

And it obviously has nothing to do with any imaginary "fecundating" properties of wind.
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and my tuppence worth:
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thank you
Posted by Arizona on Saturday, October 16, 2004

Thank you, THHuxley, I'm really enjoying and learning a lot from your explanations.

Thank you also, brainstew, for sending me to look at further absurd and uninformative passages from that old book of yours. As I read this particular passage (15:22), I see it as relating to the fact that wind sends seeds across to fertilise plants. Surely that is the most obvious way in which the wind "fecundates". Why look for stranger things? Surely this function of the wind had been known for many centuries, even millenia, prior to Muhammad's seizures.
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The Miracles of Qur'an 3
Posted by brainstew on Friday, October 15, 2004

Darkness in the Seas and Internal Waves

"Or (the unbelievers' state) are like the darkness of a fathomless sea which is covered by waves above which are waves above which are clouds, layers of darkness, one upon the other. If he puts out his hand, he can scarcely see it. Those God gives no light to, they have no light." (The Qur'an, 24:40)

The general environment in deep seas is described in the book named Oceans:

The darkness in deep seas and oceans is found around a depth of 200 meters and below. At this depth, there is almost no light. Below a depth of 1000 meters there is no light at all. (Elder, Danny; and John Pernetta, 1991, Oceans, London, Mitchell Beazley Publishers, s. 27)

Today, we know about the general structure of the sea, the characteristics of the living things in it, its salinity, as well as the amount of water it contains, its surface area and depth. Submarines and special equipment, developed with modern technology, enable scientists to obtain this information.

Human beings are not able to dive more than 40 meters down without the aid of special equipment. They cannot survive unaided in the deep, dark parts of the oceans, such as at a depth of 200 meters. For these reasons, scientists have only recently been able to discover these detailed pieces of information about seas. However, the statement of "darkness in a deep sea" was used in Sura Nur 1,400 years ago. It is certainly one of the miracles of the Qur'an that such information was given at a time where no equipment to enable man to dive into the depths of the oceans was available.

In addition, the statement in verse 40 of Sura Nur "like the darkness of a fathomless sea which is covered by waves above which are waves above which are clouds" draws our attention to another miracle of the Qur'an.

Scientists have recently discovered that there are internal waves, which "occur on density interfaces between layers of different densities." These internal waves cover the deep waters of seas and oceans because deep water has a higher density than the water above it. Internal waves act like surface waves. They can break, just like surface waves. Internal waves cannot be seen by the human eye, but they can be detected by studying temperature or salinity changes at a given location. (Gross, M. Grant; 1993, Oceanography, a View of Earth, 6. edition, Englewood Cliffs, Prentice-Hall Inc., s. 205)

The statements in the Qur'an run absolutely parallel to the above explanation. Without research, one can only see the waves on the surface of the sea. It is impossible for one to know about the internal waves beneath the sea. Yet, in Sura Nur, God draws our attention to another type of wave that occurs in the depths of the oceans. Certainly, this fact, which scientists has discovered very recently, shows once again that the Qur'an is the word of God.
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Possible source of brainstew's copy-and-paste:
http://qquran.com/miracles/miracle2.htm
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The Problems with "Miracle" #3
Posted by THHuxley on Friday, October 15, 2004

Ignoring the fact that the "darkness of the sea" is obvious to anyone who as ever stood on a dock or sailed on a boat, deep diving goes back at least as far as Alexander the Great. He is recorded as personally experimenting with a diving bell made of metal and glass. Aristotle also wrote about such devices saying, "...they enable the divers to respire equally well by letting down a cauldron, for this does not fill with water, but retains the air, for it is forced straight down into the water." Other ancient writers spoke of how the heating of the air, by breathing and by pressure, posed a well known problem for bell divers. Aristotle also mentioned breathing tubes used by divers when describing elephant's trunks: "Just as divers are sometimes provided with instruments for respiration, through which they can draw air from above the water, and thus may remain a long time under the sea, so also have elephants been furnished by nature with their lengthened nostril; and, whenever they have to traverse water, they lift this up above the surface and breathe through it."

So, being aware of the darkness of the sea is hardly a miracle.

Now, the problem with the "internal waves" is even funnier.

The ayaat clearly says that the waves in question cover the sea. How can they be internal to the sea AND cover it at the same time?

It is fairly obvious that the description is merely that of a stormy sea, a circumstance that has often through history been described as "waves upon waves."

It is interesting that Muslims seem to need miracles to see things that everybody else can see just by looking.
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and my tuppence:
--------------------------------
thank you
Posted by Arizona on Sunday, October 17, 2004

Thank you again, THHuxley, I didn't know all that about early deep sea diving. I commend you research efforts.

My Yusuf Ali translation has the passage read:


I was going to get critical over the "fathomless" for, of course, we know every ocean's depth can indeed be measured. What we're not yet sure of being able to measure is the depths of humanity's depravity and ignorance.

This is clearly a metaphorical passage with no apparent pretense at scientific veracity. To me, it symbolises feeling lost and despairing which is how it must feel in a heavy storm. There are clearly two darknesses intended here: the one below in the waters and the one above in the sky. The lost soul can find no light above or below. Metaphors have multiple and ambiguous meanings. They are like poetry or music: you get a sense of what it means and that is all. It cannot be compared to any scientific statement about the world.
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The Mieacles Of Qur'an 4
Posted by brainstew on Friday, October 15, 2004

The Proportion of Rain

One of the items of information given in the Qur'an about rain is that it is sent down to Earth in due measure. This is mentioned in Sura Zukhruf as follows;

"It is He who sends down water in due measure from the sky by which We bring a dead land back to life. That is how you too will be raised (from the dead)." (The Qur'an, 43:11)

This measured quantity in rain has again been discovered by modern research. It is estimated that in one second, approximately 16 million tons of water evaporates from the Earth. This figure amounts to 513 trillion tons of water in one year. This number is equal to the amount of rain that falls on the Earth in a year. This means that water continuously circulates in a balanced cycle, in a "measure". Life on Earth depends on this water cycle. Even if people used all the available technology in the world, they would not be able to reproduce this cycle artificially.

Even a minor deviation in this equilibrium would very soon give rise to a major ecological imbalance that would bring about the end of life on Earth. Yet, this never happens, and rain keeps falling every year in exactly the same quantity just as revealed in the Qur'an.
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Possible source of brainstew's cut-and-paste:
islamcan.com
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The Problem with "Miracle" #4
Posted by THHuxley on Friday, October 15, 2004

Ignoring the fact that the claim that "even a minor deviation in this equilibrium would very soon give rise to a major ecological imbalance that would bring about the end of life on Earth," is both dumb and false, do you see what I see?

All that this ayaa says is that rain falls, and then things grow. What five year old boy doesn't already know this?

As to the "due measure" nonsense, let's look at the most pathetically false statement in this entire claim:

"Rain keeps falling every year in exactly the same quantity just as revealed in the Qur'an."

This is total, unadulterated nonsense. Rainfall is among the most variable natural phenomena on this planet. From one year to the next it can vary by as much as 15%. During my own lifetime, we have experienced global precipitation peaks greater than 7% above normal in the early 50s and early 70s, and troughs greater than 7% below normal in the late 60s, mid 80s and early 90s.

And it can be much worse on a localized basis where droughts and floods are common occurrences, demonstrating the obvious falsehood of the "exactly the same quantity" claim.
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I agree
Posted by Arizona on Sunday, October 17, 2004

The idea that rain is delivered to us "in due measure" (by whomever or whatever) is totally preposterous.
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The Miracles Of Qur'an 5
Posted by brainstew on Friday, October 15, 2004

The Movements Of The Mountains

In one verse, we are informed that mountains are not motionless as they seem, but are in constant motion.

"You will see the mountains you reckoned to be solid going past like clouds." (The Qur'an, 27:88)

This motion of the mountains is caused by the movement of the Earth's crust that they are located on. The Earth's crust 'floats' over the mantle layer, which is denser. It was at the beginning of the 20th century when, for the first time in history, a German scientist by the name of Alfred Wegener proposed that the continents of the earth had been attached together when it first formed, but then drifted in different directions, and thus separated as they moved away from each other.

Geologists understood that that Wegener was right only in the 1980s, 50 years after his death. As Wegener pointed out in an article published in 1915, the land masses on the earth were joined together about 500 million years ago. As Wegener pointed out in a 1915 article, the land masses of the earth were joined together some 500 million years ago, and this large mass, called Pangaea, was located in the South Pole.

Approximately 180 million years ago, Pangaea divided into two parts, which drifted in different directions. One of these giant continents was Gondwana, which included Africa, Australia, Antarctica and India. The second one was Laurasia, which included Europe, North America and Asia, except for India. Over the next 150 million years following this separation, Gondwana and Laurasia divided into smaller parts.

These continents that emerged after the split of Pangaea have been constantly moving on the Earth's surface at several centimetres per year, in the meantime changing the sea and land ratios of the Earth.

Discovered as a result of the geological research carried out at the beginning of the 20th century, this movement of the Earth's crust is explained by scientists as follows:

The crust and the uppermost part of the mantle, with a thickness of about 100 kms., are divided into segments called plates. There are six major plates, and several small ones. According to the theory called plate tectonics, these plates move about on Earth, carrying continents and ocean floor with them. Continental motion has been measured at from 1-5 cm per year. As the plates continue to move about, this will produce a slow change in Earth's geography. Each year, for instance, the Atlantic Ocean becomes slightly wider. (Carolyn Sheets, Robert Gardner, Samuel F. Howe; General Science, Allyn and Bacon Inc. Newton, Massachusetts, 1985, s. 30)

There is a very important point to be stated here: God has referred to the motion of mountains as a drifting action in the verse. Today, modern scientists also use the term "Continental Drift" for this motion. (National Geographic Society, Powers of Nature, Washington D.C., 1978, s.12-13)

Unquestionably, it is one of the miracles of the Qur'an that this scientific fact, which has recently been discovered by science, was announced in the Qur'an.
---------------------------------
Possible source of brainstew's copy-and=paste:
miraclesofthequran.com
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The Problem with "Miracles" #5
Posted by THHuxley on Friday, October 15, 2004

While most of these bogus Qur'anic miracles can rightly be blamed on the author's scientific ignorance, this one is different. It is based on the author's Islamic ignorance.

This author really doesn't understand the Qur'an very well.

His first clue should have been all the ayaat that clearly state the mountains DO NOT move. Such as:

Al-Qur'an 015.019
"And the earth We have spread out (like a carpet); set thereon mountains firm and immovable; and produced therein all kinds of things in due balance."

So, since about a half dozen ayaat say the mountains do not move, why does this one ayaa say that the mountains DO move?

Because it is not talking about any current movement of the mountains at all. It is prophesying that the MOUNTAINS WILL MOVE ON THE JUDGEMENT DAY!

Al Quran 027.087
YUSUFALI: And the Day that the Trumpet will be sounded - then will be smitten with terror those who are in the heavens, and those who are on earth, except such as Allah will please (to exempt): and all shall come to His (Presence) as beings conscious of their lowliness.
PICKTHAL: And (remind them of) the Day when the Trumpet will be blown, and all who are in the heavens and the earth will start in fear, save him whom Allah willeth. And all come unto Him, humbled.
SHAKIR: And on the day when the trumpet shall be blown, then those who are in the heavens and those who are in the earth shall be terrified except such as Allah please, and all shall come to him abased.

027.088
YUSUFALI: Thou seest the mountains and thinkest them firmly fixed: but they shall pass away as the clouds pass away: (such is) the artistry of Allah, who disposes of all things in perfect order: for he is well acquainted with all that ye do.
PICKTHAL: And thou seest the hills thou deemest solid flying with the flight of clouds: the doing of Allah Who perfecteth all things. Lo! He is Informed of what ye do.
SHAKIR: And you see the mountains, you think them to be solid, and they shall pass away as the passing away of the cloud-- the handiwork of Allah Who has made every thing thoroughly; surely He is Aware of what you do.

027.089
YUSUFALI: If any do good, good will (accrue) to them therefrom; and they will be secure from terror that Day.
PICKTHAL: Whoso bringeth a good deed will have better than its worth; and such are safe from fear that Day.
SHAKIR: Whoever brings good, he shall have better than it; and they shall be secure from terror on the day.

Now, unless the author is claiming that the Judgment Day has actually been going on for all of geologic history, it would appear that this verse has nothing to do with continental drift.

How can the author not know this? Isn't he supposed to actually know something about the Qur'an?

It must be embarrassing to have this pointed out by a kafir, but apparently I have actually read the Qur'an, while the author either has not.
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another point
Posted by Arizona on Sunday, October 17, 2004

Another point is that the mountains in this scenario are not simply moving (as they do, very gradually, as a result of plate tectonics), they are transforming from a solid state to an insubstantial state. One moment they are solid, next thing they have become like clouds. In plate tectonics, one moment they are solid and here, next thing they are still solid but a tiny bit over there.
---------------------------------

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THHux...!!
Posted by brainstew on Sunday, October 17, 2004

I'm telling you all the replied from you to my posts were all bollocks... and of course you yourself know that...!!!

Now I'm asking you if you can prove to all of us that you are from an ape descendant?
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No copy-and-paste this time!
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First, I lost my cool.
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bollocks!
Posted by Arizona on Sunday, October 17, 2004

You, brainstew, are the idiot refusing to see what utter bollocks your original posts amounted to. OK, maybe it's hard to see the resemblance between THHuxley and your average ape, but between brainstew and your dumbest ape, no probs. No probs at all.
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Well, this actually belongs in "Science & Technology."
Posted by THHuxley on Sunday, October 17, 2004

It is (of course) silly of you propose that anybody "prove" human evolution on an internet chat board. Islam.com is not exactly set up as a peer reviewed scientific journal, now, is it?

Unlike your bogus "miracles of the Qur'an" (which are so pathetically simple to dismember) evolutionary biology is a REAL science engaging the intellectual and physical effort of tens of thousands of REAL scientists working around the globe. Entire libraries are filled with the output of these scientists, and the evidence is so comprehensive and compelling that there is no debate among real scientists concerning human evolution.

Since I cannot provide for you those libraries, I will simply summarize the evidence in two important fields. If you would like more detail on either of them, I'll be happy to follow up.

1. We have in our possession thousands of fossils that demonstrate the gradual evolution of humans from apelike ancestors.

These include at least the following species:

a. Australopithecus afarensis
b. Australopithecus africanus
c. Homo habilis
d. Homo ergaster / erectus
e. Homo heidelbergensis
f. Homo sapiens

These species occur in exactly the correct order in the geologic column, they show a continuous development from the apelike to the human condition, and their artifacts demonstrate simultaneous cultural / technological evolution.

There are several other side branch species as well, showing that human evolution is exactly like that of all other animals; i.e. part of a "branching evolutionary bush" rather than an "evolutionary ladder."

If creation were true, not only would these fossils not exist at all, but there would be no pattern to their appearance in the fossil record.

2. The continued improvement of genetic mapping has allowed scientists to compare the genes of living organisms to show how "closely related" they are. The pattern of these relationships is EXACTLY the pattern that was predicted by evolutionary biologists before DNA had even been discovered.

And this pattern demonstrates that humans share a common ancestor with the chimpanzee gorilla and bonobo a mere 5-7 million years ago. We share a somewhat more distant common ancestor with the orangutans, and a still more distant ancestor with the gibbon and siamang.

If creation were true, there would be no pattern of genetic relationships at all, let alone one that fulfilled the evolutionary prediction.

3. The evidence for human evolution is just a small part of the total evidence for evolution in the areas of paleontology and genetics (as mentioned) as well as the sciences of comparative anatomy, ecology, biogeography, geology and population genetics.

We have thousands examples of transitional forms between every major group of living animal, and they all appear in exactly the sequence that evolution predicted. Of the millions of fossils excavated over the last 500 years, there is not a single one that has been found "out of evolutionary sequence."

If creation were true, none of this would be explainable.

These are just summaries of the reasons that science has rejected creationism, and thrown it into the trash heap of discredited ideas along with ozone energy, phlogiston, and the luminiferous ether.
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definitely no copy-and-paste ... I do check
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The "Four Part Test":

When evaluating claims of miraculous scientific information in "revealed" scriptures such as the Qur'an, it is critical to remember the dictum, "Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof." For certainly, miracles are not to be taken lightly. If miracles really are the results of direct intervention by God, and if they truly are meant as signs to prove both His existence and His power, then we should expect them to serve those purposes in a clear and unambiguous manner. If God is going through all that trouble to provide us with signs, it would defeat His purpose to make the signs difficult to recognize.

God is not a Las Vegas magician, and His miracles should reasonably be several cuts above the prestidigitation of Penn and Teller. An all-powerful universal God would doubtlessly be capable of providing miracles that were unchallengeable, unambiguous and dramatic. And it is fully conceivable that God would embed such clear signs of His power and omniscience within His revelation.

The claim of "scientific miracles" in the Qur'an rests upon the contention that the book contains specific and detailed scientific knowledge that can only have been revealed to Muhammad miraculously, i.e. that there was no possible non-miraculous way for such information to have been known to a 7th Century Arab.

So it stands to reason that if there actually were non-miraculous ways for such information to be available, no miracle can be demonstrated. And it is important to test such claims, for we are not involved in a casual conversation about fashion or dietary preferences. We are talking about alleged proofs for the divine origin of the Qur'an.

THE FOUR PART TEST:

For a "scientific statement" in the Qur'an to be considered miraculous, it must be capable of passing a four-part test that removes the possibility of a non-miraculous origin of the information:

1) It must be an unambiguous statement of scientific fact requiring no elaborate interpretation to discern its factual meaning.

This point cannot be stressed too intensely. For the scientific information in question must actually be in the Qur'an itself, and not something added later as part of a commentary. If the critical information that distinguishes a "scientific miracle" from a casual statement of obvious fact is not explicitly in the clear words and meaning of the Qur'an, we cannot trust it as even being there.

If the verse has to be "interpreted" to extract hidden meaning that is not obviously there, the claim of a miracle has been "corrupted" by the commentary, and cannot be considered valid.

2) The fact must have been previously unknown to every other non-Islamic civilization that had contact with the Arabian Peninsula.

Key to the claim of "scientific miracles" in the Qur'an is the contention that the information included was unknown until recently, or at least until many years after the death of Muhammad. So, of course, if it can be shown that the information was already available to other peoples or cultures with whom the Arabs were in contact, this claim is shown to be simply false.

It does not matter the source of that other culture's information. It may have been a lucky guess, it may have been the result of precocious scientific achievement; in fact it may even potentially have been a miracle the other culture had experienced years before.

But if that information was available before the Qur'an was written down, there can be no credit to the claim of a "Qur'anic miracle."

3) It must not be obvious to any casual observer.

This may sound like an obvious point, but given the nature of many of the stock "miracles" claimed by Muslim apologists, it still must be discussed explicitly. For often, what is claimed to be a miracle of the Qur'an is something of which any individual with his or her eyes open would have been aware.

If the information in question is available to anyone who simply looks at the phenomenon, requiring no sophisticated instruments, tools or interpretation, then it cannot be considered miraculous.

4) It must be true.

As with the previous point, this one sounds intuitively obvious. But it too requires explicit mention as occasionally the claims of Qur'anic "miracles" depend on misunderstandings or misstatements about reality and science. If the information in question is not actually true, then certainly it cannot be a miraculous revelation from God, as God should be expected to know what is or is not true.

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Good to see you adding to this collection yourself, THHuxley.

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Welcome to Free2Code, THHuxley.

Perhaps you can liven up and enlighten us our silly world of the religious, the non-religious, science and the hopeless confused people (like me ).

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THHuxley, ewrr, TY for taking the trouble to drop in.
The internet can be REALLY time consuming.
From what I've seen of your stuff already, -it's really patient and thorough analysis of both the assertion itself and the mind-set behind it.
Cheers. _B_
p.s. Welcome to Here

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T H Huxley,

I have been reading your arguments on Islam.com for a while now, and I have to say they have all proven to be coherent and factual to the point where it's hard to argue against them! Aside from using some of your arguments with my muslim colleagues at work, I have found them to be thought provoking, and they have inspired me to seek further knowledge of both Islam (to see what makes them tick - so to speak), and science.

Do you have a home page, or a non-religious web site that you post on as I feel the need to know more!

AJ

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 AJ or Anonymous Coward writes...

If he hasn't got one yet, this site has resources to help him make one.

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re: -AJ's enquiry.
Lacking any proper terms of reference for TTHuxley, might I alternatively suggest; -http://www.nefesh.org/haaretzEng.htm
as a starting point in your search for the background of his perspective. Cheers. _B_

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As a Muslim, I shall attempt to answer as many of the above as is in my power, and I will cite only reliable sources for my responses.

All quotes from the Qur'an are from The Noble Qur'an and specifically from Pickthal's translation.

 25:33 writes...


In response to "The Seas Not Mingling With One Another", the verses cited are 55:17-20

 55:17-20 writes...



In regards to verse 17, several interpretations exist. The most reliable is from Tafsir Ibn Kathir which could be found on Tafsir.com and which states:

 Tafsir.com writes...


It is also worth noting that the Arabic language is distinguished by its posession of a Singular, Plural, and Dual form. And that the words "Mashriqain" (Two Easts) and "Maghribain" (Two Wests) can betaken to mean "the vastness of the east" and "the vastness of the west". However, this a weak interpretation.

As for verse 19, the "surface tension" interpretation is inaccurate. The preferred interpretation according to Tafsir Ibn Kathir and Tafsir Al-Jalalayn is the following:

 Tafsir.com writes...


A similar verse is 25:23

 Arizona writes...


It would be much appreciated that when discussing Islam, the subject be treated with respect. Thank you.

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On "The Fecundating Winds"

The Ayah in question is from Al-Hijr (15). Pickthal renders it as follows:

 15:22 writes...


Once again, Tafsir.com is relied on for a proper interpretations:

 Tafsir.com writes...


Keeping in mind the literary style of the Qur'an, which cannot be imitated, and which is lost in translation (although the message is not), this is the accepted interpretation of the above verse.

On "Darkness in the Seas and Internal Waves":

I find that the ayah by itself does not make as much sense as when viewed in context with the other ayaat and the circumstances of its revelation:

 24:35-40 writes...


Note in Ayah 35 where it says: "And Allah speaketh to mankind in allegories, for Allah is Knower of all things."

Indeed, it is important to tell when allegory is being used, especially when i comes to interpretation of the Qur'an. The case of Ayah 40 is one such of allegory, Tafsir Ibn Kathir explains it as follows:

 Tafsir.com writes...


I am not so much concerned with wether the 'scientific proofs' presented are valid, rather I am trying to show the trye interpretation of these verses

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Thank you, Carbon, for drawing our attention to the interpretations provided at Tafsir.com. I'm sure people can visit the site if they have any further interest.

I'm sure the Quranic passages have their own meanings but they don't constitute scientific "miracles" which was the point of this thread.

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It appears that this "brainstew" is providing alternate interpretations of the verses, so that they fit into the criteria of scientific miracles. I think you get the point that the verses he presented were not interpreted as they should be.

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Thank you, Carbon, I appreciate your point.

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Guys and girls..
What the hell is up with u guys?!?!?!??

U non islamic dumbasses always ask the question why are we here on earth..how did we come..i dont think an ape has the ability to transform into another living organisms such as humans. That is just a fucked up beleif. WE AINT APES!!
And besides, if that was a fact,,,who the hell created the apes??
U guys are always asking the same darn question "y r we living"
Did u guys ever happen to look at islam?? How many times before Islam did God tell us he's one and he created all of us? Islam is just a final copy of what God is trying to tell us. Christianity, Juadaism..etc..All are the same with one message. Islam is just concluding everything up because some dumbass human changed the bible.

BELEIVE IN ISLAM!! OR ELSE U GUYS ARE DOOMED!! SERIOUSLY!! AFTER ALL THESE MIRACLES U STILL CANT GET IT THROUGH UR HEADS THAT ITS THE RIGHT RELIGION!

u all r getting on my nerves..
lata