There are scientific and historical facts found in the Quran which were unknown to the people at the time, and have only been discovered recently by contempory science.
The Quran is in a unique style of language that cannot be replicated, this is known as the ¡®Inimitability of the Quran.¡¯
There are predictions made in the Quran and by the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) which have come to be pass.
The following are five scientific facts found in the Quran:
1. Origin of Life
Water is essential for all living things. We all know that water is vital to life but the Quran makes a very unusual claim:
We made every living thing from water? Will they not believe? [21:30]
In this verse water is pointed out as the origin of all life. All living things are made of cells. We now know that cells are mostly made up of water [4]. For example, 80% of the cytoplasm (basic cell material) of a standard animal cell is described as water in biology textbooks.
The fact that living things consist mostly of water was discovered only after the invention of the microscope. In the deserts of Arabia, the last thing someone would have guessed is that all life came from water.
2. Iron
Iron is not natural to the earth. It did not form on the earth but came down to earth from outer space. This may sound strange but it¡¯s true. Scientists have found that billions of years ago the earth was stuck by meteorites. These meteorites were carrying Iron from distant stars which had exploded [5].
The Quran says the following on the origin of Iron:
We sent down Iron with its great inherent strength and its many benefits for humankind [57:25]
God uses the words ¡®sent down¡¯ for Iron. It is clear from the verse that Iron is not an earthly material, but was sent down for the benefit of humanity. The fact that Iron came down to earth from outer space, is something which could not be known by the primitive science of the 7th century.
3. Sky¡¯s Protection
The sky plays a crucial role in protecting the earth. The sky protects the earth from the lethal rays of the sun. If the sky did not exist then the sun¡¯s radiation would have killed off all life on earth. It also acts like a blanket wrapped around the earth, to protect it from the freezing cold of space. The temperature just above the sky is approximately -270oC. If this temperature was to reach earth then the planet would freeze over instantly. The sky also protects life on earth by warming the surface through heat retention (greenhouse effect), and reducing temperature extremes between day and night [6]. These are some of the many protective functions of the sky.
The Quran asks us to consider the sky in the following verse:
We made the sky a protective ceiling. And yet they are turning away from Our signs! [21:32]
The Quran points to the sky¡¯s protection as a sign of God. The protective properties of the sky were discovered by scientific research conducted in the 20th century.
4.Mountains
The Quran draws our attention to a very important characteristic of mountains:
Did We not make the earth a resting place? And the mountains as stakes? [78:6-7]
The Quran indicates that mountains have deep roots by using the word stakes to describe them. In fact mountains do have deep roots [7], and the word stakes is an accurate description for them. A book titled ¡®Earth¡¯ by Geophysicist Frank Press explains that mountains are like stakes, and are buried deep under the surface of the earth [8].Mount Everest (pictured below), the height of which is approximately 9 km above ground, has a root deeper than 125 km.
The fact that mountains have deep ¡®stake¡¯ like roots was not known, until after the development of the theory of plate tectonics in the beginning of the 20th century [9].
5. Expansion of the Universe
At a time when the science of Astronomy was still primitive, the expansion of the universe was described in Quran:
And it is We who have built the Universe with [Our creative] power and keep expanding it. [51:47]
The fact that the universe is expanding was discovered in the last century. The physicist Stephen Hawking in his book ¡®A Brief History of Time¡¯ writes, ¡°The discovery that the universe is expanding was one of the great intellectual revolutions of the 20th century.¡±[10].
The Quran mentioned the expansion of the universe even before the invention of the telescope!