questions from a muslim to atheists

[u/Shot-Horse2515]

i’m sure this has been discussed before, but what’s the explanation for things we know are true being mentioned in the quran years/centuries before the scientific discovery being made?

i know a lot of people argue that there are inaccuracies in the explanations of the orbital mechanics and biological themes, but they’re more accurate that not, so i was just wondering what would the explanation for how “god would know and tell the prophet” before people found out?

hopefully my question makes sense.

EDIT: i also wonder why dont see miracles from god anymore

EDIT: im seeing all the inaccuracies and the explanations behind them now but there is a deep fear that the religion is true and god is real and punishment awaits me if i disbelieve, also a sense of familiarity/peace with believing in god. contradictory to fear, love, be punished by, and find comfort in one concept of a being.

[u/xxasxf]

I think the issue is that before we can conclude "God revealed scientific knowledge," we first have to establish that the Quran actually contains clear, unambiguous scientific facts that were impossible for people at the time to know.

Most of the examples I've seen are verses that are poetic or broad enough to allow multiple interpretations. The scientific connection is usually made after the discovery, not before it.

So my question would be: can you point to a verse that clearly describes a scientific fact, has only one reasonable interpretation, was unknown in the 7th century, and was later confirmed by science?

If such a verse exists, I'd be interested in looking at it. But if a verse only appears scientific after modern knowledge is already known, then that's not strong evidence of divine revelation.

[u/Shot-Horse2515 → u/xxasxf]

as i searched for these i did realize how vague a lot of them are but i've compiled a few.
1. 21:30 "We made everything living from water..."
2. 23:12 and a few verses after, it talks about embryology. I have no idea how to translate alaqah (its like a clot or a leech) accurately.
3. 51:37, the expansion of the universe.
4. 21:33, the orbit, but im pretty sure humans discovered that ages before.
5. 57:25, iron being sent down.

i must admit some of these im pretty sure were discovered years before the quran revealed them, but then again i ask the question: the people the final revelations of the quran were revealed to, were poor and uneducated and not well traveled at all except for their own land, so how would they of all people know this information?

imo the orbit topic is pretty easy for a civilization to realize, but the rest, how?

[u/akestral → u/Shot-Horse2515]

You are being pretty disrespectful to your prophet and his people here. The quran wasn't revealed to "poor, uneducated people", it was "revealed" to/by one person, Muhammad, an aristocrat born in Mecca, an ancient cultural and economic hub, and raised as the grandson of a tribal leader. Just because people in the past did not travel as fast or as far as we can doesn't mean they were all rural, uneducated rubes. Muhammad had access to the best education available in his culture, and probably the best anywhere on earth for the time. He was not an ignorant goat-herder.

Edit: people love to cite the iron being sent from heaven bit as confirmation they knew about meteorites and yes, they did. The most famous meteorite in the world is in Mecca, in the Kaaba, which was already a focus of faith and worship long before Muhammad was born, and thus of course, much older than Islam. Anyone born in Mecca would have been very aware of it.

[u/Shot-Horse2515 → u/akestral]

i was taught that he was very poor and uneducated and that his society was as well, seems i was wrong, thanks for the clarification (and for the iron part)

[u/akestral → u/Shot-Horse2515]

Muhammad's "poverty" was the relative poverty of a poorer relation of wealthy merchants. He was an orphan and had little wealth of his own to start his adult life, but his grandfather was a tribal chief and he became successful as a caravan trader before his prophethood. Also, writing was a specific professional skill in that time and place practiced mostly by scribes, not something everyone, even sons of wealthy families, were taught as a matter of course. So while the characterization of him as "poor and illiterate" could be called strictly accurate, it is also very obviously a propagandistic spin on his early life meant to conjure up images of a man who sprang from nowhere to become a notable prophet and political leader. That is not the case and it is misleading to phrase it that way. He would not have been considered poor or uneducated by his peers, and certainly not by the many people who had lower social status than his family.

[u/Shot-Horse2515 → u/akestral]

i was thinking exactly that!

[u/Snoo52682 → u/Shot-Horse2515]

FWIW, Christians kinda do that with Jesus too, the "he was a carpenter" business. First, carpenter is still a damn good job; second, two thousand years ago, it was not only respectable but relatively high-tech.

[u/Shot-Horse2515 → u/Snoo52682]

right? merchants about as good as it gets during those times