The Arabic word “alhubuki,” translated as “furnished with paths” in verse 7 of Surat adh-Dhariyat, comes from the verb “hubeke,” meaning “to weave closely, to knit, to bind together.” The use of this word in the verse is particularly wise and represents the current state of scientific knowledge in two aspects.

The first is this: The orbits and paths in the universe are so dense and intertwined that they constitute intersecting paths, just like the threads in a piece of fabric. The Solar System we live in is made up of the Sun, the planets and their satellites and heavenly objects in constant motion such as meteors and comets. The Solar System moves through the galaxy known as the Milky Way, which contains 400 billion stars.1 It is estimated that there are billions of galaxies. Celestial bodies and systems revolving at speeds of thousands of kilometers an hour move through space without colliding with one another.

The science of astronomy was developed with the aim of mapping the positions and courses of stars, while astro-mechanics was developed in order to determine these complex motions. Astronomers used to assume that orbits were perfectly spherical. The fact is, however, that heavenly bodies are known to follow mathematical shapes, such as spherical, elliptical, parabolic or hyperbolic orbits. Dr. Carlo Rovelli of the University of Pittsburgh says, “Our space in which we live is just this enormously complicated spin network.”2

left; the orbits of some of the bodies in the Solar System. Based on this picture and looking clockwise, it can be seen that the Solar System itself is part of even greater orbital movements.3

The second aspect is that the description in the Qur’an of the sky using a word meaning “woven” may be a reference to the String Theory of physics. (Allah knows the truth.) According to this theory, the basic elements that comprise the universe are not point-like particles, but strings resembling miniature violin strings. These tiny, identical and one dimensional strings oscillating in the form of filaments are regarded as being like loops in appearance. It is assumed that the origin of all the diversity in the universe lies in the way these strings vibrate at different vibrations, in the same way that violin strings produce different sounds with different vibrations.4

Visit this website to learn more about string theory.

Although it is not possible to see the size of the threads in the String Theory, the only theory to bring theories such as Einstein’s theory of general relativity and quantum mechanics together in a coherent way, it can still be calculated mathematically. These strings, which scientists regard as the material from which space and time are woven, are just 1.6×10-35 m (0.000000000000000000000000000000000016 meters) in size. This, known as Plank’s length, is the smallest known, being just 10-20 of the protons that make up the nucleus of that atom. If an atom were to be magnified to the size of the Solar System, each one of these strings would be no bigger than a tree. 7 Bearing in mind that an atom is 100,000 times smaller than the smallest thing that can be seen with the naked eye, the minute scale of these strings can be more easily grasped.

Professor of Physics Abhay Ashtekar from the University of Pennsylvania and Professor of Physics Jerzy Lewandowski from the University of Warsaw interpret the woven appearance of space as follows in an article titled “Space and Time Beyond Einstein”:

In this theory, Einstein wove the gravitational field into the very fabric of space and time… The continuum we are all used to is only an approximation. Perhaps the simplest way to visualize these ideas is to look at a piece of fabric. For all practical purposes, it represents a 2-dimensional continuum; yet it is really woven by 1-dimensional threads. The same is true of the fabric of space-time. It is only because the “quantum threads” which weave this fabric are tightly woven in the region of the universe we inhabit that we perceive a continuum. Upon intersection with a surface, each thread, or polymer excitation, endows it with a tiny “Plank quantum” of area of about 10-66 cm2. So an area of 100 cm2 has about 1068 such intersections; because the number is so huge, the intersections are very closely spaced and we have the illusion of a continuum.

An Article in the New York Times seeking an answer to the question “How Was the Universe Built?” contained the following lines:

Even the tiny quarks that make up protons, neutrons and other particles are too big to feel the bumps that may exist on the Planck scale. More recently, though, physicists have suggested that quarks and everything else are made of far tinier objects: superstrings vibrating in 10 dimensions. At the Planck level, the weave of space-time would be as apparent as when the finest Egyptian cotton is viewed under a magnifying glass, exposing the warp and woof.

In his book Three Roads to Quantum Gravity, the theoretical quantum physicist Lee Smolin devotes one chapter to “How to Weave a String” and says this on the subject:

… space may be ‘woven’ from a network of loops… just like a piece of cloth is ‘woven’ from a network of threads.

In his book Our Cosmic Habitat the cosmologist and astrophysicist Prof. Martin Rees says:

According to our present concepts, empty space is anything but simple… and on an even tinier scale, it may be a seething tangle of strings.

The way that Allah describes the universe as being woven paths and orbits in verse 7 of Surat adh-Dhariyat shows that the Qur’an is in extraordinary agreement with science. As can be seen in a great many other instances, the way that all the information revealed in the Qur’an 1400 years ago is confirmed by modern scientific data is highly thought provoking. This perfect harmony between the Qur’an and scientific developments clearly reveals that the Qur’an is the word of our Lord, the creator of and He who knows best about all things. In one verse Allah states:

“Will they not ponder the Qur’an? If it had been from other than Allah, they would have found many inconsistencies in it.” (Surat an-Nisa, 82)

An interview with a scientist about “String Theory” back when it was still being tested

After writing a 400-page book on string theory and then helping NOVA translate that book into a three-hour documentary, would Brian Greene, we wondered, have anything more to say about string theory? We needn’t have worried. In this interview, Greene eloquently describes what it’s like to know something about the universe before anyone else does, how he wonders if there are aspects of nature that we humans will never be smart enough to comprehend, why he would prefer to find out today if string theory is wrong, and more.

Road to acceptance

NOVA: Is it an exciting time to be a string theorist?

Greene: It’s an amazing time to be a string theorist. The last few years have witnessed a tremendous amount of progress, so much so that I think no one in their wildest dreams would have imagined that we’d have gotten as far as we have.

NOVA: Do you think string theory will ever be accepted as widely as, say, the theory of general relativity? What would it take for that to happen?

Greene: Well, the real reason why general relativity is widely accepted is because it made predictions that were borne out by experimental observations. The primary one that put general relativity on the map was its prediction of the bending of starlight by the sun, which in 1919 was confirmed by observation during a solar eclipse. That was the moment when general relativity emerged from the realm of theory and entered the realm of being a piece of reality as we know it.

For string theory to have the kind of acceptance of general relativity, it’s got to do the same thing. It’s got to make a prediction that is borne out by some experiment. And as yet, we haven’t quite gotten to the stage where we can make definitive predictions which, if they’re found, the theory was right, and if they’re not found, the theory was wrong.

But we have gotten to the stage where we can make some rough predictions for things that might happen at the future accelerators that are now being built, in particular one in Geneva, Switzerland, called the Large Hadron Collider, which should be ready about 2007 or 2008. If some of the predictions that string theory says might happen are borne out through experiment at that accelerator, then I think it’s quite possible that string theory would be as accepted as general relativity.

NOVA: Can you give an example of a prediction that might be experimentally verified in coming years?

Greene: Sure. One of the strangest features of string theory is that it requires more than the three spatial dimensions that we see directly in the world around us. That sounds like science fiction, but it is an indisputable outcome of the mathematics of string theory. So the question is, where are these extra dimensions? One suggestion is that they’re all around us, but they’re small relative to the dimensions that we directly see and therefore are more difficult to detect.

What the theory also predicts—not necessarily but possibly—is that energy can escape from our known dimensions and leak into these extra dimensions under appropriate circumstances. Those appropriate circumstances might be generated in high-energy collisions that will take place at the new atom smasher, the Large Hadron Collider.

So it’s possible that through these high-energy collisions we will find that there is less energy at the end of the collision than there was at the start. If the energy loss is of just the right sort, it could be very strong evidence that the energy has seeped off into these extra dimensions. If that were true, if that were the best explanation we could find, that would be strong evidence that the extra dimensions are real, and that in turn would be strong evidence that the framework of string theory is correct.

NOVA: What sort of experimental results that support string theory do you think would make even die-hard detractors like Sheldon Glashowstand up and take notice?

Greene: Well, one would be the one I just mentioned. The next, in fact, more likely experimental result in many people’s minds to be found is something called supersymmetry. The full name of string theory is really superstring theory. The “super” stands for this feature called supersymmetry, which, without getting into any details, predicts that for every known particle in the world, there should be a partner particle, the so-called supersymmetric partner. So for the electron, there should be the supersymmetric partner electron, or the selectron, as people call it. For quarks, there should be supersymmetric quarks, or squarks. For neutrinos, sneutrinos, and so forth.

“I’ve spent something like 17 years working on a theory for which there is essentially no direct experimental support.”

So there’s this whole spectrum of sparticles, if you will, that the theory predicts should exist, but as yet nobody has ever seen any one of these partner particles. We believe the reason is because they’re much heavier than the known particles, and the heavier something is, the more energy, the more oomph it takes to produce it in a collision. We hope that these new atom smashers, the Large Hadron Collider in particular, will have enough energy to start producing these particles that the theory predicts.

Now, if those particles are found, it will not prove string theory correct. It will prove this supersymmetric aspect of the theory to be correct. And it turns out that string theory is not the only theory that allows for supersymmetry, so this isn’t necessarily a smoking gun. But it would be a strong piece of circumstantial evidence that string theory is on the right track. So in many ways, I consider that to be the most likely experiment to have positive outcomes and to at least take us this particular distance down the path toward confirming string theory.

NOVA: Have you ever had doubts about string theory?

Greene: All the time! I mean, it is a very strange research career, in a way. So far I’ve spent something like 17 years working on a theory for which there is essentially no direct experimental support. It’s a very precarious way to live and to work.

The funny thing is, I sometimes get the impression that some people outside of the field think that there’s some element of security that we have in working on a theory that hasn’t made any predictions that can be proven false. In a sense, we’re working on something unfalsifiable. And there sometimes is a sense that we’re happy about that. But let me state categorically, if the theory is wrong, I’d like to know it today so I wouldn’t waste my time on it any longer.

We will have no certainty that it’s right until the experiments show that it’s right. However, I should say that in my mind there is a strong circumstantial case already that it’s correct, because it puts together general relativity and quantum mechanics, and each of those theories has already received a fantastic amount of experimental support. String theory is the most developed theory with the capacity to unite general relativity and quantum mechanics in a consistent manner. I do believe the universe is consistent, and therefore I do believe that general relativity and quantum mechanics should be put together in a manner that makes sense. That’s what string theory does, and to me, that’s pretty convincing.

Limits to understanding

NOVA: Is there any way you can make people who know little about mathematics understand the supreme elegance of string theory?

Greene: I think so. You know, when we talk about theories of physics being elegant, what we often mean is that a theory is able to explain a wide range of phenomena using a very small number of powerful ideas. The elegance comes from the tremendous reach of these few simple ideas.

“No matter how hard you try to teach your cat general relativity, you’re going to fail.”

And that really is a core characteristic of string theory. We have this idea that the basic constituents of nature are these vibrating strings, that their vibrational patterns dictate the properties of particles, and they dictate the kinds of forces at work in the world. If the theory is right, that simple notion will perhaps be able to explain, in principle, every physical phenomenon. That powerful reach is where the elegance resides.

NOVA: Do you think there are limits to how much we can know about the universe?

Greene: I don’t know. I’d like to think that there aren’t, but I suspect that’s a little optimistic. An analogy that’s used in the NOVA program that I’m quite fond of is: We are certainly aware of intelligent beings on this planet whose capacity to understand the deep laws of the universe is limited. No matter how hard you try to teach your cat general relativity, you’re going to fail. There we have an example of an intelligent living being that will never know this kind of truth about the way the world is put together. Why in the world should we be any different? We can certainly go further than cats, but why should it be that our brains are somehow so suited to the universe that our brains will be able to understand the deepest workings?

NOVA: Well, for example, most people have trouble envisioning a fourth spatial dimension. Can you?

Greene: No. I cannot envision anything beyond three dimensions. What I can do is I can make use of mathematics that describe those extra dimensions, and then I can try to translate what the mathematics tells me into lower dimensional analogies that help me gain a picture of what the math has told me. But the picture is certainly inadequate to the task of fully describing what’s going on, because it’s in lower dimensions, and in higher dimensions, things are definitely different.

To tell you the truth, I’ve never met anybody who can envision more than three dimensions. There are some who claim they can, and maybe they can; it’s hard to say. But it’s very hard, when your brain is involved in a world that appears to have three dimensions and is well suited to envisioning that world, to go beyond that and imagine more dimensions. [To give it a try, see Imagining Other Dimensions.]

Giant strings

NOVA: I’m glad to know it wasn’t just me. Getting back to strings, Ed Witten said in his interview that it’s conceivable that the big bang could have produced a string so large that it would be present in today’s universe and could be visible in telescopes. Do you agree, and if so, where would we look for it, and what might it look like?

Greene: I do agree that it’s a possibility. But as I think Ed Witten would agree, it’s a fairly unlikely scenario. It’s not, in anybody’s mind, the likely way that we’ll confirm the theory. But it is possible that the huge energies present at the time of the big bang could have produced a big string. The bigger a string is, the more energy it takes to create it. And you could have produced one that somehow hung around.

How would you see it? Well, if it floated by your telescope, or if it floated in the fields of vision of your satellite that’s observing the heavens, it could create, for instance, a disturbance to the microwave background radiation. It could change the temperature of that radiation along a linear defect, sort of like if you look at your reflection in a cracked mirror. You look fine on one side of the crack. You look fine on the other side of the crack. But at the crack itself, things will be kind of dislocated. A strong wafting by a telescope would kind of do a subtle version of that to the image.

NOVA: How is it that fundamental strings, which are by definition extremely tiny, could come in a size many orders of magnitude larger than normal?

Greene: When we say strings are tiny, we generally mean strings that haven’t had a huge amount of energy pumped into them. But the more energy you pump into a string, the more widely it will vibrate and, at some point, the longer it will grow. So it’s really a question of how much energy the string embodies. Typically they don’t embody that much, and therefore typically they are very small.

Eureka moments

NOVA: How does it feel to make a major discovery, like the time you and two colleagues at the Institute for Advanced Study realized that the fabric of space can tear and reform in a new way?

Greene: Well, there’s nothing like it really. For a brief moment, you feel like you have seen the universe in a way that nobody previously has. You feel like you are privy to a deep truth of nature that no one has been aware of before. It’s a wonderful and remarkable feeling. It’s not one that I think one can expect to have occur many times in one’s career. You do often discover things that are useful and important, but I think it’s a rare privilege to find something fairly fundamental and really get a sense of connection to the universe that’s hard to achieve in any other way.

NOVA: Do you have a most exciting moment from your work with string theory, a sort of “eureka” moment?

Greene: That certainly was one. Another one was when I was working with a Harvard professor, Ronen Plesser—he’s now at Duke—and we came upon something called mirror symmetry, which was somewhat unexpected. Using Einstein’s general relativity, we found basically that the shape of the universe could differ in rather dramatic ways, but yet the physics that we would see wouldn’t bear any imprint of that different geometry.

“If the theory turns out to be right, that will be tremendously thick and tasty icing on the cake.”

This is a very unusual thing, because Einstein taught us that geometry and physics are very tightly woven together. We found that sometimes they’re not as tightly woven as he might have thought. That was another eureka moment, in the sense of really feeling that we had uncovered something unexpected.

NOVA: What advice would you have for an aspiring string theorist? Go for it, or for God’s sake stay away?

Greene: I think ultimately you’ve got to follow your heart in these matters, and if these are the kinds of ideas and questions that are burning within you, and you just can’t imagine not having them at the forefront of what you do in day-to-day work, then yeah, you’ve got to go for it. On the other hand, this is a very speculative field, and it could turn out to all be wrong. And if that’s the case, and you would feel, after putting years of research into the subject, that those years were wasted because the theory was wrong, then it’s probably not the right field for you.

I and many others, however, would not feel it had been a waste of time if the theory turns out to be wrong, because we’ve developed a lot of important mathematics. We’ve developed connections to other, more well established areas of physics, which I think will be important in their own right. We will have done some very valuable work. To me, if the theory turns out to be right, that will be tremendously thick and tasty icing on the cake, but without that icing, to me the work will still have been incredibly interesting and useful.

Getting the word out

NOVA: What was it like making a documentary based on your book?

Greene: It was a lot of fun in many ways, and it was very hard in others. It takes a great deal of work to distill the essence of the ideas and find the right way to communicate them visually that’s both entertaining and accurate. Sometimes there can be a tension between wanting something to be more entertaining yet having to be well aware of what that might be doing to the accuracy of the science. For me, it was constantly keeping a watch out to make sure that the science ultimately was dictating what we could and couldn’t do.

NOVA: You’ve published a bestselling book. You’ve acted in musicals. You’ve won judo tournaments. You’ve even appeared on Late Night with Conan O’Brien. Do such pursuits bring new perspective to your work as a theoretical physicist, or are they just welcome relief from the mental grind?

Greene: Well, certainly they’re welcome relief. But my feeling is that the creative impulse, and the creative juices, are affected by everything in the life that you lead, sometimes in fairly intangible ways. When writing the book, for instance, I found myself—again, similar to working on the NOVA program—forcing myself to try to see to the heart of the science, so that I could communicate it in a way that would strip away the technical details that people don’t really want to hear much about, especially if one isn’t trained in these ideas. That helped me to get a clearer overview of where the field was and where it was going and what the important questions are. In that way, it did help set me on a particular course of scientific research that I’m now engaged in. I’m not sure if I’d be doing exactly what I’m doing right now were it not for writing The Elegant Universe.

NOVA: You’re just finishing up a new book. What’s that about?

Greene: That book is about space and time. The Elegant Universe was about the search for the unified theory, and space and time were supporting characters in that story. In this new book, space and time are the main characters. It’s really a discussion of our ever-changing grasp of what these seemingly simple notions of space and time actually are.

NOVA: You mentioned unified field theory. If string theory does lead to the so-called “theory of everything”—I know you don’t like that term much—where would theoretical physicists go from there?

Greene: Well, I think an analogy that I believe Richard Feynman once used is probably the best one to explain where we would be. If you are learning the game of chess, the first thing you have to do is learn the rules. But after you’ve learned the rules, the game of chess for you is not over. It’s just beginning, because now you can apply those rules to play all sorts of wonderful games that involve all kinds of strategy and allow you to explore the richness of that universe.

“A unified theory would put us at the doorstep of a vast universe of things that we could finally explore with precision.”

Similarly, if we did finally have the unified theory, if we did finally have the deep laws of the universe in hand, that in a very real sense would also be a beginning. It would be the beginning of our quest to use that deep understanding to fully explore this universe, to fully understand black holes and stars and galaxies and even the big bang, to fully understand how things got to be the way they are. So in many ways, it would just be the start. A unified theory would put us at the doorstep of a vast universe of things that we could finally explore with precision.

Related posts:

1. Big Bang & Quran
2. Science & Religion
3. Before the 1st day, where was God and what was He doing?

The distance to the sun is not a constant; so as the distance to the sun increases the difference in energy causes the length of the lunar orbit to change. When the Earth-moon system exits the solar system 12000 Lunar Orbits / Earth Day becomes equal to the speed of light. Hence, if it is defined inside the gravitational field of the sun then this definition will be wrong with time; however since it is defined outside the gravitational field of the sun then this definition will be true for ever!

Related posts:

1. String Theory in Quran
2. The Quran, Water & Plate Tectonics

Some of the words and
how many times they were mentioned in the Holy Quran

Done by Dr. Tariq Al Suwaidan

Related posts:

1. Big Bang & Quran

“So this day We shall deliver your (dead) body (out from the sea) that you may be a sign to those who come after you! And verily, many among mankind are heedless of Our Ayat (proofs, evidences, verses, lessons, signs , revelations, etc.).” (The Quran, 10:92)

An impartial scientist like Dr. Bucaille, who (being also a Christian) was conversant with the Biblical version of Pharaoh’s story as being drowned in pursuit of Prophet Moses. He was pleasantly surprised to learn that unknown to the world till only of late 20th century, the Holy Quran made definite prediction about the preservation of the body of that same Pharaoh of Moses’ time. This led Dr. Bucaille to study the Holy Quran thoroughly after learning the Arabic language and accepted Islam as the truth.

The body of Pharaoh is now lying in a Cairo museum as an open miracle of the Holy Quran, for those who pay heed to the signs of Allah.

Here is a a clip giving more details…

No related posts.

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2. Are There Contradictions within the Quran
3. Miracles of Qur’an

I mean, when i read about birds being suspended in air only because of the power of God, and a boy and a dog going into a cave and sleeping for 309 years, it at least makes me go “Hmmmm.”

Do you not question why your are called to pray 5 times a day when it was originally 50. Who really made those rules up? My guess is that you’re going to tell me that God did.”

Answer:

As for questioning anything within the Qur’an, there are two ways to do that. One is to say, subjectively, that I have no doubts in myself and I already have all knowledge, I understand all methods of logic. Therefore I can question anything within the Qur’an because I doubt the Qur’an, but I don’t doubt my own judgment, which is impossible for any human being and any human being claiming such would be delusional.

Second way, which only the smartest of human beings can do, is to say my judgement is not the best, I am a human being and am not aware of all methods of logic, so therefore the best way to judge is to look for inconsistencies. So that would require that where the Qur’an is saying something is miraculous, you look for coherence or inconsistencies. So yes, where the Qur’an is mentioning things that seem miraculous, the Qur’an is saying it is miraculous, and in other areas where the Qur’an is not making such a claim, it is consistent with human knowledge. For example, the people in the cave that slept for 300 years, the Qur’an is saying this is a miraculous event. So the claim is not inconsistent, it is saying it was not a normal human experience. And where the Qur’an is claiming the universe is expanding, it is not claiming that to be a supernatural miraculous event, but rather a sign of God that can be observed and researched by human beings, and it is a statement of fact.
As for why 50 prayers became 5 prayers, again this is an issue that can be easily understood by the following fact: The God of the Qur’an claims that He created a “worshipping” universe, and that this universe is always in obedience to Him and His laws. And it is God’s due right as The Maker and King of the universe, that human beings basically worship all the time. however God knows that God created human beings with many other needs. So He reduced the number from 50 to 5. This is an issue that is very subjective and doesn’t negate or prove the Truth of a religion.
However, the only point I’m trying to make here is that if there was a God, as described in Qur’an, then He does have the right to expect to be worshipped all the time, as it is consistent with the Qur’an that the whole universe is worshipping Him. Now let me turn the question around to you: You asked me if I find anything in the Qur’an that I would question. The question to you is, don’t you find anything in the Qur’an that amazes you that it is in the Qur’an? In other words, how many unexplainable facts do you need to see in the Qur’an before you would say, “Okay, this is divine,” because we have already discussed a few.
Now let us take this a little bit further. There is always a claim and then one sees if the claim is consistent or inconsistent. So the claim is Moses parted the sea. That claim becomes consistent when it is understood that it is not a normal event, but is a supernatural event. I would say to you, that when the Qur’an is talking about all life originates in water, the universe is expanding, the planets are on their orbits… When the Qur’an is saying these things, it is a claim that is understood in the context that not only are these true claims, but these true claims were made at a time where it was seemingly impossible for human beings to imagine these facts. Let me ask you, if you were with Moses and saw the seas part, or if Jesus came to you and made the dead come out of the graves, or if I come to you with a book with hundreds of claims about the universe that we live in, and about human nature that, we’ve only come to know today that were not known 1400 years ago, which of these three is a greater miracle? I would suggest that a miracle that can be examined over and over again, like a book, a miracle that is always there to be touched, read, understood, researched, is far greater than a miracle or an illusion that is done before us at any given point within our lives and cannot be reinvestigated.
The opportunity you have here is far greater than most people who saw the seas part because you always have the Qur’an with you, and the facts are with you too. I just want to make you aware that you can still question anything, you can rationalize anything, like why the seas parted, why the dead weren’t really dead when they came out of the grave, or why the Qur’an says this or that, but how can you rationalize how the Qur’an states facts regarding biology, astronomy, zoology, botany, human life, hundreds and hundreds of claims…? Those claims that are not under the title of miraculousness, yet there are no inconsistencies. How do you rationalize that with a book like Qur’an?

Mustafa Masih

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Here is a rebuttal video to the kabaa being the in the Golden Ratio of the earth. The video makes three points…..the last of these points is that the calculations show the real location of the Golden Ratio is 266 kilometer from of Mecca. If this is correct (even though it is still within the area that is sacred to Muslims),it must be kept in mind that the golden ratio is not an exactly ratio standard that is applied to everything in the universe, rather it always has an artistic element, that allows some flexibility. For example, the Golden Ratio that exists between the length of the hands and the arms. It is within the golden ratio, but it is not an exact measurement. So, the fact, the Golden Ratio falls within the area of mecca is still very amazing. The second point in the video is, is the golden ratio so important? A good question, the answer is of course, any artist understands this. In fact, it is used in the markets when making technical financial decisions. One can do their own research on this issue or see our post on golden ratio in our existence of God section. The first point made was, there are so many numbers that can fit in so many ways, if one looks to fit for example the number 3 into everything, they will find it everywhere. However, the difference here that must be pointed out is that the Golden Ratio being mentioned here is at the global level, its the earth itself, it not a particular event, that would be a single event among hundreds.

Related posts:

1. Golden Ratio & Existence of God
2. Inside Mecca (National Geographic Documentary)

Peace be upon those who follow the guidance:

Newton and his buddy M. Rafiqul-Haqq published a list of grammatical errors in the Qur’ân in 1996. Most of us are unaware that the famous orientalist of our times John Burton wrote a paper called the Linguistic Errors In The Qur’ân in the Journal Of Semitic Studies, Volume XXXIII/2, Autumn 1988. He dealt with the hadîth of A’isha(R) where she has supposed to have said that the ayahs 4:162, 5:69 and 20:63 are grammatically incorrect. Burton also dealt with the ayah 2:177 to show its grammatical inconsistency. These four verses are also dealt by Newton et al. in their homepage.

In 1992, M A S Abdel Haleem, a Professor from School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, London (UK) published a paper called Grammatical Shift For The Rhetorical Purposes: Iltifât And Related Features In The Qur’ân, in the Bulletin of School of Oriental and African Studies, Volume LV, Part 3. In this paper, he not only dealt with the so-called-linguistic (grammatical) errors published by John Burton, but also showed that people need to be thorough in classical Arabic before saying anything about the Qur’ân and its grammatical structure. Most of the discussion on Iltifât below is taken from this paper.

To begin with: Iltifât means to ‘turn/turn one’s face to’. It is an important part of balâgha (Arabic rhetoric) where there is a sudden shift in the pronoun of the speaker or the person spoken about. Muslim literary critics over the centuries have greatly admired this technique. Iltifât has been called by rhetoricians shajâ’at al-’arabiyya as it shows, in their opinion, the daring nature of the Arabic language. If any ‘daring’ is to be attached to it, it should above all be the daring of the language of the Qur’ân since it employs this feature far more extensively and in more variations than does Arabic poetry. Most of the authors who talk about iltifât use the examples from the Qur’ân. No one seems to quote references in prose other than from the Qur’ân: and indeed a sampling of hadith material found not a single instance.

The types of iltifât and related features are of following types:

1. Changes in person, between 1st, 2nd and 3rd person, which is the most common and is usually divided into six kinds. The four important examples that are found in the Qur’ân are:

Transition from the 3rd to 1st person. This is the most common type. Over 140 instances can be found in the Qur’ân.
From 1st to 3rd person – nearly 100 such instances can be found in the Qur’ân.
From 3rd to 2nd person – nearly 60 instances.
From 2nd to 3rd person – under 30 instances.
2. Change in the number, between singular, dual and plural.

3. Change in the addressee.

4. Change in the tense of the verb.

5. Change in the case marker.

6. Using noun in the place of pronoun.

Examples from the Qur’ân of the above mentioned cases can be seen in M A S Abdel Haleem’s paper. The so-called-grammatical errors in ayahs 4:162, 5:69, 20:63 and 2:177 are already dealt by him. Interested persons can read his paper which is online. The Investigating Islam website deals with iltifât and other grammatical constructions to refute Newton’s material.

Muhammad Ghoneim from France had dealt with the issue of grammatical errors at Newton’s website by quoting the Arabic grammarians. He has brought to our notice some very interesting points.

Apart from this, we also have the first refutation by Brother Wail Ibrahim which appeared on soc.religion.islam newsgroup that can be viewed here.

We are also tempted to add that Newton did not even mention that the hadîth of A’isha(R) is considered to be weak by the hadîth specialists. One can only presuppose that in the spirit of deception, such arrogant and authoritative charges are made possible through the suppression of facts and selective argumentation.

And Allah knows best!

Source: http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Text/Grammar/gramrefut.html

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Plate Tectonics Started Over 4 Billion Years Ago, Geochemists Report

ScienceDaily (Nov. 27, 2008) — A new picture of the early Earth is emerging, including the surprising finding that plate tectonics may have started more than 4 billion years ago — much earlier than scientists had believed, according to new research by UCLA geochemists reported Nov. 27 in the journal Nature.

“We are proposing that there was plate-tectonic activity in the first 500 million years of Earth’s history,” said geochemistry professor Mark Harrison, director of UCLA’s Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics and co-author of the Nature paper. “We are reporting the first evidence of this phenomenon.”

“Unlike the longstanding myth of a hellish, dry, desolate early Earth with no continents, it looks like as soon as the Earth formed, it fell into the same dynamic regime that continues today,” Harrison said. “Plate tectonics was inevitable, life was inevitable. In the early Earth, there appear to have been oceans; there could have been life — completely contradictory to the cartoonish story we had been telling ourselves.”

“We’re revealing a new picture of what the early Earth might have looked like,” said lead author Michelle Hopkins, a UCLA graduate student in Earth and space sciences. “In high school, we are taught to see the Earth as a red, hellish, molten-lava Earth. Now we’re seeing a new picture, more like today, with continents, water, blue sky, blue ocean, much earlier than we thought.”

The Earth is 4.5 billion years old. Some scientists think plate tectonics — the geological phenomenon involving the movement of huge crustal plates that make up the Earth’s surface over the planet’s molten interior — started 3.5 billion years ago, others that it began even more recently than that.

The research by Harrison, Hopkins and Craig Manning, a UCLA professor of geology and geochemistry, is based on their analysis of ancient mineral grains known as zircons found inside molten rocks, or magmas, from Western Australia that are about 3 billion years old. Zircons are heavy, durable minerals related to the synthetic cubic zirconium used for imitation diamonds and costume jewelry. The zircons studied in the Australian rocks are about twice the thickness of a human hair.

Hopkins analyzed the zircons with UCLA’s high-resolution ion microprobe, an instrument that enables scientists to date and learn the exact composition of samples with enormous precision. The microprobe shoots a beam of ions, or charged atoms, at a sample, releasing from the sample its own ions, which are then analyzed in a mass spectrometer. Scientists can aim the beam of ions at specific microscopic areas of a sample and conduct a high-resolution isotope analysis of them without destroying the object.

“The microprobe is the perfect tool for determining the age of the zircons,” Harrison said.

The analysis determined that some of the zircons found in the magmas were more than 4 billion years old. They were also found to have been formed in a region with heat flow far lower than the global average at that time.

“The global average heat flow in the Earth’s first 500 million years was thought to be about 200 to 300 milliwatts per meter squared,” Hopkins said. “Our zircons are indicating a heat flow of just 75 milliwatts per meter squared — the figure one would expect to find in subduction zones, where two plates converge, with one moving underneath the other.”

“The data we are reporting are from zircons from between 4 billion and 4.2 billion years ago,” Harrison said. “The evidence is indirect, but strong. We have assessed dozens of scenarios trying to imagine how to create magmas in a heat flow as low as we have found without plate tectonics, and nothing works; none of them explain the chemistry of the inclusions or the low melting temperature of the granites.”

Evidence for water on Earth during the planet’s first 500 million years is now overwhelming, according to Harrison.

“You don’t have plate tectonics on a dry planet,” he said.

Strong evidence for liquid water at or near the Earth’s surface 4.3 billion years ago was presented by Harrison and colleagues in a Jan. 11, 2001, cover story in Nature.

“Five different lines of evidence now support that once radical hypothesis,” Harrison said. “The inclusions we found tell us the zircons grew in water-saturated magmas. We now observe a surprisingly low geothermal gradient, a low rate at which temperature increases in the Earth. The only mechanism that we recognize that is consistent with everything we see is that the formation of these zircons was at a plate-tectonic boundary. In addition, the chemistry of the inclusions in the zircons is characteristic of the two kinds of magmas today that we see at place-tectonic boundaries.”

“We developed the view that plate tectonics was impossible in the early Earth,” Harrison added. “We have now made observations from the Hadean (the Earth’s earliest geological eon) — these little grains contain a record about the conditions under which they formed — and the zircons are telling us that they formed in a region with anomalously low heat flow. Where in the modern Earth do you have heat flow that is one-third of the global average, which is what we found in the zircons? There is only one place where you have heat flow that low in which magmas are forming: convergent plate-tectonic boundaries.”

Three years ago, Harrison and his colleagues applied a technique to determine the temperature of ancient zircons.

“We discovered the temperature at which these zircons formed was constant and very low,” Harrison said. “You can’t make a magma at any lower temperature than what we’re seeing in these zircons. You look at artists’ conceptions of the early Earth, with flying objects from outer space making large craters; that should make zircons hundreds of degrees centigrade hotter than the ones we see. The only way you can make zircons at the low temperature we see is if the melt is water-saturated. There had to be abundant water. That’s a big surprise because our longstanding conception of the early Earth is that it was dry.”

“Say O Prophet: Have you considered that if, suddenly, one morning you found that you water has become deeply sunken in the ground.  Who, then, would bring you water, fresh flowing and clean?” (Surah 67:30)

“He is the One who has made the earth yielding of all its resources to you, so walk through its diverse regions, and eat of His provisions, and in the to Him is your return” (Surah 67:15)

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2. Big Bang & Quran

So this world must also have a pair.

Many of the basic teachings of the Qur’an can be well understood in the light of modern knowledge. The Qur’an says, for example, that this world is not the final one; after it will come another world. At present, that world is invisible to us, but it is present nonetheless; it exists in real and absolute form. Early theologians resorted to speculation in support of this claim. But the proof that the Qur’an has given is one that can be better understood when put to the test of scientific investigation.

The Qur’an says: And all things We made in pairs, so that you may give thought. (51:49)

Everything is in accordance with this law of nature. Nothing is complete without its pair. So this world must also have a pair, for only then will it be complete. It is this pair of the present world that is called the hereafter.

It was known in ancient times that there were pairs in the human and animal worlds. Later on man learnt of pairs in trees and plants. In 1928, however, it was discovered that solid matter also had a pair. In that year the British physicist Paul Dirac demonstrated the possibility of other, invisible particles existing alongside those of matter. Then, in 1932, K. Anderson discovered, while studying cosmic rays, that with electrons there were other particles with an opposite electric charge. These particles were called anti-electrons. This research was pursued further and finally it was learnt that all particles in the universe existed in the form of pair-particles: particle and anti-particle, atom and anti-atom, matter and anti-matter; there was even, as Dirac showed in 1933, an anti-world.

Many present-day scientists are of the opinion that this anti-world is an entity apart from us, having a parallel existence of its own. This world is made up of matter; according to the law of opposites there should be another world made up of anti-matter. It is estimated that 20 million years ago, when the Big Bang explosion occurred, photon-matter and anti-matter came together in two separate forms. The two then started to form the world and the anti-world.

The first people to work on this theory were a Swedish pair, physicist Osker Klein and astrophysicist Hannes Alven. The results of their research were published in 1963. The Soviet mathematician, Dr Gustav Naan, further consolidated the theory. According to him, the anti-world cannot be fully explained by known theories and laws of physics, yet he is convinced that the anti-world exists, even now. It is, however, independent of us, existing on its own, parallel to this world. In the present world all anti-particles are in an unstable condition; but in the anti-world they will all be stable, for the nuclei of atoms have a negative electric charge, while electrons are positively charged.Since this world is ephemeral, it follows that the anti-world, or to use its religious term, the hereafter, must be an eternal world. The discoveries of modern science, then, have given us a picture of the next world which accords with that of the Qur’an.

Maulana Wahiduddin Khan

more books by Wahiduddin Khan at www.furqaanbookstore.com

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