#8 The Quran: Knowledge from a Divine Source

Islam’s Holy Book, the Quran, contains guidance covering all areas of human life and activity. As a religious scripture, its ultimate goal is to guide human beings to salvation; hence the Quran’s most essential knowledge is concerned with what one must believe and do in order to enter Paradise on the Last Day. This essential knowledge includes knowledge of the right relationship with God, leading to faith; knowledge of the necessary practices to safeguard faith; and knowledge of the right relationships between human beings and the natural world, in order to establish a just and balanced society in which faith may grow.

Yet for the guiding knowledge of the Quran to have a spiritually transforming effect, it must be approached with respect and humility. No amount of objective historical and linguistic study will capture the Quran’s spiritual wisdom; spiritual truth can only enter a surrendered heart and mind.

Although spiritual surrender cannot exist in an arrogant or doubt-infested mind, at the same time, it cannot be attained through intellectual suppression. Instead, the mind must let go of mental obstacles through loving trust in the Creator’s guidance. This trusting surrender renders the mind receptive to guidance and knowledge beyond its human limits. In Islam, the human intellect is not the ultimate source of truth, yet it has an important role in reaffirming God’s revealed truth, as well as in implementing this truth through righteous actions in the world. Furthermore, the Quran commands humankind to study the wonders of God in creation. By using the intellect as it was intended, it becomes a valuable resource in strengthening faith in the Creator, and in deepening one’s reverence for God’s infinite wisdom inherent in the natural and cosmic order.

To help human beings gain this trusting surrender, God refers to signs and symbols that are known to man, leading him from things he knows to those things that are beyond human knowledge. For the seventh century Arabs, things which were known included the signs of nature: the sun, the moon, the stars, the mountains, the fig trees, the early light of dawn. The Quran refers to all of these natural elements that were significant to seventh century Arabs, and interwoven in their daily life.

The Quran also refers to many natural phenomena unknown in the seventh century. Human embryonic development is described in great accuracy and detail, revealing facts unknown to the scientific community until the twentieth century. Similarly, the Quran describes the geographical features of mountain pegs or roots, a concept not introduced to modern thinking before 1865. Other natural phenomena described in the Quran include the origins of the universe, the divide between fresh water and salt water seas, deeps seas and internal waves, the water cycle, the production of milk in grazing animals. In all cases, the knowledge revealed in the Quran was completely unknown to the seventh century world, but is in perfect accord with the latest findings from modern scientific research.

The miraculous nature of the scientific information contained in the Quran has led numerous scientists to conclude that the Quran cannot be a manmade document, but must originate from a Divine source.

Acquiring scientific knowledge is not the ultimate goal of a believer. Yet the clearly miraculous scientific knowledge revealed in the Quran helps our minds and hearts trust its Divine origins. And through trusting surrender we become receptive to the Quran’s most essential knowledge; that is the knowledge that leads us to meet God with a pure heart and gain salvation on the Last Day.