The Twentieth Word
The Qur’an’s miraculous eloquence and its references to modern scientific developments
Two stations
In the Name of God, the All-Merciful, the All-Compassionate.
FIRST STATION: Consider the following verses:
When We said unto the angels: “Prostrate before Adam,” they fell prostrate, but Iblis did not (though he received the same order). (2:34)
God commands you to sacrifice a cow. (2:67)
Yet after all this your hearts were hardened and become like rocks or even harder. (2:74)
Once, Satan suggested three things about these verses:
You say that the Qur’an is a miracle of infinite eloquence and guidance for everyone forever. So why does it persistently repeat, in a sort of historical manner, certain insignificant events like slaughtering a cow and even naming the longest sura (al-Baqara means “The Cow”) after that event? Also, the angels’ prostrating before Adam is a matter of the Unseen and reason cannot comprehend it. It may be accepted and affirmed only after one has attained a strong belief, and yet the Qur’an addresses all those who have reason or intellect and frequently warns: ‘Will they not reason and understand?’ Additionally, what kind of guidance is intended by describing so forcefully certain natural conditions of rocks that are only results of chance?
The following points occurred to me.
FIRST POINT: The wise Qur’an contains many particular events, each of which hides a universal principle and presents the tip of a general law. For example: (He) taught Adam the names of all of them (2:31) states that Adam was taught “the names” as a miracle to show his superiority over the angels in being favored with ruling the earth in God’s name. Although this seems a small and particular event, it constitutes a tip of the following universal principle: Due to its comprehensive nature, humanity was taught (or given the potential to obtain) a great deal of information, many sciences concerning all aspects of the universe, and vast knowledge about the Creator’s essential Qualities, Attributes and acts. All of this made humanity superior to the angels, the heavens, the earth, and the mountains, for only humanity could bear the Supreme Trust. It also made humanity the earth’s ruler in God’s name.
Likewise, the angels’ prostration before Adam, in contrast with Satan’s rejection, is a small, particular event in the Unseen. However, it is the tip of a most comprehensive and universally observed principle and suggests a most extensive truth: By mentioning their obedience and submission and Satan’s haughty refusal, the Qur’an shows that most material beings in the universe and their spiritual representatives are subjugated to us and ever ready to satisfy our needs and desires. In addition, it warns us about how terrible enemies and great obstacles on our path of progress toward perfection are evil beings and their immaterial representatives, as well as the earth’s devilish inhabitants who corrupt our potential for perfection and seduce us into wrong paths. Thus, while narrating a particular event pertaining to a single individual (Adam), the Qur’an of miraculous exposition holds an elevated discourse with all creation and humanity.
SECOND POINT: Although part of the Sahara desert, the bounteous gifts of the blessed Nile have made Egypt a fertile, arable land. Such a blessed, paradise-like land being adjacent to the hellish Sahara caused farming and agriculture to be so established in the Egyptians’ very nature that agriculture became sanctified and cows and bulls became objects of worship. In fact, the Egyptians of Prophet Moses’ time actually worshipped cows and bulls, as can be seen by the Jews making a calf to worship years after the Exodus. The wise Qur’an explains by the account of a cow being slaughtered that through his Messengership, Prophet Moses, upon him be peace, eradicated this ingrained concept. Thus this apparently insignificant event points to a universal principle with an elevated miraculousness, and expounds upon it as a most essential lesson of wisdom for everyone at all times.
By analogy, certain minor incidents mentioned in the Qur’an as historical events are tips of universal principles. In Lema‘at, under the title of “Gleams of miraculousness in the repetition of the story of Prophet Moses in the Qur’an” I used, as examples, the seven sentences of Moses’ story to explain how each part of those particular sentences contains a significant universal principle.
THIRD POINT: Consider the following verse:
Yet after all this your hearts were hardened and became like rocks, or even harder: For there are rocks from which rivers gush, and some from which, when they are cleft, water issues; and some which fall down for awe of God. God is not unaware of what you do. (2:74)
While reciting this verse, Satan the deceitful asked: “Why are certain natural conditions of rocks, which are known to everyone, mentioned as if they were among the most important issues?” In response, the following point issued from the enlightenment of the Qur’an: It is appropriate to do so, and there is a need for it. For it contains a profound truth, which has been simplified and summarized through the Qur’an’s miraculous conciseness and bounty of guidance and enlightenment.
Conciseness is a foundation of the Qur’an’s miraculousness, and bountiful enlightenment and beauty of explanation are parts of its guidance. These qualities require that universal truths and profound yet general principles be presented in simple terms to the broad masses that make up the majority of the Qur’an’s audience. As most people are not deep thinkers, it requires that only their tips and simple forms should be shown. Also all events, each a Divine operation whose extraordinary character is veiled by familiarity, should be pointed out briefly.
Thus, because of this subtle reality, the Qur’an says in this verse:
O Children of Israel and children of Adam! What has happened to you that your hearts have become harder and more lifeless than rocks? Look at those very hard, lifeless, large rocks formed in vast underground strata. See how obedient and submissive they are to Divine commands, how permeable and open they are to His Lordship’s acts. This is so clear that the ease with which the Divine operations form trees can be seen with the same ease, order, and perfect wisdom underground. Water flows in well-arranged water channels and veins through those hard, deaf rocks without resistance, just like blood circulating in veins.78 Just as tree and plant branches spread easily in the air, the roots’ delicate veins spread underground with the same ease and lack of resistance from rocks.
The Qur’an points to this and teaches a comprehensive truth through that verse, and so by allusion says to the hard-hearted:
O Children of Israel and children of Adam! You are weak and impotent, and yet you can make your hearts so hard that they resist the Divine Being’s commands. Whereas huge strata of hard rocks perform their subtle tasks perfectly in darkness and in total submission to His commands. They act as a source of water and other means of life for all living creatures in such a way, and as means for their division and distribution with such wisdom and justice, that they are as malleable as wax or even air in the hand of Power of the All-Wise One of Majesty. Without resistance, they prostrate before His Power’s vastness, for almost the same well-arranged occurrences and wise and gracious Divine operations that we see above ground take place underground.
Moreover, Divine wisdom and favor are manifested there in a more wonderful and more wondrous manner than they are above ground. Consider how soft the hardest and most unfeeling huge rocks are toward God’s commands and laws of creation and administration, and how unresisting and flexible they are to the pleasant waters, delicate roots, and silk-like veins that act according to His command. Like a lover, the rock smashes its heart at the touch of those delicate, beautiful things and becomes soft soil in their path.
Also, through the sentence in the verse and there are some which fall down for awe of God, the Qur’an displays the tip of a tremendous truth: When Prophet Moses, upon him be peace, asked for a vision of God while standing at the foot of a mountain, the mountain crumbled at the Divine manifestation and its rocks were scattered. Like this, through Divine Majesty’s awesome manifestations like earthquakes and similar geological events, rocks fall from summits, which are usually like huge monoliths formed of thickened fluid, and are shattered. Some of these crumble and become soil for the growth of plants; others remain as rocks and are scattered down to the valleys and plains.
They serve many purposes for the earth’s inhabitants, as in their houses. In utter submission to Divine Power and Wisdom, and for certain hid den purposes and benefits, they stand ready to be used in accordance with the principles of Divine Wisdom. Not in vain, or because of accident or random chance, do they leave their positions at the summit out of awe of God and choose the lower places in humility, becoming the means of those significant benefits. Rather, such events occur by an All-Wise and All Powerful One’s wise operation, and there is a wise order in such seemingly chaotic events invisible to the superficial eye. This is demonstrated by the purposes and benefits for which these rocks are made to serve, as well as by the perfect order and fine artistry in the “garments” adorned and embossed with the jewels of fruits and flowers with which the “body” of the mountains down which they roll are clothed.
Thus, you have seen the value of the verse’s three parts from the view point of wisdom. See the Qur’an’s fine manner of expression and miraculous eloquence, how through those three well-known and observed events mentioned in the three parts of a single verse, it shows the tips of the comprehensive and significant truths discussed above. Also, by reminding in the same three parts of three further events, each of which is a means of taking a les son, it offers a fine guidance and restrains in a way that cannot be resisted.
For example, the verse’s second part says: and there are some from which, when they are cleft, water issues. By referring to the rock cleft with “complete eagerness” when Prophet Moses struck it with his staff, and the subsequent pouring forth of twelve streams from twelve sources, it means:
O Children of Israel! Large rocks soften and smash in the face of a single miracle of Moses. While they become tears out of awe or joy, how can you be so unjust and merciless as to remain obstinate and tearless when confronted with all of Moses’ miracles? Are your eyes so dried and your hearts so hard?
In the third part, it says: and there are some which fall down for awe of God. By recalling the well-known event of the mountain crumbling and the rocks rolling down out of awe at the manifestation of Divine Majesty, which took place at Mount Sinai when Moses, upon him be peace, supplicated for a vision of God, it gives the following lesson:
O People of Moses! You do not fear God, yet mountains formed of rocks crumble in awe of Him. You witness that He held Mount Sinai above you to receive your solemn promise of loyalty to Him, and that the mountain crumbled when Moses prayed for the Divine vision. Yet how is that you are so bold that you do not tremble out of fear of God, and you keep your hearts so hard and unfeeling?
In the first part, it says: for there are rocks from which rivers gush. By recalling such rivers as the Nile, the Tigris, and the Euphrates, which gush out of mountains, it points out how wonderfully and miraculously rocks are susceptible and subjugated to the Divine commands of creation. To awakened, attentive hearts, this means:
The mountains cannot be the actual source of such mighty rivers, for even if they were formed completely of water, they could supply such a river for only a few months. Also rain, which penetrates only about a meter underground, cannot be sufficient income for that high expenditure. No ordinary reason, natural cause, or chance can explain these rivers’ sources and flow. The All-Majestic Creator makes them flow forth in truly wonderful fashion from an unseen “treasury.”
One Tradition refers to this: “Every minute a drop falls from Paradise into each of those three rivers. That is why they flow abundantly.” Another Tradition states: “The source of these three rivers is in Paradise.”79 That is, as physical causes cannot produce their abundant flow, their sources must be in an unseen world, a hidden treasury of Mercy, so that the balance between incoming and outgoing water is maintained. By drawing attention to this meaning, the Qur’an gives the following instruction:
O Children of Israel and children of Adam! Your hardness of heart and lack of feeling cause you to disobey the commandments of such a One of Majesty, and your heedlessness causes you to close your eyes to the light of knowledge of such an Everlasting Sun that by causing mighty rivers like the Nile to gush from the mouths of ordinary, solid rocks and turn Egypt into a paradise, He offers to the universe’s heart and the earth’s mind miracles of His Power and witnesses to His Oneness as strong and abundant as the gushing forth and flow of those mighty rivers, and makes them flow to the hearts and minds of jinn and humanity. Further, it shows the All-Majestic Creator as the sunlight shows the sun that He makes some hard, unfeeling rocks the objects of the miracles of His Power in such wonderful fashion.80 How is it then that you are so blind to the light of His knowledge and do not see the truth?
See how eloquently the Qur’an expresses these truths. Note the guidance of that eloquence. What hardness of heart and lack of feeling cannot be melted by its “heat?” If you have understood my words, see one guiding gleam of the Qur’an’s miraculousness and thank God.
All-Glorified are You. We have no knowledge save what You have taught us. Surely You are the All-Knowing, the All-Wise.
O God, enable us to understand the mysteries of the Qur’an as You like and approve, and grant us success in the service of it. Amin, through Your Mercy, O Most Merciful of the Merciful.
O God, bestow blessings and peace upon the one to whom the wise Qur’an was sent, and upon his Family and Companions altogether.
SECOND STATION: (A gleam of the Qur’an’s miraculousness, which shines through the Prophets’ miracles.) Notice the two questions and their answers at the end.
In the name of God, the All-Merciful, the All-Compassionate.
Not a thing, fresh or withered, wet or dry, but it is in a Manifest Book. (6:59)
Several years ago in my Isharatul-I’jaz (Signs of Miraculousness),81 I discussed in Arabic one meaning of this verse. Now two of my brothers-in-religion, whose wishes are important to me, have asked for a Turkish explanation of that discussion. Relying on Almighty God’s help, and based on the
Qur’an’s enlightenment, I write what follows.
According to one interpretation, the Manifest Book is the Qur’an. This verse states that everything is found in it. This is true. However, we must realize that things are found at different levels. They are presented as seeds, nuclei, summaries, principles or signs, as well as explicitly or implicitly, allusively, vaguely or suggestively. Depending on the occasion, one form is preferred to best convey the Qur’an’s purposes and meet the context’s requirements. For example, progress in science and industry has resulted in air planes, electricity, motorized transportation, and radio and telecommunication, and so on. Such things occupy a prominent position in our daily lives. As the Qur’an addresses humanity [at all times], it does not ignore these developments; rather, it points to them either through the Prophets’ miracles or in connection with certain historical events. For example:
Down with the makers of the trench of the fuel-fed fire. When they sat by it, and were themselves the witnesses of what they did to the believers. They ill-treated them for no other reason than that they believed in God, the All-Glorious and Mighty, the All-Praised One. (85:4-8)82
... in the loaded fleet. And We have created for them the like there of, whereon they ride. (36:41-42)
Such verses point to trains, while the following verse, besides its many other meanings and connotations, alludes to electricity:
God is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The parable of His Light is as a niche wherein is a lamp. The lamp is in a glass, and the glass is, as it were, a shining star kindled from a blessed olive tree, neither of the east nor the west, whose oil would almost glow forth (of itself) though no fire touched it: light upon light.83 God guides to His Light whom He wills. (24:35)
Since many people have analyzed verses of the second type, those alluding to modern technology in connection with historical events, and since they require much care and detailed explanation, as well as being very numerous, I will content myself with the two verses alluding to trains and electricity. Instead, I will discuss certain verses that point to modern scientific progress and technological wonders through Prophets’ miracles.
Bediuzzaman Said Nursi
78 It is only fitting that the Qur’an should explain the three important tasks that the All Majestic Creator entrusted to rock strata, the foundation of the magnificent, moving palace that we call the earth. The first task: Just as the earth acts, by the Lord’s Power, as a “mother” to plants and raises them, so by the Divine Power do the rocks act as a “nurse” to the earth and “raise” it. The second task: They serve the orderly circulation of water in the earth’s body, like the circulation of blood [in our bodies]. The third task: They act as a “treasurer” to the appearance and continuation, with well-ordered balance, of springs and rivers, sources and streams. Rocks “write” and scatter over the earth’s face “evidences” of Divine Unity that they cause to flow, with all their strength, in “mouthfuls” in the form of water, which serves life.
79 al-Bukhari, “Ashriba” 12; Muslim, “Iman” 264; al-Baghdadi, Tarikhu’l-Baghdad, 1:55. (Tr.)
80 One of the Nile’s main branches rises in the mountains in central Africa, the Tigris’ main branch rises in a cave in Turkey, and one of the Euphrates’s main streams rises at the foothills of a mountain in Diyadin. It is scientifically established that mountains are rocks solidified from liquid matter. One of the Prophet’s glorifications—All-Glorified is He Who spread out soil on solidified liquid—testifies that the earth’s original formation is as follows: Some liquid matter solidified at Divine command and became rock, and then rock became soil. In other words, the liquid matter was too soft to settle on, and the rock was too hard to benefit from. Therefore, the All-Wise and Compassionate One spread soil over the rock and made it a place of habitation for living beings.
81 Isharatu’l-I’jaz is a commentary on Suratu’l-Fatiha and the initial 32 verses of Suratu’l-Baqara.
82 These verses allude to trains, which offered great advantage to the unbelievers in bringing the Muslim world under their control.
83 The phrases: whose oil would almost glow forth (of itself) though no fire touched it: light upon light makes the allusion clearer.