quran and science

lindseynicole wrote: There are many holy books of different religions in which there is same concept but the method of explanation is different. If we talk about Quran it is very knowledgeable holy book in which the concept of humanity are described very well and in this there is reference of scientific fact for the explanation of fact written in Quran. �

I've just arrived here, late for the party as usual. I thoroughly enjoyed the early part of the debate, which I hope I can fairly sum up as:

QE: The Quran makes many factually correct scientific statements, otherwise unknown at the time.
Airmano: Highly debatable that all the statements are factually correct, but even if one accepts that postulate for a moment, the statements are so vague as to be true of any number of dissimilar things and, therefore, completely meaningless.
QE: The Quran makes many factually correct scientific statements, otherwise unknown at the time.

I did have to laugh at QE's claim the Quran was saying something profound when it implied human gestation is 6 months. I can make any random general postulate, find one example of when it is true and then claim that is the specific example I was talking about. But everyone would rightly dismiss me as a charlatan, retrofitting facts to fit my claim.

I must confess I lost interest in the debate a little when it descended into a highly specific inter-faith dialogue between QE and TM, but overall most informative and interesting.

So I absolutely peed my pants laughing when I read LindseyNicole's intervention. Thanks LindseyNicole, most helpful and penetrating. A wonderful example of timeliness, succintness, conclusiveness and hitting-the-nail-on-the-headness. At last we have a natural heir to Leeroy Jenkiss. Thank you LindseyNicole from the bottom of my heart.

Matt wrote: I've just arrived here, late for the party as usual. I thoroughly enjoyed the early part of the debate, which I hope I can fairly sum up as: QE: The Quran makes many factually correct scientific statements, otherwise unknown at the time. Airmano: Highly debatable that all the statements are factually correct, but even if one accepts that postulate for a moment, the statements are so vague as to be true of any number of dissimilar things and, therefore, completely meaningless. QE: The Quran makes many factually correct scientific statements, otherwise unknown at the time. I did have to laugh at QE's claim the Quran was saying something profound when it implied human gestation is 6 months. I can make any random general postulate, find one example of when it is true and then claim that is the specific example I was talking about. But everyone would rightly dismiss me as a charlatan, retrofitting facts to fit my claim. I must confess I lost interest in the debate a little when it descended into a highly specific inter-faith dialogue between QE and TM, but overall most informative and interesting. So I absolutely peed my pants laughing when I read LindseyNicole's intervention. Thanks LindseyNicole, most helpful and penetrating. A wonderful example of timeliness, succintness, conclusiveness and hitting-the-nail-on-the-headness. At last we have a natural heir to Leeroy Jenkiss. Thank you LindseyNicole from the bottom of my heart.

I had been away for a while, now trying to catch up all the missing actions slowly.

It�s nice to see some new faces in the discussion. Happy to see LindseyNicole been able to see the light of Quran and would be happy to help Matt clear some of his misconceptions.

Matt, now let�s look at your unsubstantiated claims on the vagueness, factual correctness, already known facts, retrofitting etc. about the Quranic statements more closely with the specific example of human gestation itself:

1.     Vagueness: Quran in 31:14 states the weaning period of a child is 2 years and in 46:15 states the gestation+weaning is a period of 30 months. And there are multiple references in the Quran that only people of understanding will benefit from the Quran. Now the only reasons I can see for the 6 months gestation to be vague for someone will be a lack of basic maths (i.e. 30-24=6) or a lack of basic comprehension�it�s for you to figure out which one.

2.     Factual correctness: Prove me that a human child cannot be born in 6 months gestation and I would accept all your claims unsubstantiated.

3.     Already known fact: There is written evidence involving the companions of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), Hadrat Ali (R.A) and Hadrath Uthman (R.A) which narrates an incident where a decision made by Uthman (R.A) declaring a woman an adultress for giving birth to a child in just 6 months from the marriage was changed as advised by Hadrath Ali (R.A) based on the above Quranic references. This clearly shows the 6 months gestation was not a known fact in public domain prior to the Quran.

4.     Retrofitting: The Quran was revealed during the lifetime of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) around 1,400 years ago. As I have mentioned above, the 6 months gestation mentioned in Quran is clear, factually correct and was not known prior to the Quran. And we have written evidence to the application of this knowledge by the companions of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) itself. So how on the earth someone can even think of retrofitting facts here?

As usual with all such claims, all I can see is surface level generic statements which cannot stand even the first level of logical analysis with facts. So the next time before you come up with some statements like this, try to back up your claims with some facts--only if you have some

TG12345 wrote: I too have just recently returned, in the Hebron the only 'debates' I would have was with aggressive Israeli soldiers, where we'd try to convince them to stop harassing Palestinians. Talking with you is far more pleasant, and I don't need to worry about getting arrested or pepper sprayed or punched. :-) I don't know if you had a chance to respond to my response to your latest post, a few months ago. If we go by what the companions of Muhammad said, 6 months is the minimum possible time after which a child can be born and live. Without modern medical technology that is impossible, since at that stage children cannot yet digest food properly. Refer to page 5 of 23 of the medical report below. Premature infants below the age of 28 weeks must be fed intravenously, since their bodies are not yet ready to normally consume food. Between 28 weeks and 31 weeks, they need to be fed oro-gastrically or nasogastrically though during this time they can be fed by spoon a very little bit. http://newbornwhocc....ants_050508.pdf With modern medical technology, a premature child can live after it was born 5 months and 10 days, as I have shown you in our previous discussion. The 6 month minimum was definitely ahead of its time, but it was still a mistake.

Welcome back TG,

I can imagine how different the situation will be there. Fully appreciate your humanitarian efforts and most importantly keep yourself safe.

Regarding your last response, frankly I haven�t had a chance to prepare a response mainly to do with the length of the post and the quotes upon quotes which makes it very difficult to focus. Good that we can pick it from here with a cleaner post.

Now coming to this post, I�m sure I have already explained it earlier, however let me make it clear to you once again:

1.     From the subject Quranic verses in 31:14 and 46:15 one gets the idea of 6 months gestation for a human baby. Now to check the factual correctness of this, one just needs to ask an objective question �Can a human baby be born alive in 6 months gestation?� and the answer obviously is a definite �Yes�.

So the objective part is very clear�there is absolutely nothing wrong with the quranic statements.

2.     Coming to the legal point on adultery derived referring to the interpretation of these verses by the companions of the Prophet (pbuh), I am happy that finally you are able to see the effectiveness of this legal point. As you rightly mentioned, even though a baby can be born alive in 6 months gestation, it becomes almost impossible that the baby lives and remains sound in such a delivery in normal conditions. Which means the facts are perfectly in line with the following legal point derived regarding a delivery in less than 6 months gestation:

�The woman who gives birth to a sound and complete child in less than six months after marriage (i.e. in a proper delivery and not abortion) will be declared an adulteress and
her child's lineage from her husband will not be established.�

So the bottom line is unless one decides not to exercise the understanding that Allah has bestowed on him, there is absolutely no reason for one to get confused on the 6 months gestation derived from the Quran.

Let me know if you still have any confusion on these.

Thanks TG, I had a look at your blog and appreciate sharing those facts. Yes, I totally agree with you it�s not really possible to understand the situation there without being actually present there. Especially when you are in a world where even most of the media that you expect to give you a true picture are in fact the prisoners of their own conflicting interests!

TG12345 wrote: The question still remains as to why give a time period that is untrue for most babies. Would you consider it to be factual to say that the lifespan for a human being is 26 years? Why or why not?

You need to really separate two aspects here: 1) the factual correctness of a data and 2) the usefulness of a data.

1.     The factual correctness of a data: This part should be quite straight forward and anybody with minimum data analysis skills should be able to ascertain this. If you say a data is wrong, then you have to prove that it is wrong all the times�which no one can for the 6 months gestation.
2.     The usefulness of a data: This part is not as simple as ascertaining the factual correctness of a data and would need one to employ more of the skills that Allah has bestowed on him to make meaningful conclusions out of the data that is provided to him. This is sometimes more subjective, meaning the kind of usage people make out of such information really varies from person to person and to me personally that makes perfect sense in a system Allah has designed where each one gets appraised on his own thoughts, intentions and actions�ultimately is not that what really decides our success in whichever field we are, however we may try to blame the external factors for our failures?

Coming to your question on 26 year lifespan, there is nothing factually wrong as long as you can establish at least one case of 26 year lifespan. However, one would tend to dismiss it as a trivial statement as long as one doesn�t see any practical use from it.

TG12345 wrote: Doing this can lead to an innocent woman being declared an adulteress when she is not, since babies can be born alive before 6 months. A baby born before 28 weeks (6.7 months, not 6) needs to be fed intravenously, since she or he is before this time is incapable of receiving food in other ways. Again, refer to page 5 of 23 or the report below. http://newbornwhocc....ants_050508.pdf As we can see, a baby can't be kept alive without intravenous feeding prior to 28 weeks, and intravenous feeding as I hope you will realize was not possible in the 7th century. With medical technology, a baby can be kept alive even after 5 months and 10 days. With or without modern medical technology, setting 6 months as the minimum age of gestation is erroneous.

You are kind of contradicting here.

The below legal wording has enough protection for a woman in the �sound and complete� provision for any legitimate child births under 6 months gestation. Anyone with a minimum level of understanding will have no difficulty in judging that a baby who cannot do the basic function of receiving food without medical help cannot be termed �sound and complete�:

�The woman who gives birth to a sound and complete child in less than six months after marriage (i.e. in a proper delivery and not abortion) will be declared an adulteress and her child's lineage from her husband will not be established.�

Effectively on one hand you are factually agreeing that a child birth in less than 6 months gestation cannot be �sound and complete� and on the other hand you still keep saying a legitimate child birth in less than 6 months gestation can be �sound and complete��I think you have to make a choice here.

TG12345 wrote: The only way one can set 6 months as the age of gestation is if one chooses to ignore factual information about science and human gestation. Doing so requires one to either be unaware of or discount evidence, and to not put the minds that Allah created us with, to good use. If you can provide any evidence whatsoever that shows that a child cannot be born before 6 months, or that he or she can be born in 6 months without medical technology that would not have been around in the 7th century, please show it. Shukran wa Allama3k. :)

Here comes the importance of combining the understanding Allah has bestowed on one with the revelation to make useful conclusions. Let me explain you this way:

One gets the idea of 6 months gestation from the Quran some 1400 year ago.

Now it remains the responsibility of one bestowed with the understanding from Allah to make a meaningful conclusion out of the information provided to him. He knows that the human gestation is a floating figure which varies from individual to individual and the development of a baby happens in stages as mentioned in the Quran. He also knows the fact that normal gestation periods are usually higher than 6 months but a lower limit is not known to anybody at that point in time. And he also has a practical situation where he has to judge a case of adultery with respect to the gestational age of a new born baby.

So combining all these with the revelation from Allah helps him to derive the legal point mentioned above which stipulates a �sound and complete� child delivered in less than 6 months gestation as a product of adultery.

Now the real test for the Quranic revelation and the legal point comes when modern scientific knowledge becomes available much later regarding the human gestation. Surprisingly, the 6 months gestation mentioned in the Quran 1400 years ago proves to be absolutely correct factually as a human baby can be born alive in 6 months gestation and the validity of the legal point is also is established beyond doubt as you have rightly substantiated factually that it is next to impossible to have a �sound and complete� baby delivered in less than 6 months gestation.

That really concludes the point beyond any confusion for one who decides to use the understanding Allah has bestowed on him to good use. However, the usefulness of a data as I mentioned earlier can vary from person to person and hence your confusions still remain it seems:

1.     Now you tell me where in the Quran it says a child cannot be born alive before 6 months gestation?

2.     Modern scientific knowledge says a baby can be born alive in 6 months gestation. What makes you think that this was not possible at some point in history before?

I think you are getting confused between �born alive� and �continue living�. The intravenous feeding is required to keep a baby that is already �born alive� to �continue living�. Whether the intravenous feeding is there or not it does not take away the fact that the baby was already born alive in 6 months gestation.

Are you now denying the scientific fact that a baby can be �born alive� in 6 months gestation?