 |
|
|
The Mystery of Creation, Destruction,
and Natural Calamities:
an exposition in light of science and the Qur’an
By S.M. Zakir Hussain (Bangladesh)
(Author’s e-mail: smzhussains@yahoo.com)
Click here if you'd like to exchange critiques
Table of Contents
Chapter |
Page |
Summary of the Book |
1 |
1. An Introduction to Creation, Destruction and Calamities |
4 |
1.1. What do the sciences say about natural calamities? |
4 |
1. 2. Whom God Does not Destroy |
6 |
1. 3. The Philosophy of Natural Calamities in Light of Science |
8 |
1. 4. The Causes of Poverty and Famine in Light of Economics |
9 |
1. 5. The Causes of Natural Calamities in Light of the Qur’an |
10 |
1. 6. Why We Cannot Learn to Be Wise Even after Losing a Lot |
11 |
2. The Theory |
15 |
3. Some Instances of Mass Destruction and their Causes |
37 |
Summary of the Book
There was a possibility when there was no space or time. Nothing that is there in the universe existed then. God said ‘Be’ and everything developed through an evolving, natural process (in six Days/phases). Before the beginning of the creation of the visible universe, there was only a planet of water, and God’s concentration was on it.
What do scientists look for in other planets when they want to trace any sign of life in them? Water. Thus there is no inconsistency between the findings of science and what the major religions say about the origin of life on earth. Likewise, the Big Bang Theory says that creation started with an explosion accompanied by a sound. The Qur’an says that the universe was created and will be destroyed in the same process.
The evolution of life and the structure and development of the physical and biological systems are interlinked, so that any activity of humans gets transformed into consequences and turns back to humans.
The fate of the universe is timed, meaning that the very beginning emerges from a formula which eventually happens to be the formula of the end too, just as a scientist knows that the life of a missile is calculated from the moment it is fired.
What is transcendent in all diversity is nothing but Unity. Even a single human being is equivalent to the entire universe.
Each subsystem of the universe has an entity and individual identity of its own. For this reason all together maintain overall unity, while each one maintains its own individuality too.
Even different nations or ethnic groups tend to maintain their own ways of living and relationship building, which is allowed as long as all are aware of the fact that all have come from and will return to a plane of Unity.
Even the bipolar classes – male and female – are separate in a unified plane.
For this reason, there is always a certain degree of clash at the border of two separate entities, just as there may be some clash at the border of two countries, which may not imply that the countries are enemies to each other.
The forces of nature are active in their own way. The dynamics they create are not necessarily harmful; rather, they add to the variety and beauty of life on earth.
Sometimes these natural phenomena may be harmful to a small scale, but that is only to be considered a reward for those who deserve it.
Sometimes fatal calamities become part of the routine of the year. In that case it has to be assumed that that is as a punishment for us because of the steadiness of our folly.
In extreme cases, God punishes us with the forces that He created to help us.
The things that help us are the things that do harm to us. That is because matter and systems are such that they are bound within certain limits, which, if transgressed, will change their nature.
All types of afflictions are meant for inspiring us to change our minds, so that we become fit for this life and the hereafter.
The Qur’an, like the science of Geology, says that the earth’s surface is a combination of different tectonic plates, which, while moving around in the pre-historic times, clashed with one another and got stuck through the creation of mountains.
Even the creation of the mountains and their survival are linked with the morality of humans, a fact which is not known to the sciences.
Learning takes place when we make mistakes and then correct ourselves. God Himself wants us to learn in this way.
However, when we cease to learn, there is nothing left valuable in us. And when we do not contain any potential, we become fit for destruction.
1. An Introduction to Creation,
Destruction and Calamities
1.1. What do the sciences say about natural calamities?
The easiest answer to the above-mentioned question is: It is the responsibility of the sciences to know Nature. Therefore, science investigates the causes of the imbalance and activities of Nature and tries to find out solutions to various problems arising from ecological imbalance. Science makes predictions regarding cyclones, flood and so on. It explains the reasons of these calamities to a great extent.
However, science cannot prevent many of the calamities. For this reason, there are many who blame science: helpless people expect a lot from it. And there are also some people who are so much optimistic about science that they think and preach that some day everything will be conquered and even dominated by science.
What is science? Logically, science refers to the knowledge which is realistic, which can describe and predict phenomena on the basis of the knowledge acquired about matter and systems. However, according to the narrow demarcations of empiricism, science refers to the knowledge acquired from nature in a methodical way through observations. Now, there is a problem here. From this point of view, it is also to be accepted that the knowledge provided in the Qur’an may not be scientific.
We can overcome this crisis by judging the predictive value of the Qur’an with the help of science. The Qur’an itself says that it is one of the ways of proving its truth:
38:87. Look! it is nothing else than a reminder for all peoples
38:88. And you will know the truth of it (soon).
39:27. And verily We have coined for mankind in this Qur'an all kinds of similitudes, so that they may reflect;
If, in the case of a set of related phenomena, what the Qur’an says happens to be exactly true according to what science says, then it can be safety assumed that the information that we get from the Qur’an but about which science says nothing is also true.
If it happens to be the fact that the Qur’an is a true revelation from God – the real Source of all realities and phenomena, then we must say that both science and the Qur’an point to the truth. And one can be understood by the other.
However, problems arise when some ignorant believers say that science is fake to a great extent, and when some people who call themselves scientists or followers of science say that the Qur’an is fake. The greatest problems arise because of those religious preachers who feel and imply that what they say is the truth mainly because they have said it, not because it is the truth that they are preaching. Those whose thirst for preaching their own ego and achievement (which may be even spiritual) has not been quenched cannot point to the truth even when they speak the truth. They speak in favor of Islam while they are ignorant about the Qur’an and the basic achievements of the sciences. And in that way they conceal it and long to say something of their own. They are like those who are referred to in the Qur’an in this verse:
43:31. And they say: If only this Qur'an had been revealed to some great man of the two towns?
But God knows whom He should give knowledge of what level:
2:269. He gives wisdom to whom He will, and he to whom wisdom is given, he truly has received abundant good [to be distributed among human kind]. But none remember except men of understanding.
Author of:
Secret Knowledge of the Qur'an
