Answering Christianity Research Center

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The work that you do is very important. May Allah reward you for your resilience and continued efforts.

What’s very interesting about this verse is 89:5 which says “fa” indicating a conjunction with the verses before talking about the star—we were created from the star! We are literally made of star material and star dust. All the water (H2O) in our bodies also came from stars. This is a recent scientific understanding—we recently confirmed that we are made from stars. Yet a 7th century Arab said this? We are being asked to believe by the nonbeliever that this is another one of those piling up coincidences? No. I don’t have that much faith.

Salamu-Alykum everyone here. I wanted to share with you this amazing discovery that Dr. Tarek Mustafa (I will link the video his team had created below).

[Quran 86:1] By the sky and the Tarriq
[Quran 86:2] And what can make you know what is the Tarriq
[Quran 86:3] It is the piercing star -
[Quran 86:4] There is no soul but that it has over it a protector.
[Quran 86:5] So ("fa") let man observe from what he was created.
[Quran 86:6] He was created from a fluid, ejected,
[Quran 86:7] Emerging from between the "backbone" and the "ribs".

Keep these verses above in mind. They are saying something extremely significant and to truly understand, you must understand the science and we will come back to these verses and the Arabic they use! Let's start with the video transcript:

Do you remember in school when we learned about the water cycle? How water evaporates then falls again as rain! But, there was always a lingering question in my mind. How did water first form on our planet in the first place? As the years passed, physicists have been able to answer this question. One in particular, Carl Sagan Asserted that water first arrived on our planet when stars first appears. Stars aren’t simply shiny things that twinkle in the night. Inside stars, a series of nuclear burning stages that transforms the star into an onion-like shell structure that produces heavier and heavier elements in various stages. Elements like silicone, neon, calcium, copper, chromium, carbon, oxygen. The list goes on and on, and this causes the star to expand more and more. The last element to be produced by the star, the one that sits in the very core of the star is iron, which makes the star resist any further compression and lose its ability to expand. The star then becomes a bloated ball of gas with a dense iron core slightly smaller than the size of planet Earth resting at the very center. No more energy can be produced by the iron core because iron doesn’t burn. This causes the star’s store of energy to become depleted. And it is this process that spells the end for the star. The end of a supermassive star results in an explosion: a supernova. After the star explodes in a supernova, it leaves behind its core as a remnant. The core of this remnant is more rigid than steel. This remnant is the densest star known to exist in the Universe. It’s called a neutron star or a pulsar. This pulsar is characterized by unique characteristics. Secondly, it punches holes in stellar disks ["piercing star"].

In NASA’s Chandra X-ray observatory, scientists have observed a pulsar punching a hole in a disk of gas or stellar disk around its companion star. They published this information along with an image of the pulsar on their website. In the form of stardust, supernova scatter the elements that surround the core of the star and that are made through nuclear fusion by the star out into the cosmos. And these are the same elements that make up other stars, planets and everything on Earth, including our bodies.

In her research work published in 2014, In astrophysics journal, Goranka Bilalbegović and her research team described exploding stars as cosmic cement mixers in order to explain the presence of building material in space. They recorded that when very massive stars die, they explode and litter space with a variety of elements. All the ingredients of cement have been found in such stellar remnants. Meaning that stardust is not just dust, it is cement like dust, which solidifies after being mixed with water. The oxygen synthesized in stars via nuclear reactions is dispersed with the stardust through the cosmos and combines for the first time with hydrogen to form water. And here lies the answer to the question I posed at the beginning. Where does water really come from? Water was formed and emerged for the first time from between the cement like dust and the remnant star core, which is more rigid than steel: the pulsar. Meaning that the dust grains that float through the solar system contain tiny pockets of water and water has been found trapped inside real stardust (ie. clay). Scientists believe that this stardust rained down continuously on young planet earth and brought with it the organic material needed for the eventual origins of life. The discovery of water in stardust suggests that the continuous stardust falls have acted as a continuous rainfall which brought water to our molten planet.

Now let's come back to the Quran:

[Quran 86:1] By the sky and the Tarriq
[Quran 86:2] And what can make you know what is the Tarriq
[Quran 86:3] It is the piercing star
[Quran 86:4] There is no soul but that it has over it a protector.
[Quran 86:5] So ("fa") let man observe from what he was created.
[Quran 86:6] He was created from a fluid, ejected,
[Quran 86:7] Emerging from between the "hard rigid substance" and the "dust".

The arabic is extremely important!

Quran 86:7 doesn't say "Emerging from between the backbone and the ribs.". The word translated as 'backbone' is "sulbi" which means a hard substance and the word translated as 'ribs' is "torab" which means dust (torab = dust--arabic speakers know this). The issue is the uneducated Arabs throughout history didn't have a concept of stardust and pulsars, so they used a translation that made sense to them. Now, we know they have been hasty with that translation/understanding. Check the lexicons for yourself and you'll see the truth in this.

But let's dig deeper into the verse: in 86:4 the piercing star (pulsar) is described as being our protector/savior/guarding. Indeed without it, we would not exist and without it we wouldn't have water to drink. But the Quran gets even more interesting! The very next verse uses the word "fa"--in Arabic, the word "fa" is a conjunction, it is referencing the verses before which were talking about the pulsar. So the Quran is saying that our origin (creation) has to do with the pulsar. And then the next verse adds to this-it says we were created from a fluid ejected from between the hard/rigid substance and dust. The hard rigid substance is the core of the pulsar (a teaspoon of this material weighs as much as mount everest), and the dust is the dust and other materials ejected from the star. We literally formed from those materials. All complex chemistry comes from star-dust and material--we are literally star dust!

It is important to recognize the word "fa" in Quran 86:5 which tells us that there is a connection with the verses after it and the verses before it talking about the piercing star! We originated from it!

The unwavering brilliance of Allah and the continued discoveries in the Quran never cease to amaze me.

Here is the source video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgGerxAPaPY

Its created by a team of muslims in the Uk (see credits at the end) and the content for this was provided by Dr. Tarek Mustafa.

Thank you very much. You are absolutely right that ayat is a sign and thus every verse is a sign from Allah and since there are large verses we can even say that every communication within a verse is also a sign of Allah--"ayat". The whole Quran is a linguistic miracle. I've done more research the past couple of days. Here are some findings:

This resource is very helpful to find root words:
http://www.studyquran.co.uk/PRLonline.htm

Alif-Ya-Waw = sign, apparent sign, mark, indication, message, evidence, proof, miracle, communication, verse of The Quran. It properly signifies any apparent thing inseparable from a thing not equally apparent so that when one perceives the former, he perceives the other which he cannot perceive by itself.

ayah n.f. (pl. ayat) 2:39, 2:41, 2:61, 2:73, 2:99, 2:106, 2:118, 2:118, 2:129, 2:145, 2:151, 2:164, 2:187, 2:211, 2:219, 2:221, 2:231, 2:242, 2:248, 2:248, 2:252, 2:259, 2:266, 3:4, 3:7, 3:11, 3:13, 3:19, 3:21, 3:41, 3:41, 3:49, 3:49, 3:50, 3:58, 3:70, 3:97, 3:98, 3:101, 3:103, 3:108, 3:112, 3:113, 3:118, 3:164, 3:190, 3:199, 4:56, 4:140, 4:155, 5:10, 5:44, 5:75, 5:86, 5:89, 5:114, 6:4, 6:4, 6:21, 6:25, 6:27, 6:33, 6:35, 6:37, 6:39, 6:46, 6:49, 6:54, 6:55, 6:65, 6:68, 6:93, 6:97, 6:98, 6:99, 6:105, 6:109, 6:109, 6:118, 6:124, 6:126, 6:130, 6:150, 6:157, 6:157, 6:158, 6:158, 7:9, 7:26, 7:32, 7:35, 7:36, 7:37, 7:40, 7:51, 7:58, 7;64, 7:72, 7:73, 7:103, 7:106, 7:126, 7:132, 7:133, 7:136, 7:146, 7:146, 7:146, 7:147, 7:156, 7:174, 7:175, 7:176, 7:177, 7:182, 7:203, 8:2, 8:31, 8:52, 8:54, 9:9, 9:11, 9:65, 10:1, 10:5, 10:6, 10:7, 10:15, 10:17, 10:20, 10:21, 10:24, 10:67, 10:71, 10:73, 10:75, 10:92, 10:92, 10:95, 10:97, 10:101, 11:1, 11:59, 11:64, 11:96, 11:103, 12:1, 12:7, 12:35, 12:105, 13:1, 13:2, 13:3, 13:4, 13:7, 13:27, 13:38, 14:5, 14:5, 15:1, 15:75, 15:77, 15:81, 16:11, 16:12, 16:13, 16:65, 16:67, 16:69, 16:79, 16:101, 16:101, 16:104, 16:105, 17:1, 17:12, 17:12, 17:12, 17:59, 17:59, 17:98, 17:101, 18:9, 18:17, 18:56, 18:57, 18:105, 18:106, 19:10, 19:10, 19:21, 19:58, 19:73, 19:77, 20:22, 20:23, 20:42, 20:47, 20:54, 20:56, 20:126, 20:127, 20:128, 20:133, 20:134, 21:5, 21:32, 21:37, 21:77, 21:91, 22:16, 22:51, 22:52, 22:57, 22:72, 22:72, 23:30, 23:45, 23:50, 23:58, 23:66, 23:105, 24:1, 24:18, 24:34, 24:46, 24:58, 24:59, 24:61, 25:36, 25:37, 25:73, 26:2, 26:4, 26:8, 26:15, 26:67, 26:103, 26:121, 26:128, 26:139, 26:154, 26:158, 26:174, 26:190, 26:197, 27:1, 27;12, 27:13, 27:52, 27:81, 27:82, 27:83, 27:84, 27:86, 27:93, 28:2, 28:35, 28:36, 28:45, 28:47, 28:59, 28:87, 29:15, 29:23, 29:24, 29:35, 29:44, 29:47, 29:49, 29:49, 29:50, 29:50, 30:10, 30:16, 30:20, 30:21, 30:21, 30:22, 30:22, 30:23, 30:23, 30:24, 30:24, 30:25, 30:28, 30:37, 30:46, 30:53, 30:58, 31:2, 31:7, 31:31, 31:31, 31:32, 32:15, 32:22, 32:24, 32:26, 33:34, 34:5, 34:9, 34:15, 34:19, 34:38, 34:43, 36:33, 36:37, 36:41, 36:46, 36:46, 37:14, 38:29, 39:42, 39:52, 39:59, 39:63, 39:71, 40:4, 40:13, 40:23, 40:35, 40:56, 40:63, 40:69, 40:78, 40:81, 40:81, 41:3, 41:15, 41:28, 41:37, 41:39, 41:40, 41:44, 41:53, 42:29, 42:32, 42:33, 42:35, 43:46, 43:47, 43:48, 43:69, 44:33, 45:3, 45:4, 45:5, 45:6, 45:6, 45:8, 45:9, 45:11, 45:13, 45:25, 45:31, 45:35, 46:7, 46:26, 46:27, 48:20, 51:20, 51:37, 53:18, 54:2, 54:15, 54:42, 57:9, 57:17, 57:19, 58:5, 62:2, 62:5, 64:10, 65:11, 68:15, 74:16, 78:28, 79:20, 83:13, 90:19

Lane's Lexicon, Volume 1, pages: 168, 169, 170, 171, 172  ##  http://ejtaal.net/aa/#q=ayw

Ayat properly means a sign or miracle. Thus Quran 3:7 may only be referencing a sign or miracle. Some signs in the Quran are clear and other are ambiguous. Those whose hearts have perversity try to seek an interpretation of those ambiguous signs in order to case discord and misguide others. If this is the case, then Quran 3:7 is not referencing "verses" and as such it is not saying whether some verses or parts of verses are ambiguous or not. So if this is the case, then the Quran does not discuss this and it is left to us to use our intellect and arrive at this conclusion. The Quran is written in poetic form with ambiguity throughout. Life is a test as the Quran explains, and thus the Quran could be part of the test and it could test us partly through ambiguous verses. Either way, we'd understand some verses are ambiguous. The Quran does not have to tell us this and hold our hands throughout everything. In fact, it demands you use your intellect (e.g. 47:24,4:82, 23:68, 38:29, 8:22).

Let's analyze some verses:
 
Some verses are very long and have very clear things in them, but within those long verses there is some ambiguity.

[Quran 74:31] And We have not made the keepers of the Fire except angels. And We have not made their number except as a trial for those who disbelieve - that those who were given the Scripture will be convinced and those who have believed will increase in faith and those who were given the Scripture and the believers will not doubt and that those in whose hearts is hypocrisy and the disbelievers will say, "What does Allah intend by this as an example?" Thus does Allah leave astray whom He wills and guides whom He wills. And none knows the soldiers of your Lord except Him. And mention of the Fire is not but a reminder to humanity.

It's very unambiguous that this verse is saying he made the angels of the fire 19, but the verse then talks about something that is not made very clear--it even admits that it has some part that is ambiguous by saying "what does Allah mean by this as an example". Then the verse alludes to Allah guiding and misguiding through those ambiguities.

[Quran 56:75] I swear by the setting of the stars

The "I swear" is clear, decisive and unambiguous. But "setting of the stars" is ambiguous, and we are not sure what exactly it is referring to. So this verse has both ambiguous and unambiguous elements, and the full message of the verse is saying that Allah is swearing by something very significant. This verse has both ambiguous and unambiguous elements (and this is just an example, many verses have the same thing going on).

So even without seeing Quran 3:7, we see the Quran has ambiguous and unambiguous elements within it.

But what else does Ayat mean? Sign, apparent sign, mark, indication, message, evidence, proof, miracle, communication, verse of The Quran. If this is the case, then Quran 3:7 could be talking about verses being ambiguous and unambiguous. Or even more, it could be talking about parts of verses being ambiguous and unambiguous (Ayat can mean: messages, communications, indications).

And if Ayat means "sign", then indeed any collection of words in the Quran are ayats. This is because the Quran IS a linguistic miracle/sign for 7th century Arabs and the Quran even challenges them to try to write any part of the Quran--so any part of the Quran (even part of a verse) may be an "ayat" or a sign?

Conclusion: Quran 3:7 may be referring exclusively to miracles/signs or it may be referring to verses and parts of verses (communications/messages in the Quran). Or it could have just been only talking about whole verses which are unambiguous and ambiguous, but doesn't mention verses which have both ambiguous or unambiguous elements and thus does not exclude their existence nor does it exclude the fact those verses can also be used to test us and guide/misguide us--and we can reason this and we can use our intellect to arrive at this conclusion. Either way, we know the Quran has ambiguous and unambiguous descriptions within it.

Quran 3:7 says that some 'verses' ('Ayats') are ambiguous. But we have verses that have both ambiguous and unambiguous elements, for example:

[Quran 56:75] I swear by the setting of the stars

The "I swear" is clear, decisive and unambiguous. But "setting of the stars" is ambiguous, and we are not sure what exactly it is referring to. So this verse has both ambiguous and unambiguous elements, and the full message of the verse is saying that Allah is swearing by something very significant.

But, since this verse has both ambiguous and unambiguous elements (and this is only one example, many verses have the same thing going on), then why does Quran 3:7 says only 'Ayats' can be ambiguous and not parts of 'Ayats'?

Maybe Ayats doesn't mean "verses", maybe it means "signs" or something. And even a part of an Ayat is a sign. Any part of the Quran is an Ayat. The Quran is a miracle/sign for 7th century Arabs and the Quran even challenges them to try to write any part of the Quran--so maybe any part of the Quran (even part of a verse) is an "ayat" or a sign?

The Quran asserts that the universe in its current form has been created in 6 periods (note that the Arabic word for "days" (yom) also means "periods" or "eons").

[Quran 7:54] Indeed, your Lord is Allah , who created the heavens and earth in six days...

The Quran also asserts that the Earth in its current form has been in existence for 2 periods:

[Quran 41:9] Say, "Do you indeed disbelieve in He who created the earth in two days...

The Quran makes it clear elsewhere that the periods discussed refer to the periods of existence:

[Quran 50:38] And indeed we created the heavens and the earth and all between them in six days

When the Quran says that Allah created the Universe and the Earth and Everything in between them (including humans and all other things presently on Earth) in six days this means that the Quran is referring to the period of existence. That means that in the distant future, the Quran would say that Allah created the universe and the earth and all that is between them (what will become between them) in 7, or 8, or 9 periods and so on. In other words, this is similar to Carl Sagan's 12 month cosmic calendar.

At the time of the Quranic revelation (everything in between of the universe and earth), the universe has existed for 6 periods. And the Earth (which is contained in the universe) has existed for 2 periods out of the 6.  This makes the Earth to be 2/6th (1/3rd ) the age of the universe.

Modern cosmology estimates that the universe is 13.7 billion years old and that the Earth is 4.54 billion years old. 4.54/13.7 is roughly 1/3rd. So according to modern cosmology, the Earth should be roughly 1/3rd the age of the universe. This cosmological finding interestingly complements the Quran! Why did the Quran accurately say Earth was created in 2 periods? Why did it give the correct ratio? How did an unlettered prophet know such a thing?
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Now, let's turn our attention into another set of verses:

[Quran 41:10] And He placed on the earth firmly set mountains over its surface, and He blessed it and determined therein its sustenance in four days without distinction - for [the information] of those who ask.

Notice how the Quran used the word "and" rather than "then". This means these two statements are not successive events, but just a description of what Allah did. The verse states that Allah determined Earth's sustenance in 4 days. This may refer to the determination of the length of time set to establish Earth's provision (materials that contribute to the formation of the Earth to be in the right location at the right time as Allah determined--this took 4 days). See picture below:



[Quran 41:11] Then He directed Himself to the heaven while it was smoke and said to it and to the earth, "Come, willingly or by compulsion." They said, "We have come willingly."

Now, the Quran uses the word "then" to indicate a successive event. That is: after Allah determined the provision of the Earth in 4 days, he made the Earth and the Heaven come together. This is also very interesting in its cosmological accuracy. The Earth formed through an accretion process whereby star dust (smoke) collapsed in itself due to the force of gravity which led to the birth of our planet.

Here is a video describing the process. Note the smoke/dust and the primitive Earth coming together just as the Quran described with stunning accuracy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhy1fucSRQI&feature=emb_title

I would say your question does not make any sense.

Moses and Jesus both had different situations and existed in different times with different issues, and the Jews responded to each of them differently. We cannot judge who is "better" because we cannot account for the confounding factors and the differential environmental factors they lived in.

In fact, Quran 3:84 tells us not to do this:

[Quran 3:84] Say, "We have believed in Allah and in what was revealed to us and what was revealed to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, and the Descendants, and in what was given to Moses and Jesus and to the prophets from their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and we are Muslims [submitting] to Him."

Yes very interesting Mclinkin94! Hami'atin and hamiyyatin are both correct in describing the black hole. But I would like to come back to 2 statements of yours, when you said you liked this "alternative interpretation" because I think this is the only interpretation possible. There is no way this story could have happened on Earth considering the word sabab which literally refers to something that ascends to the sky, to space. So there's no way this was on Earth, because Allah wouldn't have used sabab if it was the case. The second sentence is when you said this is Dhul-Qarnayn's perception: yes but no. Muslims think that the "sun setting in a murky spring" means he thought that the sun was setting in a murky spring, because it was how he perceived it. But here, it is Allah speaking. The sentence is not : Dhul-Qarnayn said : I have found the sun setting in a murky spring!". It is Allah describing what Dhul-Qarnayn saw therefore it cannot be a metaphorical or subjective. It must be a scientific fact, so this clearly refutates the interpretation that the "setting on a murky spring" is supposed to be interpreted metaphorically.
I don't know if I made myself clear : what I mean is that since Allah is describing what Dhul-Qarnayn sees, the "murky spring" must a fact and not a metaphorical or subjective view... This is how we must interpret the "setting of the sun in a murky spring" literaly!

I think you make good points overall.

However, I want to say that the Quran said "HE" (Dhul Qarnayn) saw/perceived it setting on black fluid. I want to say that BOTH are possible. It is possible that Dhul Qarnayn perceived the right thing (as you say), and it is also possible that Dhul Qarnayn perceived it as if it had been setting on black water. Both are perfectly fine and do not challenge your argument in any way. So its all good.  Having flexibility in interpretation is not a weakness, it is a strength of the Quran

In fact, the study I showed you admitted that scientists say they see black holes as looking like a lump of fluid!!

[/url] https://arxiv.org/abs/0811.2381 [/url] "The old suggestive observation that black holes often resemble lumps of fluid has recently been taken beyond the level of an analogy to a precise duality"

You presented a good find. Please keep up the good work.