     Organizer | Friday, December 08, 2000 - 08:09 am
MadMullah writes:
Many people who have limited or no knowledge of Islam, believe that Islam is all about
sins and rules.
Islam is a way of life, it is a culture, a religion, a belief system and science plays a major
role in Islam. Islam talks from astronomy to human embroyology, from the formation of
iron to the expansion of the universe.
I thought I might start this new thread and show the relationship between Islam and
many scientific concepts as we know them today.
HOW OLD IS THE EARTH?
The Bible provides a chronology of history that extends back to the creation of Adam
and Eve and to the creation of the earth. From this chronology it is possible to determine
the date of the creation and hence the age of the earth.
Archbishop Ussher of Armagh (1581-1657) had calculated the year of creation to be
4004 BC If that was not precise enough, Dr. Lightfoot of Cambridge worked out that the
exact time when God completed His creation was 9 a.m. on Friday, October 23, 4004 BC
(see the book whinking about God by Sr. R. W. Maqsood, p.63).
Many scientist on the other hand believe that the earth is 4.5 billion years old with a
maximum error of 2.2 % (see The Bible, the Quran and Science, p. 148)
The Quran, on the other hand, does not contain any historical or
scientific or any kind of error. God challenges us to test this claim by examining the book
for ourselves (see Quran 4:82).The Quran does not repeat the incorrect biblical
chronology we have seen above. The Quran does not give a chronology since its
purpose is not to provide us with the details of history, but only to teach us the lessons
arising from specific events in history. The Quran does, however tell us that God
measured the sustenance of the earth in four periods (Quran 41:10). As to what could be
the significance of these four periods, Dr. Bucaille comments as follows: "One could
perhaps see in them the four geological periods described by modern science, with
man's appearance, as we already know, taking place in the quaternary era. This is
purely a hypothesis since nobody has an answer to this question" (The Bible, the Quran
and Science, p. 150).
How did the author of the Quran avoid the mistake in chronology committed by so many
others, and believed in by so many others even up to our present day? Could a man in
the seventh century have known that the earth was much more than six thousand years
old? How could he come by this modern knowledge unless God was revealing knowledge
to him? God tells us that the Quran is His book and not the work of any man (see Quran
10:37). |
