REFERENCES

English Reference Books

1)The Koran Interpreted, by Arthur J Arberry. Oxford University Press. 1962.

2)The Bible, The Qur'an and Science , by Maurice Bucaille .

3)The Glorious Qur'an and Modern Science, by Dr. M  Hassab El Naby.

4)On Cosmic Verses in the Quran, by M.J. El Fandy. Published under the auspices of the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs. Ministry of Waqf, Cairo, Egypt. 1994.

5)Islam and Science ,by Prof. Dr. M. J. El Fandy, books 1,2,3,4,5,6,7. The Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, 1993.

Arabic Reference Books

1-      المنتخب في تفسير القرآن الكريم، الطبعة العشرون القاهرة 2002 وزارة الأوقاف، المجلس الأعلى للشئون الإسلامية.

2-      كتاب الإعجاز العلمي في القرآن والسنة، كتاب غير دوري يصدر عن جمعية الإعجاز العلمي في القرآن والسنة بجمهورية مصر العربية من العدد الأول حتى السادس.

3-      الكون والإعجاز العلمي في القرآن، دكتور منصور حسب النبي.

4-      ارتياد الفضاء بين العلم والقرآن، دكتور منصور حسب النبي.

5-      إعجاز القرآن في آفاق الزمان والمكان، دكتور منصور حسب النبي.

6-      موسوعة ما فرطنا في الكتاب من شيء، المعارف الكويتية بين العلم والقرآن، القسم الأول، الدكتور منصور حسب النبي.

7-      معجزة القرآن من الكتاب الأول حتى الكتاب العاشر، الشيخ محمد متولي الشعراوي.

8-      الإشارات العلمية في القرآن الكريم، المستشار مدحت حافظ إبراهيم.

9-      الإشارات العلمية في القرآن الكريم بين الدراسة والتطبيق، دكتور كارم السيد غنيم.

10-  الإعجاز العلمي في الإسلام، القرآن الكريم، محمد كامل عبد الصمد.

11-  الإعجاز العلمي في الإسلام، السنة النبوية، محمد كامل عبد الصمد.

12-  آيات قرآنية في مشكاة العلم، دكتور يحيى سعيد المحجري.

13-  الإعجاز العددي للقرآن الكريم، ثلاث أجزاء، عبد الرزاق نوفل.

14-  الإسلام كبديل، دكتور مراد هوفمان، سفير ألمانيا بالرباط، نافذة على الغرب، مجلة النور الكويتية.

15-  القيامة بين العلم والقرآن، الدكتور داود سلمان السوري.

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INTERNAL OR DEEP STORMS AND WAVES IN SEAS AND OCEANS

INTERNAL OR DEEP STORMS AND WAVES IN SEAS AND OCEANS

 سورة النور آية 40

Or they are as shadows upon a sea obscure

covered by a billow

above which  is a billow

above which are clouds;

when he puts forth his hand, well-nigh he cannot see it.

And to whomsoever God assigns no light,

no light has he.

Chapter 24 verse 40

This verse expresses internal violent storms in the deep seas with their strong deep layers of waves: one upon the other. Here God coats a scientific fact with the most beautiful artistic expression. He compares the futility of unbelievers’ action to the pitch darkness in the deep seas when it is exposed to a violent storm. It is so dark that he could not even see his own hand.

This accurate description of storms in the deep seas became known to man only in 1900, when the Scandinavian sailors discovered that there are deep waves other than the ones on the surface. These deep waves, says Sheikh Azzidani, happen from 40 – 200 meters while pitch darkness starts from 200 meters. Mr. M.K. Abdelsamad adds that these waves are extremely strong and swift, and they happen because of some earthquakes taking place at the bottom of seas.

What is really amazing is that this accurate description is made by an illiterate person who lived all his life in the arid desert of Saudi Arabia and away forms the environment of seas and oceans. Besides, a human body could not bear diving more than 30 meters without modern equipment; and if he does he dies.

Was prophet Mohammed an expert in diving and was he equipped with the most sophisticated equipments. Certainly not, this description could not be but an inspiration by the Creator not only of seas but of everything in the whole universe.

It is one of more than a thousand verses that denote scientific facts known only in the 20^th century. It is one of a set of verses that renews the interpretation of The Holy Qur’an to suit scientific materialistic minds. They provide man with the light that might illuminate his soul and carry him from the age of spiritual darkness into the heavenly light. Hence, making a healthy balance between the spiritual and the materialistic and help in building a sound and wholesome person.

FRESH WATER ON EARTH

FRESH WATER ON EARTH

It is a well known fact that about four fifth of the earth’s surface is covered with water, a palpable sign of God’s bounty to His creatures on earth and a sign of His perfect order. Dr. El Fandy comments on this fact saying:

This large amount of water is not accidental or in vain, but according to precise measure in order that the earth holds it and thus affords an environment suitable for life to nourish and flourish on it. This large amount of water, however:

(a) prevents the occurrence of large differences in air temperature between winter and summer.

(b) Provides the atmosphere with water vapour sufficient for the fresh water cycle.^[66]

God Almighty attracts our attention to the extreme importance of a very simple fact in our life i.e. fresh water. We take it for granted that fresh water is there for us to drink, and we forget the bounteous power behind it. In The Holy Qur’an, God says:

  

  سورة الواقعة الآيات 68 - 70

Have you considered the water you drink?

Did you send it down from the clouds, or

did We send it?

Did We will, We would make it bitter; so

why are you not thankful?

Chapter 56 verses (68 – 70)

The fresh water cycle is one of God’s wonders to maintain life on earth. Rainfall, as we have seen, is the result of the condensation of water vapour ascending from the vast areas of water on the earth’s surface, and under certain climatic conditions it falls down in the form of rain drops, hail or snow.

Rainfall in itself is amazing, for it shows God’s perfect order in the universe. God has subjected the sun to sub serve man in many ways, one of them is that it is a direct cause of water evaporation from seas and oceans. At the same time, God has enveloped the earth with an atmospheric cover to protect us from the danger of heavenly bodies that might fall on our earth. The atmospheric cover also helps in preserving the earth’s main source of life i.e. fresh water from being wasted in the vast universe.

The Holy Qur’an is an inexhaustible reservoir of knowledge for us to meditate and try to come closer to our Bounteous Creator We read in The Holy Qur’an:

  سورة الطارق 11

By heaven of the returning rain ^[67]

God here swears “By heaven of the returning rain”. And when God swears by something, it should be of paramount value. He wants to attract our attention to the importance of the atmospheric cover, for one of its multiple functions is to prevent the water vapour from being wasted in the infinite space, and helps in dropping it back on earth in the form of fresh water. Otherwise the earth would have been like the moon i.e. a dead planet.

Again, God attracts our attention to His merciful and bounteous nature towards His creatures. He makes heavenly barriers between fresh and salted water. He says in The Holy Qur’an:

 الفرقان 53

And it is He who let forth the two seas this one sweet,

grateful to taste, and this

salt, bitter to the tongue,

and He set between them a barrier, and a ban forbidden,^[68]

 سورة النمل 61

He who made the earth a fixed place

and set amidst it rivers

and appointed for it firm mountains

and placed a partition between the two seas.

Is there a god with God? ^[69]

These two verses indicate God’s power and generosity for it is but a miracle that the fresh water does not mix up with the salted water. There is a heavenly rule that governs this relationship, for it has been proved that fresh water floats over salted one, as if there is a barrier that forbids them from being mixed up.

We cannot help but thinking what would have happened if these barriers were not there! Sure, fresh water would not have been available and life would have been impossible.

In one of his lectures Sheikh Azzindani comments on the verse “and placed a partition between the two seas,” saying that the two seas in this verse could also be two salted ones. It was not until 1873 that Man knew that salted seas are not of the same quality and that the qualification of water in each differs from the other. They differ in the degree of salt, temperature, condensation, water animals and the ability to dissolve oxygen.

He goes on saying that for the first time in 1942 and as a result of long strenuous researches from hundred different marine stations, it was found that the Atlantic ocean, for example, consists of different seas each with its own qualifications.

If this is the case in one ocean, it is but natural that two different seas would differ, for example, the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. A question that comes to one’s mind: Why these two seas do not mix? The answer is that there is a water partition that acts as a border between them. These borders cannot be seen, but can be proved by accurate and minute measurements of the degree of salt, temperature…etc.

He adds explaining the same verse saying that the word  “مرج “  means “mix” and   “برزخ”  means  “partition”, but the verse adds a very important word “لا يبغيان”  which means that they do not overrun one another. So, the verse does not deny mixing, but it denies the overrunning of one sea over the other. This partition does not allow a quick mixing, because has this mixing been quick the big sea would have overrun the small one and stamps it with all its qualifications. But this partition makes this mixing very slow and over a long period so that the water that overruns from one sea to the other loses its qualifications and acquires the qualifications of the new ones.

It is but natural that there should be a partition between salted seas and rivers which we call estuary. This estuary has a special environment that shuns out the fish in both the sea and the river and allows for a special kind of fish.

Have you thought my dear friend, why God has created rivers narrow and short in comparison with the great width and length of oceans and seas? Rivers are made so that their fresh water does not evaporate easily while oceans are wide so that evaporation takes place on a large scale. And because I think God gives us water according to our needs, while preserving the greater part in the form of salt water to evaporate and ironically becomes the main source of fresh water on earth.

What is really interesting is that it has been proved that pearls, as they are obtained from certain kinds of seas, they can be also obtained from certain kinds of rivers. Pearls  could be found in the sweet water in England, Wales, Scotland as well as in Japan. Fresh water also contains some high quality minerals, for example diamonds which could be extracted from sediments of dried rivers. Zircon and Topaz could also be found in the sediments of rivers. We find, in The Holy Qur’an, God says:

   سورة الرحمن الآيات 19 – 23

He let forth the two seas that meet together,

between them a barrier they do not over pass.

Oh which of your Lord’s bounties will you and you deny?

From them come forth the pearl and the coral ^[70]

  

 سورة فاطر آية 12

Not equal are the two seas; this is sweet, grateful to taste,

delicious to drink,

and that is salt, bitter to the tongue

yet of both you eat

fresh flesh, and bring forth out of it ornaments

for you to wear ^[71]

I think the “two seas” in the first verse is explained by the other verse one is sweet while the other is salted i.e. rivers and seas and oceans.

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[66]“Islam and Science”, book VI, by Prof. Dr. M.G. El Fandy

[67]  Chapter 86 verse 11

[68] Chapter 25 verse 53

[69] chapter 26 verse 61

[70] Chapter 55 verses 19-23

[71] Chapter 35 verse 12

METEOROLOGY

METEOROLOGY

 سورة الروم آية 48

God is He that looses the winds, that stir up clouds,

and He spreads them in heaven how He will, and shatters them;

then thou seest the rain issuing out of midst of them ^[56]

Dr. El-Fandy comments on this verse saying that:

"….. stratus clouds -form by a moist air current which ascends gradually into a single layer or stratum in the atmosphere to form a single sheet - or separate sheets –within the stratum and hence the name stratus clouds." ^[57]

The Greatest Scientist par excellence differentiates between "stratus clouds" and "cumulus clouds". We have seen how He describes "stratus clouds", and the following example denotes what we call "cumulus clouds". He says:

 سورة النور آية 43

Hast thou not seen how God drives the clouds then composes them

then converts them into a mass,

then thou seest the rain issuing out of the midst of them?

And He sends down out of heaven mountains, wherein is hail,

so that He smites whom He will with it , and turns it aside

from whom He will;

well-nigh the gleam of His lightening snatches away the sight ^[58]

Dr. El-Fandy, in the same book comments on the formation of "cumulus" clouds saying:

               

A cumulus cloud is formed by the appearance in the sky of

several small cells of  clouds. Sooner or later, every two or

more cells combine together to form the growing cumulus,

which develop and accumulate vertically to great heights

(10-15) kilometers. Hence the name cumulus clouds.

These two verses precede science with more than 1400 years, for they differentiate between the formation of the two types of clouds. Dr. El-Fandy, in the same book, comments on this scientific fact saying:

According to cloud physics- or even by direct photography-

it has been made clear that the mode of formation and

development of one type differs from that of the other type.

After this short exposition, one would ask who had informed prophet   Mohammed- may God's prayers and peace be upon him -so long ago about an ultra modern scientific fact about the formation of clouds? It could only have been said by the Creator of these clouds, as well as, of everything else in the whole universe. Again, who had told him that cumulus clouds are like huge mountains that are spread vertically, while stratus clouds are spread horizontally? Again, who had told Prophet Mohammed that hail is formed inside cumulus clouds!!!

  

سورة الحجر آية 22

And We loose the winds fertilizing,

and We send down out of heaven water,

then We give it to you to drink, and

you are not its treasures…….. ^[59]

Ancient people knew that winds fertilize plant, but who had ever dreamt of winds fertilizing the clouds!! But now we come to know that it is a scientific fact:

    

In order that rain might fall from the nimbus clouds,

winds must continue to supply (or seed or even fertilize) the clouds with:

1) Water - vapor necessary for condensation and 2) nuclei of   

condensation which have affinity to water, or absorb it. On these nuclei rain drops or ice crystals develop according to the prevailing

temperature. ^[60]

What is really astonishing is that The Holy Qur’an always connects rainfall with sending winds. Dr. El-Fendy, says the winds are:

…the basic factor if not the first factor which stirs clouds,

seeds them with nuclei of condensation, and accumulate

them in the sky to rain. ^[61]

If anyone had said that the wind carries the clouds that are charged with water vapour, people would have said that he was mad. But this scientific fact is written in the Holy Qur’an 14 Centuries ago. We read in the Holy Qur’an, beside the previous verses, what means:

 سورة فاطر آية 9

God is He that looses the winds, that stir up clouds.^[62]

 سورة الأعراف آية 57

It is He who looses the winds, bearing good tidings

before his mercy,

till, when they are charged with heavy clouds…. ^[63]

 

سورة البقرة آية 164

 Surely in the creation of the heavens and the earth

and the alteration of night and day

and the ship that runs in the sea with profit

to men, and the water God sends down from heaven

therewith reviving the earth after it is dead

and His scattering abroad in it all manner of

crawling thing, and the turning about of the winds

and the clouds compelled between heaven and earth

surely there are signs for a people having understanding.^[64]

   

To explain all this scientifically, Dr. El Fandy says:

…. It is established now that rainfall is accompanied by the process of the rise of the air upwards by convergence or convection or similar factors. Later, air gets cold due to expansion… when air expands, it occupies greater volumes as a result of the low pressure, which takes place in the higher strata of the atmosphere. its temperature drops automatically at the expense of the energy of its particles, and vice versa. When air gets cold, its ability to carry water vapour drops too. The continuation of this process, i.e. the continuous climbing up to the higher strata of the atmosphere and self-refrigeration, makes it too feeble to carry water vapour.^[65]

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[56] Chapter 30verse 48

[57] "Islam and Science”, Book VII, by Prof. Dr. M.G.El-Fandy.

[58] Chapter 24 verse 43

[59]  Chapter 15 verse 22

[60]  "Islam and Science", book V, by Prof.Dr.M.G.El.Fandy

[61]  "On Cosmic Verses in the Qur’an" by Dr. M . J. El-Fandy

[62] Chapter 35 verse 9

[63] Chapter 7 verse 57

[64]  chapter 2 verse 164

[65]  “On cosmic verses in the Qur’an “ by Dr. M.J. El Fandy

THE HISTORY OF THE EARTH

THE HISTORY OF THE EARTH

سورة العنكبوت آية 20

Say:" Journey in the land, then behold how

He originated creation…. ^[53]

Here is a clear order from God to study the crust of the earth and collect fossils   because “…. evidence of things throughout the ages is recorded on the rocks of these ages in the form of fossils or buried things that can be carefully studied and traced back." ^[54]  That is to say, we can read on the layers of its crust the history of its creation.

By the end of the 18th, century the famous geologist, James Hutton said the earth's history is written inside the layers of its crust. Dr. El- Fandy goes on saying:

It is the duty of the geologist to travel through the earth here and there in order to collect the so-called fossils- remainders of the creatures which lived on earth in the past- and then try to arrange them in the order which enables him to follow (or read) their history.^[55]

It is a well-known fact that the distribution of land and oceans has completely changed due to the different deluges that had taken place in the past. Hence some segments of animals; plants and humans could be traced in the different layers of the earth's crust. These layers could be likened to pages in a book on which information is written about the history of the creation of the earth.

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[53]  Chapter 29 verse 20

[54]  "Islam and Science "Book I,   Dr. M.G.El-Fandy.

[55] "Islam and Science "Book VI, Dr. M.G.El-Fandy.

MOUNTAINS

MOUNTAINS

…mountains are to be scientifically considered as weights which have to keep the balance of the crust of the earth and, then, keep it firm without being crushed or destroyed through centuries, during which equilibrium remained steady despite the high pressures which fell down on the interior of the earth and the sweeping slow currents which carried weights ^[46]

We can trace many verses in The Holy Qur’an that likens firm mountains to pegs that keep the earth's balance. Here are some of them:

سورة النحل آية 15

And He cast on the earth, firm mountains, lest it

shake with you,

and rivers and ways, so haply you will be guided, ^[47]

 سورة الأنبياء آية 31

And We set the earth firm mountains

lest it should shake with them … ^[48]

             سورة لقمان آية 10

He created the heavens without pillars

you can see, and He cast on the earth

firm mountains, lest it shakes with you, ^[49]

 سورة المرسلات آية 27

Set We not therein soaring mountains?

Sated you with sweetest water? ^[50]

 سورة النبأ الآيات 6 -7

Have we not made the earth as a cradle

and mountains as pegs? ^[51]

The comparison of firm soaring mountains to pegs that keep the balance of the earth lest it shakes with us, is a highly scientific fact which is mentioned in The Holy Qur’an more than 1400 years ago. It could not have been mentioned, so long ago, except by the Mighty Creator of the earth, the universe and all living creatures.

Dr. El-Fandy, in "Cosmic Verses in The Qur'an", comments on this scientific fact saying:

After the advancement made by civilization and after

geology has became a factual subject, it has been

discovered that without mountains the solid crust of the

earth would have been generally unstable as a result

of the continuity of disequilibrium between the molten

interior of the earth and the high pressures fallen on

its solid crust and the denudation factor it is exposed to.

 

سورة الإسراء آية 37

And walk not in the earth exultantly; certainly

thou wilt never tear the earth open, nor attain

the mountains in height ^[52]

The Literary meaning of this verse is: do not walk on earth proudly for you shall never pierce the earth or your length will never be as high as roaring mountains two impossibilities. God wants to say to man do not be proud, but walk on earth with your real length.

But Dr. El-Fandy, in his book "Cosmic Verses in the Qur’an” provides us with a new scientific explanation. He says:

 Although the earth is a small planet and although it became possible for man of our age to go round it in one day or part of a day, the fact still remains that it is impossible for anyone to rend it. If this is the case why is it so difficult? It is difficult because of the hard crust beneath which exist-thermo – energies and the very high pressures found in the interior of the earth which make the question of rending it a matter of concrete impossibility.

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[46] "On Cosmic Verses in the Qur'an", by Dr.M.J. El Fandy

[47]  Chapter 16 verse 15

[48]  Chapter 21 verse 31

[49]  chapter 31 verse 10

[50] chapter 77 verse 27

[51] chapter 78 verse 6-7

[52]  chapter 17 verse 37